Mulled Vine

It came to pass long ago, when the earth was young and the internet a fishing term, that a baby boy was born to the farmer and his wife. The farmer was immensely pleased, as he had worked hard to build up his farm and needed a son to help him at his labours. The boy grew up quickly into a fine, handsome young lad of golden disposition, however it soon became apparent to the farmer and his wife that their son was bone idle. At first his mother attributed it to an artistic strain in their family, but since he did nothing but spend his days dreaming under the apple tree on the hill, they eventually realised that there would be no practical manifestation of his gift. Perhaps this is all a little unfair on the young lad, because whilst he had idle notions, he did sometimes show promise: like the time he thought to weave a 3ft daisy chain for his mother. He was however so immensely proud of this achievement that he kept the floral necklace for himself.

The years went by, and it was not long before his parents had passed away and the lad, now a young man, sat idly under the apple tree, contemplating what to do with his inheritance. The farm he had of course sold immediately as he knew not, and indeed cared not, what to do with it. The bag of gold sat heavily in his lap and he regretted having asked for quite so much.

An apple fell to the ground and rolled down the hill towards the road, and the young man in that instant decided to follow it and see the world that had not bothered him much before. He set off with a jaunty stride, gold in hand, dreams in his head, whistling a little tune his mother had taught him.

Not long after that, perhaps not even an hour, he began to feel hunger pangs and he wondered what he would do for food. It was quite a problem as he was in the middle of nowhere. In the distance however he spied a man sitting next to a cow, seemingly eating his lunch. He smiled, pleased with his good fortune, and ran towards the stranger. On arrival he greeted the man and asked if he could have some of his bread and cheese. The man looked at him with some surprise, no doubt wondering whether an exchange was to be offered, but since none was forthcoming and being a charitable fellow, he shared his lunch with the young man. They fell to talking, or at least the young man talked at length about himself, until he noticed that the cow was a milk cow.

“Sir, I don’t suppose you would give me your cow, so I can have milk the rest of my days and need not go hungry?”
The man replied, “Son, I have just acquired this cow through a trade and am not inclined to give it away.” The young man looked so downcast that the man continued, “However I did exchange some magic beans for it, and if you hurry you might be able to catch up with the youngster I gave them to. Perhaps he would give you one or two.”

The young man cheered up immediately and was about to run off when he thought, “this bag of gold will slow me down, I shall give it to the man.” So he did, and set off at pace. Nightfall fell, as it usually does, and he came to small cottage in which a cosy light shone. He knocked on the door and enquired if he might have lodgings for the night. The owner of the cottage, an elderly woman and her young lad were only too glad to have visitors, for it had not been a good day. Their only cow, Tulip, had been foolishly exchanged by her son that morning for a handful of supposedly magic beans. The young man made himself at home an regaled them during supper with dreamy tales. When they enquired as to his destination he said he was looking for some magic beans he had heard about.

“Magic beans?” cried the woman, “Not you too? How strange Fortune is. We have some beans lying outside our window which you may freely have, but I doubt they are magic. However it is late and I suggest we turn in and attend to this tomorrow.” They bade each other good night and settled down to sleep, the young man sharing a bed with the woman’s son.

Dawn broke, but instead of the radiant morning sunshine, a green hue shone through the cottage windows. At first the occupants thought that the world was about to end and fell to praying, but when nothing happened, decided to go outside instead and investigate. It will no doubt not come as a surprise to you that a gigantic bean stalk had grown overnight from the magic beans and extended many miles up into the sky.

“Let’s climb it!” exclaimed the lad.
“No, it is not safe.” replied the mother.
The young man turned to her, “Do not fret, you have been so kind to me. I will hold it steady while he climbs.” The reality was that he had developed over the years a keen nose for strenuous activity and how to avoid it and this bean stalk had strenuosity written all over it!

The lad clambered quickly, watched anxiously by his mother, and soon disappeared from their sight. They stood a while, but since chores wait for no one, the mother soon went inside to attend to them. The young man settled down for a nap under the leafy shade of the bean stalk. He must have slept for a good few hours because when he awoke the sun was past noon. He wondered what had awoken him, but soon heard frantic rustling as the young lad climbed down with a hen under his arm.

“Quick, quick!” the young lad cried. “Fetch the axe.”
Fortunately his mother heard, because the idle young man knew not what fetch meant, and detecting the urgency in her son’s voice ran out with the axe.
The boy reached the ground, gasping for breath. “Giant… hen… golden eggs… coming … cut it down!”

Seeing that the young man was not hearing him, and indeed had wandered off into the orchard to look for apples, he grabbed the axe from his mother and began to frantically chop at the bast of the bean stalk. A giant roar from on high only served to increase his pace and soon the bean stalk gave a violent creak and tottered mightily. A second roar was heard, this time more like a screech, as the bean stalk began to tumble to the ground, casting its gigantic clamberer to the earth, to his death, into the apple orchard, where a young man of idle notions wondered when his fortune would hit him.

If you are a familiar reader of such fairy stories, you will no doubt be wondering what the moral is. Well fear not, here it is: “Don’t you have anything better to do than read tales of idleness?”

This was the place: derelict building, at the end of the alley, last door on the left, the guy had said. Mind you, he had been very drunk and took two full unsteady minutes to examine the photo I showed him before answering, “That’s Lola for sure, not that you’d recognise her; you her father or summat?” I nodded and gave him all my available cash before moving on; this was the end of my search, many months of wandering the streets at night, peddling the picture of my little girl, trying to avoid trouble. I pushed the door open and climbed the stairs, covering my mouth because of the putrid stench of urine-washed vomit, finally arriving at what was her room. I hesitated before pushing the door open, dreading what I might find. She lay there, my angel, pride of my heart, cold and immobile, gone.

“Why do you weep?” burped the frog to the willow tree – it was a fine, sunny day, and having found both the perfect lily pad and a bounteous supply of flies and other assorted bugs, was feeling very contented.
The willow paused a while from her sighing and turned to the frog, “Tis a long sad tale, little frog, and I would not wish to tinge your sunny day with my sadness.”
The frog lashed out his tongue and caught a nearby foolish but rather juicy fly; he was young and had not met the trouble and sadness that we so often encounter in life, and so had not learnt compassion or a sympathetic ear, however his curiosity was aroused: “Please do tell, there is much time under the sun.”
The willow sighed again and began her story: a tale of a beautiful flaxen haired damsel, a princely suitor, a wicked witch, a forbidden love, and a curse that left her here forever as this willow, searching the waters for her drowned love.
The frog was frankly quite sorry he’d asked and looked out for another tasty morsel to delight his day, resolving to focus on important things going forward.

We sat opposite each other, matching laptops and luggage, but apart from that were different, strangers brought together by a common journey to the airport. I wondered if we might be going to the same place but there was no way of knowing since she was not wearing her destination tag, which was surprising since that was against the law. Mine said Boston, and I thought how she must feel quite naked without it, yet there she was, smiling contentedly as she stared out of the train window at the passing fields and trees. Finally, my curiosity and ire could be contained no more, and I demanded to know where her badge was, and didn’t she know that she was upsetting the natural order of things. She looked at me with obvious but very irritating bemusement, and replied that she had no badge because she had no destination. I said that was impossible and hit her over the head, before calling the authorities to clean up the disorder.

1. Sing the Batman theme incessantly.

2. In the memo field of all your checks, write “for sensual massage.”

3. Specify that your drive-through order is “to go.”

4. Learn Morse code, and have conversations with friends in public consisting entirely of “Beeeep Bip Bip Beeep Bip…”

5. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.

6. Amuse yourself for endless hours by hooking a camcorder to your TV and then pointing it at the screen. <

7. Speak only in a “robot” voice.

8. Push all the flat Lego pieces together tightly.

9. Start each meal by conspicuously licking all your food, and announce that this is so no one will “swipe your grub”.

10. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 98 copies.

11. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.

12. Sniffle incessantly.

13. Leave your turn signal on for fifty miles.

14. Name your dog “Dog.”

15. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions “to keep them tuned up.”

16. Reply to everything someone says with “that’s what YOU think.”

17. Claim that you must always wear a bicycle helmet as part of your “astronaut training.”

18. Declare your apartment an independent nation, and sue your neighbors upstairs for “violating your airspace”.

19. Forget the punchline to a long joke, but assure the listener it was a “real hoot.”

20. Follow a few paces behind someone, spraying everything they touch with Lysol.

21. Practice making fax and modem noises.

22. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and “cc:” them to your boss.

23. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.

24. Invent nonsense computer jargon in conversations, and see if people play along to avoid the appearance of ignorance.

25. Erect an elaborate network of ropes in your backyard, and tell the neighbors you are a “spider person.”

26. Finish all your sentences with the words “in accordance with the prophesy.”

27. Wear a special hip holster for your
remote control.

28. Do not add any inflection to the end of your sentences, producing awkward silences with the impression that you’ll be saying more any moment.

29. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears.

30. Disassemble your pen and “accidentally” flip the ink cartridge across the room.

31. Give a play-by-play account of a persons every action in a nasal Howard Cosell voice.

32. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.

33. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you “like it that way.”

34. Drum on every available surface.

35. Staple papers in the middle of the page.

36. Ask 1-800 operators for dates.

37. Produce a rental video consisting entirely of dire FBI copyright warnings.

38. Sew anti-theft detector strips
into peoples backpacks.

39. Hide dairy products in inaccessible places.

40. Write the surprise ending to a novel on its first page.

41. Set alarms for random times.

42. Order a side of pork rinds with your filet mignon.

43. Instead of Gallo, serve Night Train next Thanksgiving.

44. Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a “croaking” noise.

45. Honk and wave to strangers.

46. Dress only in clothes colored Hunters Orange.

47. Change channels five minutes before the end of every show.

48. Tape pieces of “Sweating to the Oldies” over climactic parts of rental movies.

49. Wear your pants backwards.

50. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints by the cash register.

51. Begin all your sentences with “ooh la la!”

52. ONLY TYPE IN UPPERCASE.

53. only type in lowercase.

54. dont use any punctuation either

55. Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.

56. Pay for your dinner with pennies.

57. Tie jingle bells to all your clothes.

58. Repeat everything someone says, as a question.

59. Write “X – BURIED TREASURE” in random spots on all of someone’s roadmaps.

60. Inform everyone you meet of your personal Kennedy assassination/UFO/ O.J Simpson conspiracy theories.

61. Repeat the following conversation a dozen times: “Do you hear that?” “What?” “Never mind, its gone now.”

62. Light road flares on a birthday cake.

63. Wander around a restaurant, asking other diners for their parsley.

64. Leave tips in Bolivian currency.

65. Demand that everyone address you as “Conquistador.”

66. At the laundromat, use one dryer for each of your socks.

67. When Christmas caroling, sing “Jingle Bells, Batman smells” until physically restrained.

68. Wear a cape that says “Magnificent One.”

69. As much as possible, skip rather than walk.

70. Stand over someone’s shoulder, mumbling, as they read.

71. Pretend your computer’s mouse is a CB radio, and talk to it.

72. Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce “no, wait, I messed it up,” and repeat.

73. Drive half a block.

74. Inform others that they exist only in your imagination.

75. Ask people what gender they are.

76. Lick the filling out of all the Oreos, and place the cookie parts back.

77. Cultivate a Norwegian accent. If Norwegian, affect a Southern drawl.

78. Routinely handcuff yourself to furniture, informing the curious that you don’t want to fall off “in case the big one comes”.

79. Deliberately hum songs that will remain lodged in co-workers brains, such as “Feliz Navidad”, the Archies “Sugar” or the Mr. Rogers theme song.

80. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head. like a parakeet.

81. Lie obviously about trivial things such as the time of day.

82. Leave your Christmas lights up and lit until September.

83. Change your name to “AaJohn Aaaaasmith” for the great glory of being first in the phone book. Claim it’s a Hawaiian name, and demand that people pronounce each “a.”

84. Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.

85. Chew on pens that you’ve borrowed.

86. Wear a LOT of cologne.

87. Listen to 33rpm records at 45rpm speed, and claim the faster speed is necessary because of your “superior mental processing.”

88. Sing along at the opera.

89. Mow your lawn with scissors.

90. At a golf tournament, chant “swing-batabatabata-suhWING-batter!”

91. Ask the waitress for an extra seat for your “imaginary friend.”

92. Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn’t rhyme.

93. Ask your co-workers mysterious questions, and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something
about “psychological profiles.”

94. Stare at static on the TV and claim you can see a “magic picture.”

95. Select the same song on the jukebox fifty times.

96. Never make eye contact.

97. Never break eye contact.

98. Construct elaborate “crop circles” in your front lawn.

99. Construct your own pretend “tricorder,” and “scan” people with it, announcing the results.

100. Make appointments for the 31st of September.

101. Invite lots of people to other people’s parties.

I was stopped on the street by a nice looking young man who asked me if I could spare some change; the thing is he could barely speak English! Now I’m a fairly compassionate sort, but the first thing that occurred to me was this: why don’t you beg at home? I of course reported him to the authorities and watched with a warm glow as they hauled him off back to the immigration centre where he would be well looked after and hopefully sent home – gotta keep out the bleedin’ foreigners, right?

I hear these fellas go through quite a tough time trying to get into the country, many dying in the process, but what’s that to me? Do I complain that the neighbours have a Porsche and I don’t? No, of course not – that would be small minded.

We have at the bottom of our little garden a wooden shed. It sits nestled between two gigantic oak trees that whilst charming at first are the bane of my life, killing the lawn, pummelling us with summer acorns, drowning us with autumn leaves, scaring us with winter tendril shadows on the walls. The shed has two little windows: narrow, condemning eyes that look at me every time I go to the kitchen to get a beer. My tools are in there and should be used to embark on some fabulous DIY activities – this would please my wife no end – but I know my limits, and DIY can be a dangerous affair for someone with limits. So it sits there, alone, angry, wasted, while I sit here typing, sipping a beer and failing yet again to be erudite. And to use up all six sentences.

I have wanted to be a terrorist ever since I was small and my uncle Abdul blew himself up in London and got his picture on the black and white television in our lounge. I asked my mother where one could learn how to be a terrorist but she just slapped me and told me to finish my homework; my father was not much help either, preferring to stare dreamily at me with unseeing eyes as he sat under the dead cypress tree. So I ran away from home and headed towards Kabul by bus where I met some more informed people who told me the way to terrorist school, and took all my money since they reckoned Allah would provide enough reward in the Paradise, and many virgins besides (though I wasn’t sure what those were).

So there we stood, a rag tag group of youngsters with a common purpose – to die in glory (or on television) – filled with the thrill of Jihad as we braved the piercing sun and stared intently at our instructor who was wrapped up in dynamite, thumb poised on the detonator.

“Ok, listen up, you worms”, he said (I think he liked American movies), “and watch carefully because I’m only going to do this once.”

He stood outside the wooden cottage, listening to the silence interspersed with creaking trees and lone nightingales calling for mates. The pile of wood he had just chopped lay stacked high against the rough wooden wall of his timber lodge. It was going to be a tough winter, he could sense it, and was glad that their stores were full from the plentiful summer: cured meat, dried fruit, roots and even a bit of flour from their little patch of land. Every year the trees encroached on their space, and every year he hacked back the forest, using the wood to help them survive the increasingly harsh winters. He felt a gentle touch on his arm; his wife, done with her chores, joined him in contemplating the early evening sky, whispy clouds following the auburn setting sun. The forest watched the couple, waiting, patient – soon the axe would tire and the trees would return to their rightful place.

The little girl stood at the foot of the giant oak tree which for so many years had stood inaccessible, towering, beckoning at the bottom of the family garden.

For years she had stood like today, looking up at the manifold branches, the heavenly stairway of her dreams, but today was different – she could reach the bottom branch, and so she reached up, tentatively at first, before eagerly grabbing the branch firmly and pulling herself up.

She paused a moment, triumphantly, before she resumed her ascent, branch by branch, finally arriving at the top where she peered through the verdant curtain at her beloved world below and shouted with glee, “Look at me!”

The world however did not notice or applaud any of this, preferring to carry on with more important things like making money and wars.

She sighed and sat down, noticing for the first time the neighbours’ cat cowering on the branch besides her, claws embedded firmly in the bark. She stroked the cat who looked up at her hopefully, wondering what all the fuss was about and whether this person was there to feed her.