I tell stories

Winter was coming, and Squirrel was scared of death.

“It’s so cold, and there’s no food!”

“There’s lots of food now,” Magpie said.

“There’s loads now! Now’s no use! I need it then!”

“Don’t panic. Just eat well now, and bury the leftovers.”

“That’s brilliant!” Squirrel said. “But… no, it won’t work. I’ll never remember everywhere I’ve buried everything.”

“That’s OK. Just tell me. I’ll do the remembering, all you’ve got to do is ask me. Easy.”

“Oh, thank you!” Squirrel said. “But… how will you find food?”

“Don’t worry about me.” Magpie ruffled his feathers. “I’ll think of something.”

Abaeze was a cloth-trader, so knew everything.

“See this?” Abaeze said. “The weave. Chinese silk making Yoruba patterns. And there, the way that red thread gives life to the design… that’s a San trick.”

“Why’d people steal ideas?” I asked. “Why can’t they have their own?”

“It’s what ideas are for, cub. Take the best of both, you make a far richer tapestry.”

“That’s not what most people say,” I said. “They say not to mix. They threw stones at Ilukwe for speaking to a man from another village.”

His face tightened.

“Most people,” he said “do not understand weaving.”

At night, I go to the ghost fields.

Every stalk of wheat was once a life. Brush them, and they whisper:

“I wish I had…”

“I’m sorry for what I…”

“Forgive…”

Sometimes, I’ll sit on the gate, listen to them whisper their apologies to the wind.

Most people don’t come here, but I find some comfort in that rustle of voices. Shows me I’m not the only one with regrets.

But if the only one listening is the wind, you’re too late.

I take my phone, find his name in the list. Pause. Swallow. Call.

“Hey,” I say. “It’s me.”

—–

This song wasn’t a direct inspiration for this one, but I’ve had it stuck in my head ever since I wrote that first line:

Ghost Fields – Murder By Death

The album, by the way, is awesome.

“What do you mean ‘empty’?”

“Not occupied.”

“But… it’s Trident. They’re nuclear weapons. You don’t lose nuclear weapons!”

Sir Reginald, cabinet secretary to the new Prime Minister, sighed. “We didn’t lose them. We never had them.”

“But they’re our deterrent!”

“No, people thinking we have them is our deterrent. The deterrence is merely the threat of nuclear weapons, and threats… well, they’re easy enough. Actually owning them is far more trouble than it’s worth.”

“But… I thought…”

“What? Spend billions on a compromisable mass-destruction system, instead of just saying the right words? Honestly, Prime Minister, that would just be stupid.”

The air was hot, thick as treacle. Ahead, the water-trader’s caravan.

Once, her mother had said, water fell from the sky. And just before it came, you felt a prickle in the air, like the world was about to breathe out.

“Twenty,” he said. His fingers glittered gold.

“Twenty!”

“That’s the price, spit-drinker.”

She almost laughed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d tasted spit.

She reached for her pouch, but stopped. Her skin prickled. Was that… she gasped, looked up.

No. Wishful thinking. The sky was blazing blue.

She paid the man his twenty, and trudged into the dust.

I blew a kiss from my bedroom window, giving no thought to where it might land.

It touched the cheek of a pretty girl, who smiled at me and walked on.

When she passed my window in Autumn, I blew a kiss to her again. This time, before walking, she called up her name.

When she passed by in Winter, she told me her secrets.

And when she passed by in Spring, it was she who blew a kiss to me.

My life could have gone many ways, but no way better than taking a chance, and blowing a kiss.

—–

When I first wrote ‘Blowing A Kiss’, it was sweet. Then I decided the sweet version was rubbish so I wrote a dark one. Then I decided that was also rubbish, so I wrote a more middling one, and published that.

A bit later, I rewrote the dark one. Now I’ve managed to get the sweet one into a state I’m happy enough to put up as well, though I think the dark one is my favourite.

Anyhow, the dark one is here and the middle one is here, and together they show it’s not the action, but the reaction that’s important.

Pity poor Edwin Goodwin, destroyer of maths.

He proved beyond doubt that pi was not an infinite stream of numbers. Pi was 3.2.

His house was invaded by men holding rulers. And they said: “Pi will remain irrational.”

He said “But I’ve proved it’s not.”

“True,” said they. “Congratulations. But we’ve invested far too much in its irrationality to change things now.”

So his discovery that could change the world was shelved, to be laughed at for years after.

Remember, then, the real truth from this tale: when enough people want a thing to be impossible, impossible it shall remain.

—–

In 1894, Edwin J Goodwin thought he’d succeeded in squaring the circle. He hadn’t, largely because he seems to have misunderstood the definition of squaring and, for that matter, the definition of circle.

Unless, of course, that’s just what they want you to think.

In other fun geometry news, you should have a look at this compass-and-ruler game. And then kiss goodbye to any pretence at productivity you may have had today.

Quick signal boost, for anyone who likes slightly disturbing tales, beautifully told:

If you haven’t yet heard of Priya Sharma, look her up. Her stories Thesea and Astaurius and Needlepoint have been 2 of the best I’ve read in Interzone for a long time.

This is her website. Go look at it.

The dead lady in the attic seemed friendly enough.

You couldn’t see her, but Emily could. She’d go up there and play for hours, then come downstairs for dinner and talk about the games they played together.

She said the ghost was called Alice, and she hung from the highest beam.

You asked if that bothered her, but she said no. Alice was fine like that.

So perhaps you should have foreseen the day Emily didn’t come down to dinner, and you went up to find her dangling, a rope around her throat.

Swinging like that… it looked like fun.