Kitchen exchange

Scene:   An office galley kitchen, small but spotless in periwinkle blue.  An array of tatty plants fight the blinds for window space.  Countertop space is barely a couple of feet - squeezed out by two mismatched kettles and two equally dissimilar microwaves.

Cast:

Various body parts of a weary female office worker (The Body) popping in the kitchen to make a cuppa.  As individuals, they are The Parts.  Together, they make up The Body.

The Body: Just a typical female human.

Eyes:  Just the facts, ma'am.  Eyes appears to be two separate entities (three if you count the visual cortex), but communicates as one.  Delivers visual information to The Parts.
Heart: Technically, not the heart, but let's skip the neurobiology lecture from here on in.  Heart speaks passionately, reacts emotionally and occasionally skips a beat for the right person.
Brain: Poor beleagured Brain attempts to bring order to the chaos of the competing Parts.  She speaks rationally, advises, lectures and occasionally gets tetchy and frazzled in the face* of the other Parts' incompetence.
Mouth: Mouth's purpose is to help the Body communcate with the outside world.  In theory, she is entirely directed by Brain, but since Brain has a lot to do, she sometimes has to improvise.

*Not to be confused with The Face, who does not have a speaking role in this production.
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The Body walks into the kitchen where a reasonably attractive man (RAM) is already making tea on a tray

Eyes:  There is a reasonably attractive man at the counter space
Heart: I'm taken!
Brain: Noted, both.  Mouth, casual conversation please.  Not about bugs this time, either.  This is an eating area, for godsake.
Mouth:  Ummm...<smiles nervously>
Eyes: <glances down> There are six cups on the tray
Mouth: <brightly, to RAM> That's a BIG ROUND you have there!

RAM turns his head towards The Body

Heart: What did she say?! What the hell did she just say to him?!
Brain: Oh. My. God.  You're... you're like a Benny Hill extra.  You're like, a, a .. bit part actor in Carry On Cockup.  CASUAL conversation, Mouth! CASUAL!!!

RAM: <completely deadpan>: It's usually bigger.

Libido & Ego: YES!
Brain & Heart: NO!!!
Eyes: <glances down> There are no teabags on the tray

Mouth: Umm, I forgot the teabags.  My Brain is an idiot.
Brain: Shit.
Legs: RUN AWAAAAAAY!

The Body is swept out of the kitchen by her quick-thinking legs

Murdering a Crow

Murdering a Crow

One, for sorrow,
Piteously limping.
Two, for joy,
or vengeance, who knows?
Who knows the heart of a magpie?

Two circling one,
murderous crows.
All, of course, quite natural,
but Nature's course is slow.

We didn't interfere in it;
the slick dulling of one's sheened feathers
to the semblance of an oil-spill survivor.
This blood, at least, was not on human hands.
Not on clean, office hands
that tap dance on technology,
fold paper and make tea.

I idly dreamed of saving it
and having a pet magpie
like a children's book hero.
But dreams like that couldn't live there.
It was an orderly place
of paper fasteners, spreadsheets
and desk ergonomics for safety.

Adventures of Aith

An attempt at Young Adult Fiction

**************

Granny was either a true Wise Woman or a crazy old bird; it depended who you asked.  No-one could deny her skill for healing and comfort - her sad eyed smile framed by soft grey curls was often the first or last thing folk saw in this lifetime.  She was kind, gentle and gave great advice.

But then... there were other things about her, too. 

Sometimes she'd just stop and stare for minutes or even hours at a time, at the plainest things - a blade of grass on the dirt track, or an old crack in the town wall.  People stayed away from her when she did that, and it wasn't too surprising.  She looked so strange, staring intensely at nothing, chewing her pink bonnet ribbons, glaring as if her eyes would burn through.  It was up to Aith, her grand-daughter, to tug her sleeve, break the trance and remind her to come home.

And she never spoke plain.  Everything was always about portents, or spirits, or both.  Once, she instructed a man after tending a nasty gash on his leg.
  "Be careful," Granny told him, as she finished securing the makeshift bandage. "If aqueous essences can enter your leg before the new moon, they'll pustulate the wound from within."
  "What does that mean?" the terrified man asked Aith.
  "Don't get it wet for a week," she replied wearily.

  Aith knew her Granny was a crazy old bird.  She also knew that she was a true Wise Woman.
 
And another strange thing.  It was common enough for a poor old lady to have a grand-daughter. But normally they had a son or a daughter first.

Caerleon Campus Lime

Deciduous tree
Its subsiding leaf is gold
A riposte to Frost

No timeless beauty
In change, it aches the soul
Unconscious in state.

Trenchcoat noir

"The witness heard you shout "NIETZSCHE BITCHES!" when you walked away from the body?"

"Oh yeah!  We were having a few drinks and Bezzie was saying...there was this party, see...and..."

The murderer chuckled.

"You just had to BE there."

Leftovers and Sellotape

Christmas is sticky
Mincemeat, onion marmalade,
and past year's echoes.

Eyes half closed

Which squint sees it right -
two faces, or the candle?
Either way, it burns.