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    #71
    Originally posted by xoggoth View Post
    Aaaaaagh! I had typed "lead" instead of "led". The humiliation! I have to kill myself!
    I read it and I didn't notice. You're forgiven.

    Comment


      #72
      Knocking

      Was reminded of this earlier when someone mentioned bleeding radiators. An old one from 2004(!) - was a flash fiction exercise, so knocked out (pun intended) in 45 minutes.

      -----------------------------------------
      What is the knocking?

      It was very strange. The constant knocking sound that echoed through the house on winter's evenings was becoming a real irritation to the Smith family.

      "It's the central heating pipes", said Stan Smith confidently, and he got out his spanner and bled the radiators.

      Black gunge oozed from the radiator outlets and dripped onto the light fawn carpet underneath.

      Sarah Smith was down on hands and knees cleaning up the mess with her Vanish 2001 carpet stain remover, when the knocking started again.

      "What IS the knocking?", she asked.

      Stan looked at his wife, bent over on all fours, ass in the air. " I know what knocking I'd like," he unwisely said, then wished he hadn't as Sarah's heel caught him on the shin. "You and your bleeding radiators! I know what I'd like to do with you and your spanner," she retorted.

      The stain was still visible the following night. The knocking continued, and Stan decided it must be the ballcock. He spent the rest of the evening dismantling the toilet, while Sarah sat with legs crossed, watching Eastenders.

      The toilet was reassembled, and the knocking continued. "It's obviously something more complicated," decided Stan. "We'd best get out a plumber."

      Two days later, the plumber arrived. He was three hours late, which put Sarah in a bad mood before he'd even started.

      The plumber sucked in air through his teeth. "Could be air in the system. Have you bled the radiators?" he enquired. "YES!" shouted Stan and Sarah in unison. "Well, I'd better check," he said, and bled them again. Sarah elbowed Stan in the ribs pointedly when the plumber put a sheet under the radiator to avoid damage to the carpet in case of a mess. Sarah signed the cheque for ninety-five pounds and the plumber left. As his van pulled away, the knocking started again.

      "Oh, no!" said poor Sarah, and even Stan looked woeful.

      "Right. Here's the plan. We'll take every room in the house individually and work out where the knocking is loudest. You start upstairs, I'll take down, " said Stan, a man on a mission.

      An hour later, the knocking stopping and starting, and they had reached the conclusion that the knocking was loudest in the bedroom. And the kitchen. And the living room. But it didn't seem so loud in the hall, unless you stood near the front door.

      Sarah decided to talk to the neighbours. As they lived in a terraced house, maybe the other houses could hear it too.

      Sarah went next door to see Fiona. She often had a cup of tea with Fiona, and knew her quite well.

      "Fiona," she started, "we were just wondering whether you'd been bothered by any knocking sounds?"

      "Er, yes, " said Fiona, looking a trifle embarrassed.

      "And have you any idea what it is?", asked Sarah.

      Fiona definitely went pink. "We thought it was you and Stan. You know," she said.

      Sarah spluttered, "What! Every night, for hours on end! You must be kidding! Stan's a half hour, three times a week man."

      "Sorry," said Fiona meekly. "Then, I'm afraid I've no idea at all."

      Sarah phrased the question differently when she approached Liz on the other side. Liz hadn't heard the knocking, but promised to keep an ear out for it.

      The weeks went on. The knocking became so much part of life that they stopped noticing it. Occasionally, one of them would ask, "What’s that knocking?" but most of the time they forgot all about it.

      It was one evening in February, when Stan said, "I don't think I've heard that knocking tonight."

      "No," agreed Sarah. "I'm not sure when I last did hear it, now you mention it."

      Stan and Sarah turned the telly down and listened. They listened the following night, and the next. There was no doubt about it; the knocking had stopped.

      Stan and Sarah felt a bit like they'd lost an old friend. Without the knocking, where was the mystery?

      It was two days later, when talking to Liz that the mystery was finally solved. Liz had replaced her garden gate, with a wrought iron version.

      "The old one used to catch in the wind and make a knocking noise," she explained to Sarah. "It used to drive us mad."

      "But, I asked you about the knocking!" exclaimed Sarah.

      "Oh! I didn’t know you meant THAT knocking!" Liz replied.

      Sarah told Stan, who said, "Aah. I thought it might be the gate." Sarah resisted the urge to throttle him, instead saying, "Yes, dear."

      Sarah and Stan sat down the following evening to watch Eastenders.
      "Listen!" said Sarah.
      Stan added, "What IS the knocking?"

      Comment


        #73
        [QUOTE=xoggoth;2022989]The Plagiarist

        As a boy he had dreamed of being a famous professional artist, of being the new Cezanne or Picasso or Hockney, of riches and acclaim flowing like the paint from the end of his paint brush.

        Like most boyhood dreams, his had never happened, although he had got a lot closer to realising them than most. Unlike so many who had had to abandon their ambitions and seek drab jobs in shops and offices, he had made a living as an artist, selling his colourful and slightly surreal landscapes to middle class patrons to relieve the tedium of their wallpapered expanses. That was as far as it got, any fame he could lay claim to was a purely local one and, while his efforts had enabled him to buy his tiny terraced house and still just about paid his bills, fortune had eluded him entirely.

        Worse, his sales were getting smaller every year. These were straitened times with fewer prepared to spend hundreds on mere decoration and his work was falling out of such limited fashion as it had ever been in. How long would it be before he too would be forced to seek employment in one of those drab shops or offices? He gazed at his lined face in the mirror, a face that was almost leaving middle age behind, and knew that that would be no easy option either for someone with no experience in anything but painting. He sat watching the afternoon sun in the little aluminium greenhouse in his tiny garden, a greenhouse that had never seen the growth of a single seedling during his tenure. It was his little solitary club, a place where he had always gone to unwind, to enjoy an occasional cigarette and an occasional glass of whisky. As his anxiety grew, it had gradually become an occasional packet, an occasional bottle, and his ability to afford either shrank.

        His resentment grew too, with every glass. He was a good artist, no Turner it was true, but a damn sight better than some of the acclaimed artists of the day, whose ridiculous works filled the national galleries. He had recently been to The Tate Modern and it was filled with patterns resembling Homebase wallpaper, single colour scrawls that looked like the work of infants, formless lumps of clay resembling giant dog turds and lengths of galvanised steel ducting. Damn it! Real artistic ability did not matter anymore, all you had to do was think of something novel, call it art and wait for all those idiotic, overpaid, self-serving art critics to feather their own nests by finding a new fashion.

        He downed his third glass of whisky and lit his second cigarette. The setting sun shone through the algae-encrusted glass of the greenhouse and he noticed the strange patterns within it, patterns that he could only assume had been made by slugs or snails feasting on those rich green pastures. He stared and, as the human brain always does, his made features out of those random patterns. At the bottom of that pane was a lion’s head. Surreal and cartoon like, it was true but, despite the protruding eyes and the unnaturally pointed ears it was definitely a lion’s head. On the next pane was the face of a small sad little girl, over there, a voluptuous naked woman with three arms and a square head. Up there, three dragons fought a pitched battle while a huge spider looked on.

        It seemed to him that those little molluscs had a darn sight more artistic ability than Emin and Hurst and all those other acclaimed artists. It took a couple more glasses of whisky before the sneer in his head became an idea. It was as good an inspiration as any and, as his conventional work was no longer selling anyway, what did he have to lose? He staggered off up the path to get his camera before the sun disappeared. The next day he printed the photos off, mounted them next to his easel and began copying the works. He ignored some of the slug trails that were peripheral to, or spoiled the perceived images and accentuated some others but otherwise he made no real changes. Why should he? In the fickle world of art these days who could decide what was more commercial than the orange of the setting sun shining through those wobbling mollusc tracks and the green of the algae modified in places by the vague colours of the fencing and hedges behind?

        The first few works appeared in a local exhibition two weeks later and soon sold but not before attracting favourable comments in a local paper. They in turn attracted attention from a more prominent art critic who lived in the area. The feature in the art section of The Sunday Times several months later finally brought him the acclaim that the little boy had only dreamed of. It was a new fashion in the art world. The article said it all “..his works have a primitive quality, yet they are not as anything we have formerly described as primitive or naive art. Rather they are the work of something far less than human, yet filled with a superhuman yearning to find a higher plain. The lines are curiously random and oscillating, yet always convergent into something that is meaningful. Always single and unbroken, signifying an unshakeable will to create beauty and meaning, regardless of life’s distractions. Always beginning and ending at the bottom of the canvas, each painting signifying how life is full of unfulfilled dreams and ambitions, yet part of a series to show that we must never stop trying no matter how many times we must retreat”

        He sat watching the afternoon sun in the huge cedarwood greenhouse in his big new garden, a greenhouse that had never seen the growth of a single seedling during his tenure and sipped an expensive Glenfiddich whisky. No more cheap Tesco own brand for him. He read, yet again, that absurd Times review, now held in an expensive bronze frame, that had set him on a path to fame and chuckled at the stupidity of intelligent people. Less than human? What, like a slug? An unbroken, random and oscillating path? As a slug would leave when feeding? Always beginning and ending at the bottom of the canvas? Like a slug returning to its safe damp lair under the leaves before the sun rose? Had it never occurred to any of them that his wonderful paintings were nothing but slightly altered copies of slug patterns on greenhouse glass?

        Ah well. He was making enough money to see him reasonably comfortably off when he went out of fashion and the next idiotic trend took over and, judging by the way that major galleries were still displaying blank canvases, that could be a long way off. If meaningful statements about suprematism, the fourth dimension, transcendency or “awareness of nothing but art” and all the rest of it could still be discerned in a lack of any art at all, his copies of slug feeding patterns could do well for quite a while. At the very worst, as a once acclaimed artist, he would still always sell far more than the minor artist he had once been.

        But there was one immediate problem, what new paintings could he come up with for that big exhibition next year? The recently cleaned windows of his expensive greenhouse were largely devoid of any patterns at all and, judging by the lovingly tended vegetable patch of his neighbour just the other side of the hedge, slug pellets would be a major impediment to the breeding of a new generation of artists. If only he had not sold his maisonette and lost that little slug-infested greenhouse.

        He took another sip of his expensive whisky and pondered. As he did so, a large wood pigeon landed on the roof, paused a moment and lifted its tail in that distinctive movement of a defecating bird. The bird pooh splattered on the glass, making a large brown and white pattern, contrasting with the blue sky and the white vapour trails of the airplanes overhead. As it began to run down the glass, The Sunday Times review about a yearning for higher things and mortal life frustrating our aspirations wrote itself in his head. All he needed was a bird table nearby to attract lots of birds like that onto his new greenhouse.

        Whistling, he went to get his camera.

        Like the story.

        Comment


          #74
          Cheers JH!

          Good knocking story MS. So used to no other contributions to this thread I've only just noticed it. Notice you are one of the characters.
          bloggoth

          If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
          John Wayne (My guru, not to be confused with my beloved prophet Jeremy Clarkson)

          Comment


            #75
            The Warning

            He had a shower, got dressed, put on his comfy slippers and sat by the window drinking his morning cuppa. It was a sunny day and he’d get out into his little garden and plant those runner bean seeds. It was so nice being just retired and free of all the hassles of his stressful job. He didn’t have a big pension or much in the way of savings but was sure he could manage if he was careful. Buying things at the charity shop, like those comfy slippers he had brought yesterday, was one of his strategies. Fortunately, most high streets have a plethora of charity shops these days.

            He was in his rough gardening gear, charity shop again, when he noticed the small piece of paper in the letter box. The scrawl was hard to read but he thought it said “Please stop doing it”. He opened the door to see if whoever had posted it was still around but there was nobody. Stop doing it? Stop doing what? He had no idea what it meant. He couldn’t think of anything he was doing that unduly affected anyone else but whoever wrote it must have thought it was obvious or they would have been more explicit. Probably just a joke by some neighbour, he would probably find out when he went to the bowls club on Saturday. He, or she, would get a piece of his mind as it seemed a bit sinister, rather worrying for a frail chap on his own.

            He spent much of the day gardening and was a bit tired. It was nice to change, put on his slippers and relax in front of the TV with a cup of coffee. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a movement at the window, but couldn’t see anything when he looked out. Probably that darn cat climbing over his fence again. As he was going up the stairs to bed he noticed another scrap of paper sticking out of the letter box. The scrawl said. “I asked you once and you did it again. Please stop!” What the hell? He hadn’t done anything that should annoy anyone. He hadn’t been using any noisy tools, unlike some neighbours down the road. This was not funny! He knew it must be a joke but couldn’t stop thinking about it and found it hard to get to sleep.

            He was eating his breakfast in pyjamas and slippers the next morning when he heard the sound of something being put in the letter box flap. It was another scrap of paper. The writing was even wilder as if whoever wrote it was in a highly charged state but it looked like “This is your last warning!” It was too much; this was not a joke anymore. As soon as he was dressed he went to the police station in town and told them what had happened. The policeman at the desk took all the details, looked at the notes and asked the obvious questions about any known disputes with anyone, but was not very reassuring. The threats were not very explicit and there were no details they could act upon even if they had the resources. He was told to report any more threats or let them know if he had any clues as to who was responsible but otherwise he felt he was still on his own.

            He deliberately spent the day away from home, shopping in town and wandering in the park before visiting an old friend and it was dark when he got back. Nervously, he checked for any more bits of paper but there were none. A couple of large whiskies helped and he was feeling a bit more relaxed by the time he had tidied the kitchen and put the dishwasher on. He donned his comfy slippers, sat on the settee and turned on the TV to watch a war film on the Movies for Men channel.

            There was a load crash in the kitchen. Had the dishwasher blown up? As he walked through the door he got a huge shock at seeing a large, ugly and unkempt man standing there with an iron bar. He looked familiar. Wasn’t this the rough sleeper who had been living in the woods not far away? The one whose odd behaviour had already alarmed some local people? But why on earth would this man have a grievance against him? Maybe there was no reason as the chap was clearly of unsound mind. Perhaps it was just walking past his spot in the woods that had enraged him. After all, how many assaults and murders have been committed by people who just got annoyed by someone looking at them?

            He was a small chap and had no chance of fighting of this monster. Maybe reason was still an option. “Whatever you think I’ve done” he began “it was never intentional, I did not mean to insult you and I apologise if I offended you somehow” “Too late now” came the slurred growl of a reply “I gave you three warnings and you took no notice” “I wanted those slippers but had no money and then you took them. I asked you not too but you kept on wearing my slippers!”

            The man shuffled forward swinging the iron bar.
            bloggoth

            If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
            John Wayne (My guru, not to be confused with my beloved prophet Jeremy Clarkson)

            Comment


              #76
              Be posiive and

              What do you do when life goes so wrong? After all that had happened Roger felt like he had fallen into a pit. Now, nearly two years later, although not quite at the bottom, he still felt he was a long way from getting out of it.

              He had a lot of willpower and was making a big effort to get on with his life, to get on with his work, keep up with his friends, continue with his hobbies but, although he hoped he seemed normal on the outside, inside he still wasn’t. His imagination and enthusiasm had deserted him. Nothing seemed to mean anything anymore, he couldn’t finish watching a TV program or reading a book before his disinterest made him give up a little way in.

              The worst thing was that he only had one real emotion left – anger. The little irritations in his own life, the things he saw in the news, the things he saw around him, even things he imagined, would all make his blood boil. He did not think he would be going on a murdering spree any time soon, but, if he didn’t get himself sorted, how much longer could he could carry on pretending to be normal to the rest of the world?

              He had tried so many of the things that are supposed to help. The pills the doctor had proscribed had had little long-term effect, and some had even made things worse, making him feel unreal and detached or anxious. He had tried various solutions ranging from the sensible to the questionable. He had tried counselling but gave up after finding he was spending expensive time looking out the window waiting for it to end He had tried cognitive therapy and not got a lot out of it, it made him feel worryingly obsessed with how he felt. He had tried herbal remedies, meditation, holistic treatments, with no more long-term success. Sometimes his efforts seemed to make him feel a bit better, but he sometimes felt a little better when he wasn’t trying and was not totally sure if the apparently positive effects of any remedy were anything more than just a part of a natural variation.

              Damn it! He couldn’t just give up. He was better than that. Although none of the methods had been a complete answer he couldn’t say for sure that they were worthless. Maybe it was a mistake to think there was one single remedy, perhaps he should be more selective and try to find the most effective aspects of each. He was an individual after all, did it make sense to think that the solution was one pre-packaged parcel? What suited somebody else’s mind was not necessarily what was best for him
              He resolved to go about things in a more scientific way. He would try the supposed remedies that might have done something on a regular basis and record in detail how they made him feel and whether there was any long-term effect. He would experiment with a few ideas of his own as well Mediation, relaxation, they helped. Trying to think positive, to envisage a better future in his mind helped too. He would stick with those and try a few other things as well.

              He would also try and figure a few things out for himself. It occurred to him that perhaps it was wrong to just try and ignore his anger, to dump all those negative thoughts about his life, himself and the world in general. Maybe it would be better to accept and face up to them. After all, anger and hatred were perfectly natural, they are traits that nature gave us for our own survival even if, in the modern world, we are not permitted to indulge them. Life, our minds, cannot just be all positive. We need to accept the negative side, the trick is to separate it from the positive side, to get it all out of the way in private before you emerge back into the real world.

              He began the experiment and started to cobble together his own self treatment. It was not easy but, gradually, with a lot of revisions and extensive documenting of his actions and feelings he felt it was working. After a few months he knew it was working, most of the time he felt normal again. “Most of the time” did not mean what others would think it meant. There was a time each day when those negative thoughts raged in his head, the difference was that now it only happened during the window he had set aside for them when no one else was around.
              In his evening therapy, he spent one hour relaxing and thinking lovely positive thoughts, envisaging all the good things that the future held. Then, after a short break, he would spend one hour being utterly negative. In his mind he deliberately raged about everything, hated everyone. The recycling came in handy, he would imagine that tin cans and cardboard boxes were all the people and events that he loathed, flattening them and ripping them apart. He was training his mind to switch between positive and negative at will. He could turn on his positive side during the hours it mattered, when he was engaged with the rest of the world and keep his negative side for when he was alone.

              But his doubts were growing. There were times when his happiness and misery seemed so extreme during those evening sessions. It seemed at times like his positive and negative side were in totally different parts of his brain, it almost seemed like he was two totally different people in the plus hour and the minus hour. Should he carry on? He decided he had no choice, he felt so normal during 15 hours in the waking day, it was worth it. The extremes grew as he carried on.

              Then came that night. One hour, so happy, happy. The next hour so miserable, so full of rage. So positive! Then so negative! It was like a huge psychic bang in his head and the barriers broke down. All his positive and the negative thoughts and feelings rushed together; they cancelled out and left nothing. He lay still and stared at the ceiling. He never moved again. No feelings, no thoughts, in his mind there was nothing at all.

              Positive. Negative. The human psyche can only take so much. He should have thought of a simple comparison. Electricity.
              Last edited by xoggoth; 15 February 2018, 22:49.
              bloggoth

              If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
              John Wayne (My guru, not to be confused with my beloved prophet Jeremy Clarkson)

              Comment


                #77
                The Bio Tattoo

                For many years scientists have been working to make cells into computers. A single cell can store much information in chemical form and, like a computer, can respond in a complex way in response to stimuli and carry out operations with amazing speed. Even one cell contains enough physical complexity to function as a powerful computing unit and is small enough to pack by the millions into a tiny physical space.

                Brian worked for a pioneering company that specialised in research and development in this area. He wasn’t part of the science team, maths and science had never been his strong point but, as a competent office administrator, he felt he played his part and was proud to contribute to such an innovative company. Sometimes he met up for a drink after work with some chaps from the lab and was always fascinated to hear how things were going although, for reasons of commercial secrecy, they could not always reveal too much.

                He was in the pub having a lager with Blake, one of the youngest and geekiest of the scientists. They always got on well and had been chatting about the next big advances. Blake was a shy character who was not good at hiding things and Brian felt that he seemed a little too interested in some of his answers. He soon sensed he had something he wanted to say.

                “Well, Brian, it’s like this. We’ve been working for some time on a project you won’t have heard of, one that could earn some good money to finance our long-term research. The managers feel we now have a saleable product, but it needs more testing before we go public. The thing is, they need people to try it out but don’t want to give anything away too soon by going outside the company and are hoping that some interested and trusted employees, like you, might volunteer. The managers asked me to ask if you might be interested. They said there will be a decent financial reward in it for you”

                The thought of being a guinea pig sounded rather risky but exciting too and Brian was too curious not to go for a meeting with the research manager. The new project was the digital tattoo. Using bio computing it would be possible to make it fully configurable as required. It would look like a normal tattoo, but the big difference was that, by linking it to a computer, you could alter the image and its position in any way you wanted. You could change it at will to suit your whim, the event you were attending, to suit your current girlfriend or whatever. You could also make it invisible, which was ideal in some work situations where tattoos where frowned upon. Many who were reluctant to get traditional tattoos for work reasons or who didn’t want to be stuck forever with something they no longer liked, would love these tech tattoos.

                The method had been thoroughly tested on laboratory animals and no problems had been found. There were risks spelled out in the contract Brian was asked to sign but his own rights included very high levels of insurance cover and compensation should anything go wrong. He would also receive payment and expenses that were more than he was currently earning. More tempting was the promise of a large lump sum if the project was a commercial success according to criteria set out in the contract.

                It wasn’t just the money, he loved the idea of being part of a pioneering project. Brian signed the contract and the experiments began the following week. They harvested a small number of cells from his body and reinjected them after modification. It all seemed remarkably easy and largely painless and his worries soon subsided. It wasn’t long before he had a tattoo on his chest that looked as least as good as anything he could have got at a tattoo parlour. Then they linked him to a computer using a small radio device and he found he could browse through a list of images and choose whatever one he liked. It was fantastic! His girlfriend loved it when he put her name under a big heart.

                The project went well, and more extensive testing was being planned to meet with all the complex legal requirements. Brian was a bit of a lady’s man and had met a new girlfriend; he hoped tonight would be the night. He had Sally on his tattoo and would need to change it to Janet, it should only take a few minutes. He plugged the radio device in, spent a few minutes in Photoshop to create the image he wanted and hit the upload button. That should do it! He walked over to the wall mirror to see how it looked.

                What the hell? Instead of the image he had designed there was a big advert for a cheap energy company. How did that happen? His PC must have one of those darn ad-promoting malware programs on it. He would clear it out and try again. It did not take long, and he downloaded the image to his chest again. It didn’t help. He had cleared his PC of a malware program but what if it had been embedded inside the image and infected those bio-computer cells in his body? There weren’t any anti-virus or anti-malware programs for those. As he stood looking in the mirror, he saw that ads were popping up all over his body, for dodgy products and services, for Hot Russian Babes, for overpriced and phony medical remedies.

                Then came the fake news. “Trump seen booking into a hotel room with Vladimar Putin” began scrolling across his forehead.
                Last edited by xoggoth; 16 March 2018, 18:18.
                bloggoth

                If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
                John Wayne (My guru, not to be confused with my beloved prophet Jeremy Clarkson)

                Comment


                  #78
                  The Return

                  He had worked in technology all his life and didn’t really believe in ghosts. Some of those stories you read in the news were plain daft, like the one that showed glowing white shapes captured on a CCTV. He had a CCTV himself and knew the reality of that one, out of focus bits of dust caught in the camera light. On the other hand, no rational person could ever dismiss something without proof and nobody could absolutely disprove the existence of some afterlife. After all, there was no obvious explanation for the strange experience he had had with Julie in that old hotel room when they had seen a vague moving shape cross the room.

                  After his retirement he soon found himself with not enough to fill his time. Despite his rational disbelief, he had always been a big fan of stories of the supernatural and it might be interesting to set up a blog covering some proper research into the issue. He’d try and separate out the nonsense and the hoaxes and cover any reports that seemed more convincing, assuming there were any. The blog was moderately popular and attracted quite a few geeks, maybe the rational yearn for deeper meaning.

                  There are a lot of problems with ghosts. A big question is, why are there far fewer ghost sightings today that there used to be and why do so many reports relate to people who died many decades or even centuries ago? People still die in extreme circumstances with unfulfilled wants today, so why don’t we get modern ghosts wandering about looking at their mobile phones? And why is there so much more belief in the supernatural in less developed nations? The obvious explanation is that people in the past or with less advanced education were, and are, more likely to seize on the supernatural as a cause of unexplained events simply because of belief in it.

                  But was it that simple? He investigated further and found another odd correlation. In the UK there were more reports of later ghost sightings in remote rural areas than there were in towns and cities. Was there some other factor? After all, plenty of things in nature were declining due to man’s activities and it was not always something as obvious as habitat destruction or pesticides. Bees, for example, are said to be affected by mobile phone signals.

                  The more he researched it, the more he became convinced of the cause. Electricity first came into use in the UK from the late 1800s and networks had been gradually spreading over the UK since. Electricity usage was also obviously much higher in towns and cities than in rural areas. He was good at statistics and correlated the more credible ghost sightings with the spread of UK power networks. Due to the unverified nature of the former there would never be real proof but it all looked quite convincing. It was electricity that prevented or repelled ghosts. He posted his ideas on his blog and got praise and ridicule in almost equal proportions. Little did those who ridiculed him realise that, very soon, for reasons outside the control of any of them, the real proof was about to come.

                  It is a dangerous world we live in and all those tensions with North Korea reached a climax. The warnings that our power networks could be shut down for an indefinite period by an Electromagnetic Pulse from a nuclear missile were shown to be true when one, curtesy of that fat little loony, detonated over the UK. It was mid-winter and deaths rose sharply in the weeks that followed due to cold and loss of all those many technical things that we rely on. Fortunately, they began to fall again after a few weeks due to massive international aid.

                  Initial optimism diminished when deaths began to rise again because many were suffering heart attacks. The stressful events were cited as the probable cause until the initially discounted rumours were recognised as fact. The ghosts, phantoms and demons that most had dismissed as superstitious nonsense were coming back in force. Due to populations much higher than there had been back in those past centuries, they were everywhere, revealing their, often grizzly, fates in almost every house, every road, every street.

                  The death of electricity had restored the life of the dead.
                  Last edited by xoggoth; 20 April 2018, 21:23.
                  bloggoth

                  If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
                  John Wayne (My guru, not to be confused with my beloved prophet Jeremy Clarkson)

                  Comment


                    #79
                    Haven't We Been here Before?

                    Their marriage had been through some difficult patches in recent years, mainly due to the stress of running the family business which had had its ups and downs. Fortunately, things had ended on an up and they had sold it for a decent figure on retirement. Now they had the time and money to do the things they wanted to do, and it rekindled their relationship. They both loved history and travel. They became active members of the local history group and started going off on holiday at least four times a year to places of historical interest in the UK or elsewhere in Europe.

                    That September they decided to go and explore the countryside and historic buildings in the North West, finishing up with a day at Hadrian’s wall. It should be interesting as neither of them had ever been there but there was another reason. They had both been actively researching their family history and Edith had managed, with some degree of certainty, to trace her lineage back to the early 18th century. Her earliest known ancestor was also an Edith, one Edith Allerton, the daughter of the vicar in the still existing old parish church in Brampton, and it would be great to go and see how she might have lived.

                    The trip up had been rather stressful due to traffic jams and it would be good to chill out on their first day and have a leisurely day wandering around the town. After a late breakfast at the hotel on the edge of Brampton, they headed for the old parish church on foot. It was over a mile away and Edith was rather overweight so maybe she was just tired. Why else would she feel oddly confused as they approached the church entrance? Somehow, it looked familiar. "Haven’t we been here before?" she asked Ray. "Don’t think so" Ray said, "at least I haven’t. Perhaps you’re thinking of that place in Kent we went to last year. A lot of old churches look rather similar, after all." She didn’t think any more of it and afterwards they walked back to the town, had some coffee in the café and then explored the other nearby historic places including the priory and the roman fort.

                    They spent the next couple of days visiting the various attractions that were a bit further afield, finishing off with Hadrian’s wall. They loved this area, so interesting! They got back to the hotel and packed for their journey home the next day. Afterwards, it was still a bit early for dinner, so they went for a last wander around. Like many towns it had a mixture of interesting old buildings and some less attractive newer builds on the outskirts. They walked up a nice old street of Victorian cottages before it petered out into dull 1960s semis and decided to turn back. Ray turned to say something, and realised Edith wasn’t with him. She was staring at one of those bland semis, although what she saw of interest in it he could not understand.

                    He walked back. "Are you ok?" She did not answer, just turned and walked by his side. She did not speak for several minutes and then said again "Are you sure we haven’t we been here? I’m certain I’ve seen that stone wall and the archway before" Stone wall and archway? What was she talking about? She had been staring at a brick house with a tatty fence and an old van on the driveway. He decided she must be tired and decided not to quiz her. They needed dinner.

                    They drove home the next morning and Edith seemed rather distant over the next couple of days, indeed she seemed progressively stranger, doing things which she normally had no interest in, like sewing or cooking with very traditional recipes. Things like using her computer seemed to be increasingly confusing to her and she started asking his advice about things she should know. Her voice seemed to be changing too, there was an odd accent that he could not place. Ray was worried that maybe she was getting Alzheimer’s, perhaps he should seek advice.

                    Ray went upstairs the next morning with a cup of tea for his Edith and she was no longer there except in physical form. She looked at him and then at the modern room about her in confusion. In a broad old Cumbrian accent "I must get to the church and prepare it for my father’s service this morning"

                    The real cause had not occurred to him. Many of us are fascinated about our past, we love to know our origins, who our ancestors were. Perhaps some of our ancestors are equally interested in knowing about their future, in finding out who their descendants will be. Edith Jacobs had wanted to find out all about Edith Allerton and visit her life places. Edith Allerton had recognised Edith Jacobs and had come to visit her in the only way a spirit could.
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                    If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'
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                      #80
                      Originally posted by mudskipper View Post
                      Footie frustration

                      Women and the world cup. Go together like custard and gravy. Both great, but there’s a time and a place and you really don’t want to mix them up. Take mine - she hasn’t a clue. Just doesn’t get it. When England scored against Sweden, she complained because my cheering woke the baby. She protests when I close the curtains during matches - apparently I should be “enjoying the sunshine”. Not when it reflects off the telly screen I shouldn’t! She complains about the flags on my car. They make her feel stupid. They waste fuel and contribute to global warming. Hang on, wasn’t she all for enjoying the sunshine two minutes ago! You just can’t please some people. But things reached a low point when she sat down to watch Sunday’s match with me. Was pretty surprised and can’t say I was best pleased. Like I said, custard and gravy. Turns out she’d picked Ecuador in her work sweepstake - she actually wanted them to win! She rattled on and on during the match; “Which team is which?” (she asked that twice), “Who’s the one with the ball?” and on it goes. If she’d been watching properly instead of checking facebook or whatever she was doing on her laptop, she might’ve known! I soon switched off to the constant inane babbling. Mmmm. Yes dear. Standard responses. Well, the match ended and she seemed remarkably cheerful considering “her” team had lost. Clearly not a real fan.

                      It was a few beers later that the phone rang. “Mr Wilson?” the voice said. “You booked a holiday online with us earlier, and I need a few extra details”. I what?? Morag (did I mention she was Scottish? Explains a lot!) Well Morag grabs the phone out of my hand, “Yes, thank you. No, we don’t need travel insurance” and so on. Holiday? Travel insurance? What the hell is going on? She looks affronted. “The holiday. I asked you about it earlier. You said to go ahead and book it”. I press her on the matter. Apparently “Mmmm” had agreed to two weeks in Florida. “Yes dear” was go ahead and book it. No wonder she seemed so happy. Well, I suppose in the scheme of things two weeks in Florida isn’t such an ordeal. It could even be fun. I roll my eyes and resign myself to it. “Sounds fun,” I force myself to say. “So when are we going?” She hands me the itinerary. 19th August. 19th August!! Doesn't she realise that’s the start of the new season! She’s filing a nail. She just doesn’t get it. Or is she looking just a bit too innocent? It dawns on me. Maybe she gets it all too well...
                      Bump.

                      "What colour are we?"

                      At least Mr ms didn't have flags on his car this year.
                      Last edited by mudskipper; 3 July 2018, 20:10.

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