On the day she died she didn’t look at all like the woman who I had married and lived with these last forty-three years. She was so thin and pale and I’d never seen her beloved face look so haggard.
That day I sat beside her bed as usual with her thin, bony hand in mine. Suddenly her usual weak, limp, grip strengthened and her hand grasped mine very tight. She had gone in that moment.
I raised myself up and gazed down at her weary, wizened face. She looked so worn out, so defeated, but at least now she was at peace. I’ve always been a rather unemotional man I suppose, lumpish some would say. Called downright dull and stupid by others I suppose. Some may have been surprised then by my tears, thinking I wasn’t capable of them. For all those years she’d taken good care of me, seeing I got to the clinic in time, feeding me and making sure I had everything I needed. I couldn’t do much in my wheelchair and my condition would have strained even the most loving marriage. So, I cried.
I had managed with difficulty to raise myself far enough up on the bed so that I was looking directly down upon her poor emaciated face. And my tears then fell like rain directly down from my cheeks on to hers.
I suppose time had lost its meaning for a while and it was only when I heard the sharp knock upon the door that I came to. I wheeled myself out of the bedroom and to the door and opened it. To my surprise it was the neighbors. “We heard”, was all he said as they stood there before walking in without me having uttered a word. Though I appreciated they’d come and assumed they meant they’d heard of the death of my wife, though I didn’t see how, they didn’t look at all sympathetic. In fact their expressions were unchanged, just like in that old painting I told you about.
Alternative ending 1.
We all moved into the bedroom and to the bedside. They gazed down at her, mournful it’s true, but then that seemed to be their perpetual expression somehow.
I turned from looking at them back to my wife, blinking back the remaining teardrops which still clung to my eyes.
It was just then that I noticed something about her pallor I was sure hadn’t been there till that moment. Just behind the alabaster white of her cheeks I could just discern the faintest suffusion of the most delicate, palest shade of green.
Alternative ending 2.
We all moved into the bedroom and to the bedside. They gazed down at her, mournful it’s true, but then that seemed to be their perpetual expression somehow.
I turned from looking at them back to my wife, blinking back the remaining teardrops which still clung to my eyes. I became aware of the couples’ hands in my field of view. They had them clasped together where they stood on the opposite side of the bed from me. Then, very slowly and deliberately he stretched out one thin, bony finger and touched her ice-cold forehead with it and held it there.
I felt a tick of annoyance at this presumption and was just about to voice a complaint when I felt a vibration. Maybe his wife was chanting, I don’t know what it was, but the air was suddenly humming.
My attention had moved to this strange pair and their odd behavior for a few moments but when I finally looked back down I was amazed to see color returning to the alabaster cheeks of my wife. Somehow . . . somehow . . . she was returned to me.
From that day she spent more and more of her time visiting down the hall. I never saw the neighbors again until that final day when she left, this time for good.
They came to me, all three of them. My wife took my head in her hands and kissed me long and lingeringly on my forehead. Then he reached out from my left side, touched me once on my leg, once on my throat and once on my forehead where the feeling of my wife’s kiss still remained.
It was then I came truly alive. I found I could now speak, much, much more than the few syllables I had been capable of before. And I could walk.
The neighbors walked back down the hall and watched as my wife hugged me where I stood, amazed. For a time we remained like that until at last she released me and facing me, put a finger to her lips and then, with a smile, walked to join the others.
I understood at that moment that she was finally gone from me. But I also knew neither of us would ever be the same again.
New life had now been born.
It’s One Minute To Midnight
It’s one minute to midnight
and the farm is cold and dark
They sleep early here
and are up with the lark
Hear the wind whistle
around the shutter door
In the barn something’s stirring
to chill you to the core
Swing round behind the big oak tree,
feel it’s old gnarled breath
It’s thinking black and evil thoughts
and wishing you your death
Sam, the good old workhorse
is standing by the hay
You think he loves you dearly,
but he wants you for his prey
Up on the rooftop arch
sit a group of bright-eyed crows
Their brothers the farmer shot,
so they’d love to rake his bones
Such a peaceful little scene
as the humans snore inside
Fat bellies bloated with fresh meat
from cows they rear with pride
Those cows circle now and fall to sleep
and as they sleep they dream,
of skewering little humans
and mooing loudly as they scream
Far in the distance
we see beautiful grey-blue hills
Deep in their guts the humans mined
and their treasures spilled
The soulgod within them
gazes out with eyes of fire,
sending thoughts of vast destruction
to humans in his ire
But we, dear viewer, know naught of this
we breathe deeply of the night
Safe knowing we are human
and all the world’s a’right . . .
Echo In An Empty Room
It was only whispers at first,
“Nah it couldn’t be . . .”
Not out here in space
“It couldn’t possibly . . .”
Jo had to admit she feared the dark,
it was the ideal environment
The ship’s long cold corridors,
were without window or vent
She had felt it first on A-deck,
A frisson of panic had hit her
and she emitted a long, low whine
Later she laughed it all off
No, no it couldn’t be
Not here, not possibly here,
amid this technology . . .
Still she did not sleep well that night,
dark shapes filled her dreams
She woke suddenly, struggling for breath
sweat poured from every limb
Afraid, she looked across her room
at the smoothly grey steel walls,
and at the black, airtight door
that shut out the long grey halls
~
Their mission had been so routine
and it had been duly done
A topographical survey of Mizar-5
and now they made their return
Six years was the schedule,
three years there and back
In seeming slow monotony,
of excitement a great lack
Each day the stars seemed unchanging,
on their course through deep space
A parallax curve using gravitational fields
sent them arc
ing through black lace
Hanging like great black veils they were,
the remains of an ancient imploded star,
moving outward over the eons,
filaments spread through light years far
‘The Lincoln’, that great grey needle of steel
moved through the darkened place
Toward an Earth still light years away,
longing for her bright blue face
~
It had been some “days” before her fright
That Jo had found the flute
An item completely incongruous,
now her fear became acute
It lay motionless at her feet
along a typical corridor bare
So she took it back to her room
to investigate it there
A simple wooden flute,
handmade and of rough design
Darkened now with the years
but on it’s side she found a sign
This was an anomaly so absurd . . .
It was a star of four crossed lines
Jo’s curiosity was then aroused,
she saw there were other simple signs . . .
She could not resist the temptation
and put her lips to the instrument
Which issued a quiet mournful note,
it seemed a sad lament
Jo went then to her friend Lisa
who she knew would be fascinated
She had for years studied philology
but to date was underrated
No alien artifacts had ever been found
on any planet yet ventured to
So her skills had not been needed
and left her nothing then to do
Jo left the object with her
and heard nothing for some days
Then came a knock upon her door
and a story to amaze
Lisa had found the symbols familiar
and with the ship’s computer had then sought
to trace the symbols back through time
and was amazed at what this brought
They were precursors to ancient hieroglyphs
found in Pharaoh Chephren’s tomb
at the dawn of Egypt’s Old Kingdom,
in a secret ante-room
The symbols she had deciphered
with the help of computing power
and now she came to Jo’s room
at the witching hour
“Jo, there are only three short words,
plus the symbol of the star
These are in a language almost lost to time,
and these are what they are . . .”
“Who”
“Is”
“There?”
~
Lisa had left Jo in silence
A vacant look upon her face
Jo now held the flute in her hands
and she too was in a daze
That night came the revelation,
in her dreams she seemed to meet
a being black who had no face,
in dark clouds who seemed to greet
She woke to the sound of movement
and then stared in disbelief
The sheets of her bed began to rise
and shook like a windblown leaf
~
They found her in the morning,
her staring eyes were gently shut
The room was in complete chaos
and on her neck a deep red cut
Lisa no one ever found
but an airlock had been used
It seemed she had calmly walked out
with no sign she was confused
~
Long, long, long ago . . .
Longer than words can tell
There was a star within who’s orbit
many planets then did dwell
For countless millennia life had been
a seemingly endless thing
Until the years their sun grew large
and all felt her heat’s true sting
All possible resources were then used
to create the ultimate craft,
to travel across the galaxy,
all hopes on a tiny raft
It was they who were our forebears
and who’s seed had led to us
And who later generations
had honored in Chephren’s dust
~
As their sun grew ever larger
it had cooked each planet in turn
before it shrank to the smallest size
to the point of no return
She exploded then with such power
of near infinite atomic burst
Spreading seed-matter across time and space
like a black widow’s final curse
Unknown to all but the cold-hearted gods,
her death had stirred the echoes of strife
and across the eons and vastness of space
these echoes now sought life.
Never To See Eye To Eye
It started with the smarting of the eyes
Oh yes, NOW it’s no surprise
But back then we were at a loss
Remember how we were so cross?
No one knew why it was happening
How every eye began to sting
The chemists had no eye-drops left!
Of ocular peace we were bereft!
Only at night did we rest assured
That no pain would then be endured
But in our sleep we made strange cries
As in our dreams we pulled out our eyes
There were many collisions with lamppost hard
Many a pontoon game lost by one shown card
Funerals became sources of tear fests
While clothes got wet, shirt and string vests
Everyone was bloodshot and screwed up their eyes
Rubbing like blazes with mighty cries
Eye patches and blindfolds the order of the day
And wearing daytime shades became okay
This last ended the cache of the would-be cool
Who now looked the same as any old fool
We all wore them now and spoilt their game
So they took to silly hats oh for shame!
So problem solved our eyes now okay
We looked to the scientists to have their say
They pondered long and looked real hard
Until they finally found the right card
Here’s what they told us with a straight face
Not believing at first we felt sprayed by Mace
Stunned or crying, from laughter or fear
What they told us I now relate here:
Tiny alien bodies had found the perfect way
To reach us here to our dismay
Traveling along light beams from the sun
Into the eyes of everyone
Across zillions of miles they wended their path
Like little flying spiders who knew their math
From Sun to Sun across the universe
They’d found the ideal way to traverse
To us they’d blundered with sun spots rife
Searching for micro-food to sustain their life
There was no danger, just an irritant caress
From these miniscule travelers under duress
The scientists attempted to make first contact then
&n
bsp; But these creatures seemed beyond our ken
Until one day a message was finally received
They stated that they felt so badly deceived
Their travel agent had conned them while taking their cash
And sent them here to a place they thought trash
With such a terribly dim state of precious light
They were stranded and could no longer take their flight
Bitterly disappointed and destined for death
With disgust they told us with their last breath
It was clear to them, no matter how we’d try
That we’d never, ever see eye to eye.
Freq
Fiery web we walk on through
to Moonbeam 1 our CG point
Got a nasty one to drill today
some monkey in a catsuit
needs a quick goodbye
Usual scene of grey mounds
and silver spires
one of those again
ho hum
Read out says he’s close
a few kliks no more
red’s flowing to green
and we are ready