Dukkha, the first of the four noble truths,
In itself may be hard to define.
Could it be, though hard to see,
Where dissatisfaction and suffering combine?
For me it’s a feeling, before quite unjudged,
First noticed, it’s hard to recall.
But it brings on the sense that there’s something
Not quite right with it all!
He sat staring at the screen.
He’d been there, scrolling up and down for some time, reading his snippets, small drafts; a collection of ideas. They were all workable, forming a basis for a short story. Every fragment listed had been given a temporary title. Each had its merits. A value already dictated by the virtue of recording them. Some pieces contain only a dozen words, others, the best part of a hundred. He scrolled again. This time noting the number of items. There seemed to be so many. The list he’d created to capture these thoughts was one that never stopped growing, with more being added while fewer were taken and written up, formatted and stored in a folder ready for publication on his website.
Using his well-practiced culling system throughout the many pages, he’d highlighted those of particular interest. Ones that could most easily be fleshed out to create a story that contained between 150 and 300 words. Although sometimes more and sometimes less, this was his goal. He had based his objective on the idea that clear English can be read at a rate of around 160 words per minute, thus providing something that can be digested in a couple of minutes.
Reducing the images to show 10 pages across the screen, he scanned for those that were highlighted and made a pencilled note of their titles. He had done this so many times as part of what he called his writing for pleasure; never tiring of the cyclic nature of the process. He had seven items on his notepad. Where would he go?
There was the case of the magic item being bought at a jumble sale, a detective’s reputation that was enhanced by deceit, a puppet in a stage performance that used a magic gesture to cast a spell, a backup plan of poisoning by soup, the blind and the mute that confronted an ugly gorgon, a fairy godmother being rebuffed or the strange fate of a man who loved taking selfies…
He stretched before ticking the soup.
He just loved fiction!
The writer was moved by the story behind Leda and the swan.
He reread the saga. There seemed to be so much in it… this ancient myth from a foreign land. He pondered over both the violence and the sensuality of the thing. He was amazed at the duplicity of what took place in such imagined events. He was tempted to write a short piece, a short story, if you like, to bring these happenings into modern day life. Was he dealing with politics or economics or some other area of human endeavour that lends itself to any lack of scruples? As was so often the case, his choice of setting was hampered by the multiplicity of it all. Could a modern version of something so fantastical and captivating, yet quite lascivious, do justice to the original. He had to ask himself whether this topic should be treated with any degree of respect.
As for the swan itself, such a beautiful and gracious bird, what had made the fantasist choose this to be symbolic of those dominant powers that sway such social actions, and come to bear so heavily on the lives of people? The writer asked himself, what is this lovely creature being made to actually represent here? Does this old story from a time where myth and legend played such a prominent role in men’s affairs need to be dealt with, after all this time? He thought for a while about the relative importance of dealing with such things.
Should his simple style of writing about events that are based on common day-to-day matters that influence the lives of everyday people be given preference? Does this approach in fact take on a relevance and significance that in itself is more in keeping with everyday life?
He thought about the swan.
Was he prepared to go there?
His answer. No.
He had come out of the train station and was waiting for a cab when the incident occurred.
He was about to go forward as the taxi pulled up, when he saw the woman struggling to walk. She was on crutches, with her arm in a sling. He stood back and held the door open for her. She was very grateful for the gesture and thanked him as she clumsily climbed in. Before heading off into the heavy traffic, the driver also made a comment about him being a proper gentleman. He had to admit, he felt rather good about the whole thing. The next one came almost immediately. He quickly settled down and watched, as was usually the case, how the traffic became so much lighter as they made their way out of the city.
Meanwhile, as the cab made its way across the city the woman in the taxi, being an MI5 agent, divested herself of the disguise, putting the sling and crutches on the seat beside her as she franticly pulled out her phone. She had followed the terrorists to the train station and had seen their faces and where they had hidden the bomb, but they had slipped away. She needed to report. Her part of the assignment was done. Now it was up to her to phone in the location so that they could send in the bomb squad.
She needed to get back to headquarters, where she could identify the criminals from mug shots, enabling the police to be on the lookout for them. As fate would have it, she had only just managed to dial her boss when the taxi collided with an oncoming vehicle. Her head hit the cab’s side window frame and she fell back on the seat, unconscious.
Meanwhile, her boss heard what he thought was the bomb exploding. Getting no response from his agent, he had his people triangulate her phone’s signal to get a fix on the explosion. He informed the police of the bombing and sent teams of agents out to the site to search for her and to assist where possible.
Several police and emergency vehicles turned up at the already busy crash site, only to find the woman agent, still unconscious, being transferred to a waiting ambulance, along with a badly injured taxi driver. Time passed and there was no sign of it being any kind of bomb site, but police and ambulances remained as a precaution, and several streets were cordoned off. It was when they were putting up the last of the barricade tape that they heard the massive explosion some distance away across the city.
When he watched the news item later that evening, the man who gave up his seat in the taxi, had no idea that it would have been much better for everybody concerned, if he hadn’t.
He was about to eat when his phone sounded, he looked down and saw it was from her.
He sat back and stared at the screen. What was this? Was this going to be an apology, he wondered? He certainly deserved one. He thought about the others that were there at the time. They had all been embarrassed by her behaviour. It wasn’t as though she was drunk, as far as he could tell. Maybe she just felt strongly about it, which anybody could have, he supposed. After all, it was in all the papers and being discussed by anyone who had a view about it. It was the way she just blurted it out in such a crude manner that took everybody by surprise. Well, no, more like shock, really.
His finger hovered over the delete button.
He supposed it could be seen as nothing more than a peccadillo, as his father used to say. On the other hand, there were five other people that were made to feel very uncomfortable by what she said. He sighed.
Finally, after much thought, he made up his mind.
He would read it…
He was new to the district and wanted to check it out.
He knew this girl had a leaflet delivery round and thought it would be good to tag along. After two hours of covering four blocks, lots of streets and countless houses, he felt he knew the area fairly well. He had a thorough look around from up on the girl’s shoulder. He particularly liked the garden two streets over from where they started. The elderly couple on the front porch were both smoking, that meant tobacco, and he thought he could make out a chocolate wrapper. It would do nicely.
Being a saw-toothed grain beetle, the non-flying kind, he’d hitch another ride tomorrow and drop off.
She had a suspicion that things would have to change.
He was still looking at her with those puppy dog eyes. She looked away. As she had predicted, she was sure things were going to get awkward.
“You’re very quiet this morning,” he said.
‘Am I?” she said.
“Yes, you are, you seem a bit distant somehow.”
“I’m fine thanks, really,” she gave him a faint smile.
“That’s good. As long as things are, well, you know, still OK.”
She became annoyed. “I don’t know what you mean. Sure I’m OK. Why shouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged with a look of embarrassment. He leant forward. “It’s, you know, like I said, you seem a bit distant. Let’s face it, it’s not the same is it, between us, I mean? You don’t seem to want to talk anymore. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, you look away a lot. I don’t know if it’s something I’ve done or something I’ve said.” He sniffed. He looked as though he was going to cry.
She looked around and let out a long sigh.
“OK,” she said, tapping the side of the barista’s machine. “Just a cappuccino, thanks.”
She’d really have to find another café, she thought.
The boy running across the park caught his eye.
He made for the large oak tree on the far side that had lost most of its leaves showing its great network of branches. He watched as the boy made the first heavy branch and sat for a while looking up. The gap to the next was considerable and the lad had to stand up shakily on his branch to get hold of the one above. He continued to climb for several minutes, finally straddling one of the highest branches. He just sat there for a while looking around. The watcher knew that he would have a marvellous view from up there.
Then, very slowly, the climber came down. When he reached the ground the watcher felt like clapping, but he wasn’t very good at it. There was a sadness about the watcher.
His mother says goodbye to her friend and approaches. She grabs the handles, saying, “Time to go, sweetheart.”
He pushes the brakes off, and he is wheeled away.
He was in the back garden when it came to him.
It was an instant revelation. One moment it was not there, and the very next, it was! The truth of it came so abruptly into sharp focus that it was almost overwhelming. Nevertheless, there it was, as plain as day. It was quite simply the answer to it all. It was the reason for life on Earth. It explained the existence of the cosmos and the part that all living things play in it. It was the key that, by its very nature, would unlock every conceivable mystery. It clearly laid out the answers to all questions that were ever posed by philosophers throughout the ages. It was the solution to everything that needed to be solved. It was, in itself, the reason for everything.
It was the ultimate panacea.
Unhappily, he knew that without the power of speech he was not able to pass any of this on to other earthworms.
His favourite canned soup had been out of stock in the various shops they had tried around town.
It was perplexing and they figured it had to be one of two things. Either Mulligatawny soup was so popular that supply couldn’t keep up with demand, or the complete opposite, so few people were buying it that sellers didn’t want to give it shelf space. Whatever the reason, it had been unavailable for several months. They were at the shops again and he was passing the time reading the notices on the board, while she shopped. It was mounted on a wall in the main entrance hall of the shopping centre. The thing was there as a convenience for any member of the public to post adverts or personal messages. In the main they consisted of business cards, with a sprinkling of personal notices offering things for sale, together with the occasional lost pet.
It was this last category that caught his eye. Anyone that had a missing animal would give a description of it and a telephone number. In those cases where the person preparing the notice had thought ahead, a series of paper tabs, each one giving a contact number. These tabs could be torn off and kept, just in case. The one he was staring at wasn’t about lost animals or lost anything. In fact, it was hard to see what it was about. The message, if that’s what it was, was a set of strange hieroglyphics and symbols that conveyed nothing to him. It was the tabs that had him wondering. He estimated that there had originally been around twenty, with most torn off. Instead of telephone numbers, they were words. The three that remained were ‘Luck’, ‘Fortune’ and ‘Joy’.
Whatever it was, he found it amusing. He couldn’t help wondering what the other tabs had said. After all, luck, fortune and joy would have to be hard to ignore. He decided he’d take one for fun and was tossing up between luck and fortune. Being pretty much content with the life he had, he could give Joy a miss. Fortune was tempting, but luck was somehow more intriguing. He removed the tab and pocketed it as he strolled to the entrance of the supermarket. He stood waiting for several minutes before spotting her at one of the checkouts. When she finally came out she surprised him by stopping half way. She put her bag on the floor and rummaged through its contents. Then with a great all-knowing grin, she held up a can and waved it in the air.
At that moment, much to his wife’s surprise, he dashed back out into the foyer and tore off ‘Fortune’.