Every image has a story
She had been playing by the pond for many months, creating bridges, dams, harbours, sinking stones or fishing them out, but this winter something had caught her attention, something had appeared deep down, right at its heart.
It flickered… sometimes it was bright and shiny, sometimes dull and grey, sometimes it wasn’t there at all. Sometimes she looked and looked but it didn’t appear and sometimes it was there standing proud, staring right back at her, as if it was shouting ‘COME AND GET ME!’
You never know… People have got all sorts of stuff inside them, it’s hard to see, even when it all comes out. I suppose it is just all the bullshit they have consumed mashed into some weird ball of emotion. They push it around the place and the crazy thing is, as they move it gets bigger and bigger. I don’t think they even realise what they are going to do with it all.
But I suppose all you can do is help them carry it. You just gotta deal with other people’s shit.
Joe picked up the dandelion and a little milk spilled out from the stem, he looked at it, ‘the blood of the lion’, he whispered to himself twisting his head in acknowledgement. Thoughts about writing science fiction and fantasy sprung into life. ‘Real world situations’ how could they be transformed into fantastical elements that would bring a smile to readers faces. You know, the ones where the ‘rules’ in the fantasy world are created and then some real world application is given clarity later in the book. You put the book down and smile to yourself, nodding in appreciation. That’s a good moment he thought to himself. But milk from the dandelion… hmmmm maybe not.
He pushed the flower further away from the lens and clicked the shutter… then pulled his head back as the imaged flashed up on the lcd screen. ‘Wow…’ he sighed, ‘complex’. He pinched the screen to zoom in a little further, the seeds were beautiful, they fit perfectly into each other, one leaning on the next delicately touching the heart of the plant, holding on but not too tight. He smiled and looked back at the plant, blew and watched the seeds helicopter away with the breeze.
‘Hold on but not too tight’ he thought to himself.
Things moved fast, life didn’t change much, but there never seemed to be a moment to pause. There was always someone to chat to or laugh with, and you were always close to them, parked up next door or across the road. You could drive somewhere else, but inevitably someone would turn up and then play would resume.
The funniest times were when crews with children turned up, two little rat-bags running around the wild, covered in dirt, but beaming with smiles. It was great to see them play, their imaginations were alive, their toys broken but ingrained with evidence of many stories.
It made me think about our own family, maybe we were all just a bunch of big kids and moving fast wasn’t such a bad thing, maybe it kept our own imaginations alive.
We were promised everything. It had never happened to me before but we walked into the room, ready for a fight and… There was no resistance, no maybe, no we will think about it, no no’s! Just yes… It was unerring.
Before we went into the meeting we had discussed what we were willing to give up and what we wanted to fight for, but when all of those things were granted, I have to admit, we were a bit weak asking for more, timid. But they granted us more anyway. We were basically promised the world, so we gave in, we just accepted that all things were going to be great and signed.
And it was not like they didn’t deliver, for the first three months we couldn’t believe it, we were given everything that they promised, all the tools we needed and all the extra resources we asked for, we were swimming in luxury.
But then it changed, however it was not them who changed things, it was us, we had been drowning in the good stuff and it was suffocating. We just didn’t have any fight, any edge, we lost our spark, our willingness to think creatively, we just expected things to be there in place and for people to get it.
We had it so we expected everyone else too as well. But that’s not how it works. Some people out there are still fighting, searching, they have the edge. We were just stuck in the honey pot with all the others who have it, or at least think they have it.
I just had to look and my mind wandered
‘Sometimes you forget the little things’.
‘What are you talking about’ Sarah said
‘You know sometimes you forget to look, you’re so focused on where you are going and where you should be you forget…’
‘Oh be quiet… come on we have to get there before the shops shut’
‘You know sometimes the ugly things are the most interesting’
‘I think you are ugly… now come on’
There was a pause as the girls looked at each other, a playful frown growing across Jo’s face, then they laughed.
‘Not as ugly as you’ Jo replied and with one last look at the undergrowth they set off up the hill Jo looking over her shoulder only once at the purple flower she left behind.
Life From the Dirt 