Tag: life

Water is Life

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He stood on the stage staring out at the crowd, not really engaging them with his eyes. But not ignoring them. Their eyes, of course were fixed on him, which is kinda unbalanced, but come to think of it even in one on one conversations you hardly ever stare into each others eyes for a sustained period of time. It gets a bit intense if you do.

He fiddled with the mic stand, smiled to himself and called out to the bar through the mic.

‘Ligo neraki parakalo’

The bar man fished into the ice cooler and pulled out two bottles of water, handed them to a friend, who walked them to the stage.

The singer smiled, opened the bottle and started to drink, the cheap plastic collapsed in his grasp and the water started to escape down his chin. He ignored the stream, put his lips back to the mic and spoke again.

‘Water is life… Nero enai zoei’

He threw the half empty bottle into the crowd, turned to the band, bounced his head and went at it.

It wasn’t till later that I started to think about it, his gesture didn’t really scream anything in particular, in the moment I was more captured by the comfort he had on stage, but later I thought about water, about plants and food and us and our everyday need for water. Our constant question of what we need to survive, company, love, friendship, laughter, food. Maybe in the simplest form, if you boil it all down, what we need is water. Water is life.

Think

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‘You know what your problem is don’t you?’

‘What?’ Jay replied

‘Well you think you are original, but you’re not.’

Jay laughed, a smile growing on the left side of his face and his chest bouncing up and down.

‘Why thank you’ he mocked in a classic British accent. ‘It’s so reassuring to know that your best friends believe in you.’

‘Listen’ James replied ‘it’s not that your ideas are bad, in fact a few years ago I did think what you were talking about was a little niche, you know on the edge of fashionable, but it’s true that now people are asking for all that interactive content.’

Jay butted in ‘so I am original then.’

‘Wait let me finish, even though you thought about monetising it before anyone else, doesn’t mean it was original’

‘Before anyone else’ he teased ‘sounds like o…rig…in…al…’ he sounded out like a school child learning to read.

‘But it’s advertising that makes you think of an idea first. We own your mind without you even knowing it.’

‘What are you talking about, you don’t own my mind. 100% original my brain.’

‘That’s what I mean, you are not, we seed your ideas into you mind without you even knowing and then let you think you made them all up yourself.’

‘Shut up James’

‘No I’m serious, we are everywhere, on your phone, first thing you look at in the morning, on the radio, tv, breakfast cereal, newspaper…’

Jay interrupted, ‘no one buys a newspaper’

‘Whatever… we are everywhere, you can’t deny it.’

‘But it doesn’t effect me, I just ignore it’

‘No you rebel against it, which makes you think another way we want you to think. You know classic love it, hate it, still talk about it.’

Jay was quiet and the two gazed across the park from the bench.

‘So how do you have an original thought?’

James waited, then started to answer and stopped himself paused a little longer and answered. ‘Hmmm… dunno’

A Little More

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Can you squeeze a little more out of what you have or do, or do you just replace it with something new.

With all the fun there is to be had can you live forever true.

But when you have sucked it all away the glass is empty, just buy a little something else to pick a new energy.

But it is true to say that if, you wait till it is dry there will be nothing left to inspire your inner eye.

So pack away the things you own and throw away the key, keep your eyes wide awake for the world’s simplicity.

Squeeze away, suck out the fun, drain all that it is there, please yourself, burn everyone, but don’t come crying when it is bare.

For the choice is yours, to drain to buy, the newest of the knew, the world has all the answers for all your questions true.

But remember when all is said and done to listen to yourself, ask yourself the question were you sheep or something else?

Spinning

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Around and around we went, the circle spinning, the feet, the steps all in time, methodical.

The music repetitive as the world vibrated with each pluck of the strings. All in a trance.

Earlier that day the steps had been practiced in the village at the top of the hill, quiet and shaded from the midday sun, there had been laughter as the novices had stumbled over their feet desperately trying to understand the steps.

But in this moment in the late morning hours of the night, the rhythm and the steps were natural. The body had learnt. The mind was not really there, there was no counting of the steps, no thoughts of what happened next, just the feeling of hovering in one’s own body. A shimmer, a vibration, a relaxation.

Sound, body, heat all meshed into one.

Something to Say

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At first when I saw her she looked fierce, she skilfully navigated her way in and out of the umbrellas with no more or less than a moment for everyone. When we spoke she corrected my Greek with a smile and moved on. But as time passed I noticed a softness behind her steely demeanour and then out of the blue as we passed on the stairs she spoke to me.

‘I saw your van, wooow… It’s amazing’

I blushed a little mind racing to find something interesting to say. ‘Thanks, it’s super simple though…’ thoughts rattled around in my head like a pin ball… was I sure she was talking about my van? Did she see Jan’s van? When? Fuck. ‘I like it, it’s cool, it’s got everything I need, but it’s simple, you know I don’t have a sink or solar… well I have… but…’ What are you saying? Shut up!! I shouted at myself.

‘I am thinking of buying a van’, she rescued me, now I had something to say.

Patience

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After you see the cat with the third eye you know that life is going to be a little different, how you are probably never sure, but for certain there will be a change.

It’s difficult to work out how much to take from the things you have seen, how much the clues from mother nature are of value to your choices, but there has to be something in it. The energy you take from pacha-mamma must affect you in some way, like the sun for plants, for every action there is a re-action, all the cliches.

Difficult to say, but the cat was beautiful that’s for sure and there seemed to be a clarity to the shapes and colours with current thoughts. I suppose you take a little of this and a little of that and hope you have the right balance.

Thief

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‘Right we got seven minutes.’ Sean said as they walked purposefully through the maze of shelves, using the light from their phones to illuminate their path to the counter. They jumped over and entered the office closing the door behind them. On a wooden desk they saw the safe perched precariously on top, a large dial and lock on the front. Sean handed Biola the scrap of paper and put the key in the lock.

‘read out the numbers’

Biola responded.

‘clockwise – 18’

Sean twisted the dial so the number 18 was in line with the red marker at the top of the dial where 12 would be on a clock.

‘Anti-clockwise – 33’
Again Sean twisted the dial, but this time in the opposite direction. ‘clockwise – 46’

The dial make a click as if something had released behind the door, they looked at each other and then Sean turned the key with the red tag in the lock. It ran smoothly, and there was a louder click as the heavy door swung open with its own weight and the angle of the desk the safe was sitting upon.

‘Boooom’ Biola cried as he peered into the safe, there were wads and wads of cash, it seemed like more than they had anticipated, it looked like something out of Ocean’s Eleven, it felt like Ocean’s Eleven, maybe they had more than they were expecting? Maybe they could all go home with 5K Biola thought.

‘Shhhhh’ Sean interrupted. ‘Pass me the bag’ Biola paused
‘The bag’ Sean demanded raising his voice a little.

Biola looked around as if he had dropped the bag, but he knew straight away that he had forgotten it, it wasn’t even in the car, he knew exactly where it was, he knew it was back at the flat on the sofa in Sean’s living room.

‘Sh*t man, sorry..’
Sean looked up at him, ‘you kidding me? You chump. F**k man’

But this was no time to despair, The clock was ticking and they needed a solution. Sean was thinking quickly.

‘Get some X-change bags’
‘From where?’ Biola replied
‘F**k knows, behind the counter.’ Sean guessed

Biola quickly responded walking out of the office to the area behind the counter. He started looking through the cupboards, nothing in the first, then he looked into the second, just a load of random stationary and plastic figures from cartoons and computer games that mostly came as freebees when new games came into the shop to help promote the new releases. Biola opened the third door and there was a stack of plastic bags neatly folded.

‘Yees bruv’ he called out to Sean, ‘How many do we want?’ ‘Bring two’ Sean estimated.

They stuffed all the notes into the plastic bags, the wads mainly in tens, a few twenties and some blocks of fives. The denominations low to reflect the value of the sales that the shop made to its customers.

‘Pikeys’ Sean murmured under his breath as if he was justifying the robbery to himself by creating a Robin Hood type of persona.

‘Right, lets go, check Tyrell is cool.’ Sean indicated as he pushed the safe door shut turned the key and picked up his bag.

The Shard

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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!’

Looking Up

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‘The eye gets used to stuff, the more you see of the same thing the more mundane it becomes.’

‘So are you saying we need a better angle?’

‘Yea, we need an unusual angle, but of something we have seen before.’

‘Ahrrr I see… a new perspective.’

‘Well I wouldn’t go as far as call it a perspective, but just so the image freshens the eye, or the mind… So you look at it, maybe even tilt your head, let your eye roam the image…’

‘Okay bird’s eye view?’

‘Yea let’s try it.’

Forever

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‘There ain’t no thing man, it’s like a constant movement, constant state of flux’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘There is no forever’

‘Shut up, you are just using words to try and say something controversial, forever has as much weight as a word as constant movement.’

‘Eeeeerrr well constant movement is two words for starters, and has more letters so for sure it has more weight.’

Tom sneered at Greg, he was always coming up with these weird and sometimes wonderful, sometimes not, impressions or cliches, but Tom liked it. Even if he did put him down all the time.

‘Look all I am saying is the road won’t go on forever… at one point it will stop, there will be a red light or a round about or simply a dead end.’

Greg was in full swing.

‘Okay you want to play that game… If we look at the road system all across the country I think you will find that they all connect in one way or another, therefore the road does go on forever.’

Greg paused for thought, ‘but it has to stop at the sea.’

‘Well hold on’ an idea popped into Tom’s head and he smiled, ‘take a circle would you agree that if we put a pulse, you know like the one in France that races around a circle…’

‘I feel sorry for that pulse, it must be so tired’ Greg interjected.

‘Shhhh, I am making a point… if we put a pulse into a circle it would continue forever.’

‘Well…’

‘Shut up’ Tom snapped, ‘I realise it will need force and all that but we are discussing forever, a circle goes on forever.’

‘Okay okay’ Greg agreed, he wanted to hear more

‘If we look at the road system as an interconnected forever circle, put a pulse through it, it would go on forever, despite the sea, all roads lead to London and all that.’

‘Hmmmm… I am not sure’

‘We need a map, I bet you all the roads in the country are interconnected. They have to be… Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get from A to B… I’ll prove it, get on the bike we need to buy a map… wheres the nearest shop?’

The boys got on the bike and set off Greg turned to Tom.

‘Mate I don’t think we will find a shop around here, this road goes on forever…’

The boys burst into laughter as they raced away.