To Will and Cait

 

                                                                  The Indigo Children

To Will and Cait

Wordcount 1595 words

By Ross Ian Fleming

Once upon a time there was a busy little sperm called Bluey and the very first thing he ever felt was a deep happiness that moved him from Marvin into Mary and all that his tiny heart knew was that he must now swim and so he swam and he swam and he couldn't stop swimming and he didn't look behind him he didn't look before him he just wiggled his wiggle and looked to the future he didn't know where the future was located but my goodness he knew forward was the way to go there were no words there was only the soft pink shadow that changed colour as he got nearer and he was so excited that he was winning the race and kerboom he landed with a lovely sound on the outer surface of Pinky and then he dived down towards the heartbeat of this lovely soul and he found her inner child lying sleeping there at the bottom of the pool and so he tenderly, gently lifted her up and in that beautiful moment the heart of Bluey fused with the soul of Pinky and a kind voice from The Above said I christen you Mauve it’s your true and proper name and Mauve remembered this throughout the rest of the time he spent inside as he transitioned through old wrinkled monkey to aqua-aerobic dolphin and basic beginners then finally fully fledged flying flamingo and after this full to bursting set of interesting episodes he became the centrepiece for Mary's stork party where by mistake her waters broke when she laughed at Marvin's joke about getting a brain transplant and Marvin had to rush the pair of them one inside the other to the maternity ward but she was only three centimetres dilated and so Marvin brought Mary home and she relaxed in the bath with a glass of rose but Margery came storming into the bathroom and started using words like dangerous and dry-birth and oxygen-deficiency and brain-damage and foetal alcohol syndrome and all these words meant nothing to Mauve he just quietly waited for someone to tell him when to come out but nobody really noticed that he was waiting and they all continued arguing regardless and then next thing he knew someone was shouting Push and then he did a cartwheel and saw the light at the end of the tunnel and floated down to the bottom and all he knew was an urge towards the light and then there came the sudden shock as his warm unused lungs experienced cold oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide otherwise known as air and he coughed to clear his throat and shouted Hi I'm Mauve  it’s my true and proper name pleased to meet ya but nobody realised what he was shouting about and so they slapped him around a bit to bring him to his senses and then he slept on Mary's boob her milk hadn't come in yet but it was a happy place with her heart beating close to his and he started to settle down and his breathing slowly steadily gentled into a rhythm and his heart calmed and he was glad that that little experience was over and right there and then he resolved to tell the whole story to his best friend at his first birthday party he couldn't wait but then sadly he forgot and the story stayed untold until today.

It was late in the day and Merve was a long way from home. He had missed the bus back to Goodwood from Cape Town. The kids shouting Merve, Merve the Mongol Perve had distracted him and he had lost his ticket and so he had realised that he would have to walk home. He was now in Kenilworth trudging along 2nd Avenue when he heard the words Help Me glug glug come over the wall. Being in grade 6 he realised that sometimes one must act to save a life and so he sprung onto the pedestal where the cat statue still to this day stands guard over the corner of Smith Street and 2nd Avenue and he looked over the wall. He spotted a little stream of bubbles in the water of a kidney shaped swimming pool now I don't know what shape swimming pools are in your country but in this land where Merve lived they were kidney shaped. God is a mysterious being with a deeply ironic sense of humour and in the country where you are living he may make swimming pools of every shape and size and colour but down here in Cape Town every pool is kidney shaped and coloured deep midnight blue. All will be revealed when you visit us here but just trust me. Kidney shaped pools, deep blue, are the way to go.

 

So Merve jumped the wall and dived into the water and took a quick breath and swam down to the bottom of the pool where he found a little toddler dressed in a pink tracksuit saying Penny FartingH and the Purple People - her seamstress mom was slightly dyslexic-- resting on the floor of the pool so as gently as he could he took her in his arms and swam her to the surface and got her into the recovery position on the poolside and softly got the water out of her lungs and then he just as calmly checked her breathing and pulse and was very, very happy that she was alive. Just then a huge St. Bernard called Mad Marmaduke came round the corner and padded towards him and licked his hand. Normally Mad Marmaduke would savage the ankle of anyone who came onto the property and bark in his deep masculine voice and scare the living daylights out of them but today he held his peace and welcomed Merve into the family with lickies and love.

 

If you have ever wondered how Japanese pearl divers manage to hold their breath under the water for long periods of time, you are not alone.  In fact, never dive alone is the refrain of one lullaby that has been used by the Ama mothers for over 3000 years. Or certainly for as long as Maruna’s grandmother had been around.

 

Maruna had been told from a very young age that she would, in her 21st year, discover a hugely valuable pearl in an unlikely place and bring great beauty into the world. Well so much for the prophets of the city. This is just what you might expect from a bunch of old fogeys who spend their days resting on their recliners instead of partying hard, was her  humble opinion. Maruna was intent on living life to the full and drinking deeply of the draught and having a total blast. Prophecy schmoffecy was her angle.

 

Mauve had spent three years making moolah in Hollywood after Penny's rich but slightly  dyslexic mom had paid for him to go and learn. You saved my daughter’s life. Go. Have a ball.

High functioning Down Syndrome kids had prime position on the requirements lists for actors there. He was bright. He had a future. This trip to Tokyo  was his reward to himself at the end of a frantically busy year. He looked over Tokyo Bay and along the side of the fishing boat he was privileged enough to be able to charter. As he looked across at the stunning view of the bay he saw a similar charter boat at rest next to a jetty and as he glanced across he saw a young girl about to be mugged. As he watched her, two men knocked her over the head and took her cell phone and flashing pink peak cap and quite unceremoniously pushed her over the side and into the waters.

 

Without thinking Mauve threw his wallet and cell phone to Miko, his helmsman and dived into the beautiful warm water. The boat wasn't going terribly fast, and he was quick to reach the spot where the girl went under. He gulped air then dived downwards. He felt around in the darkness and found her slender wrist and gently pulled her close to him then brought her to the surface. His chartered vessel had circled back and Miko pulled them both onto the deck. Merve put her into the recovery position and gently coaxed the water out of her lungs until she opened her tired eyes and met the midnightblue gaze of Merve anxiously watching her.

The joy just bubbled out of him and he remembered ‘I'm Mauve. It’s my true and proper name pleased to meet ya’ were his first words to her.

‘Hi Mauve, my name is Maruna, and it’s really cool to meet you, too.’ Mauve realised  that Maruna was the friend he had meant to discuss everything with at his first birthday party. He now remembered everything. ‘There is so much I need to tell you,’ said Mauve, and Maruna totally, totally understood and they began to chat the day away. Miko, who was sensitive to colour,  watched this little performance and realised there was a gentle indigo, purple, pink, blue, mauve, maroon circular bubble  that was growing around the boat and the surrounding sea and that the two kids were the centre of this slowly expanding circle. They had always listened to the same music from the very beginning. It was meant to be.  The first thing Mauve  taught Maruna was how to swim. My Goodness I never realised it was so easy she laughed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children

 

My short stories

More good news - won the June 2024  my writing journey  competition.

Last year I came 2nd in the world for the SA Writers College short story competition! 

Read the story here .

The judges wrote some beautiful comments. To be heard is akin to being loved. 

It is good to celebrate together. 

Here is my September 2011 winning entry for my writing journey 

A fun bit of writing from wayback is Waitin' for Fuzzy - I won the 2008 SA Writers' College Short Story Competition with this

Me on Guitar and sister Bianca on piano here

Rindicella

Rindicella was a good girl.

She didn't kiss on the first date

She was always home by curfew

She ate healthy foods

She studied hard for matric

She listened to her mum on all conceivable occasions

When she cooked a lemon cake she always followed the recipe

She would save her smarties for later, thereby proving to all that she could delay gratification

She deserved a nice Jewish boy who would tie his laces dutifully, tithe his ten percent, devote himself to her upkeep, and massage his mother in law's feet instantly on request

Everyone agreed she would bring home something special one day.

Raski was a juvenile delinquent of the most atrocious habits

He lived in the castle on the hill and never ever listened to his mother

He would lie baking in the sun most mornings and drink fanta grape even when his mother said get that child out the sun he's headed for skin cancer

He would cut his laces short because he was so uncoordinated that he would trip over them, then not bother to even tie them and blow smoke rings at his father when he insisted upon some levels of decency in his home

He would borrow his aged mother's gold card to buy Cadburys whispers and petrol to visit the book exchange and never ever brush his teeth.

All in all a rotter to the core.

Jehovah was and still is the God of the eleventh hour deliverance and had been keeping a beady eye on these two children since they were babies

He also had a divine sense of humor, which as all of the compassionate mothers know, is the key to good matchmaking. He was hanging around the pearly gates with st Peter and cracking jokes about who was in and who was out this year when a red Volksie beetle shot into the drive thru

Without paying. St Peter's reaction was to shout WTF which in heavenly language means "want the falafel?"

Yes dear children, Rindicella had snuck in to heaven and out again without paying for her falafel.

Raski at the same time was deep into the latest Booker prize and as usual reading while crossing the road. Let me not tell you of Rindicellas steering skills but One thing and another Rindicella and Raski ended up eating falafel at a late nite teetotallers pub on the verge of known civilization. They found they both liked it crispy but not too overdone

The beginning of a long term long range long budget movie had kicked into gear. To cut a long story short Raski trimmed his toenails and his vocabulary and reading habits and everybody pulled in, or did they pull out? Whatever, in and out, up and down and around about and in the twinkling of an eye Raski and Rindicella had a brood of the most imaginative rascals.

They named their brood the Rindicella and Raski Rastafarian Rubbishes. This was to satisfy a codicil in uncle Bertys will that Raski be always referred to as that Ruddy Rubbish, but he turned it into a joke and insisted that he always take out the garbage on Monday mornings.

God is good.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Next instalment once the hangover has lifted.

PS Jules and Caits and Grandads gifts are hidden beside the chimney

Merry Christmas

Love

Ross, Dad

Garden Angel

Garden angel

A connoisseur of the formally informal handshake,
Usually I gloss, grip and release,
Quick eyecatch, then it’s business as usual.

Chronic avoider of the most distracted kind,
Often missing names first-off,
I normally duck and dive,
But the day I  meet you,
Something shifting and warm
Under your twinkle moves,
A quiet laughter, gentle, amused,
And I understand gay,
Though I'm as straight as Nelson's column,
And I laugh too,
Just for the sheer joy of the morning,

And as the twins respectfully watch the upended lawnmower being coaxed
back to health,
We all find a graceful ease from your mystical, faraway Lake Malawi
Overcome the household,
Birdsong somehow more audible,
The light, different?

Even the lady of the house
Has a kind word to say
about your way with weeds
And, cynic that I am,
I find myself humming,
thoughtfully, almost consciously
'And did those feet, in ancient times...'

 

Digging

Digging

Of all of the passionate poets
Who ever engaged, held, or released me
(Go on!)
In 40 years of intelligent adulthood
(Theatrically lights ciggy, ignoring looks)
The winner is an Irishwoman
Who engaged me with
(Blows smoke ring)
excitement, intrigue, interest
(Exhales ecstatically into space),
So I choose to replay a broadcast
Of my teenage experience
Of a lazy lilting lass
(Stubs it out and eyes reader thoughtfully)
On the edge of losing it forever,
As her deeper delving
Delivered me from my dull lonepain,
Picking me up on an
Unstoppable wave of ideas and associations  as
(Faraway look)
Her canny Celtic clevers carried me into
A universe of undulating understandings,
(Naughty blue-eyed smile)
This gift that would govern every poem or person
I would ever truly enjoy -

That longago catchup conversation with my Mother.

A spider converses with God

A spider converses with God

You the sun light up
you my eyes and warm
you my body and move
you my legs across
you my web towards
you little gnat and I bite
you delicious neck until
you the food go still and I spin
you the thread over and around
you the prey and I deposit
you beloved egg and
you another egg and
you more eggs and I sit still,

listening,

Waiting.


No selfishness, doubt or anxiety
just the certainty of you,
you
you.

When the heel, spray, child's stick comes
the you stops,
and becomes, finally,
finally,
finally,
Us.

 

The Child

The Child

There is a child
sitting in your lap
Right now.

Look down for a second
And she or he will
Meet your eyes.

You don't need to
Have given birth
Or suckled

Or even parented.
You don't need to
Be clever or special

In fact having a streak
Of ordinariness
Can help

In the recognition
Of the acceptable nature
Of the need to

Daydream and find
A house in your lap
Where the two

Of you can get to
Know one another
And be comfortable

And make tea not war
And play tiddly winks
And dream of

A fine day here
In the light of
This blue Planet.

Dulce et decorum est

Dulce et decorum est




As I lie here like a dead thing,

All of my simple needs taken care of

I am aware that my nappy is fresh and unsullied,

And that my milk bottle has been consumed

(What a big word for a 15 month old!)

And that it lies tucked just under my blanket here,

And that my comforter lodges, securely held above my tongue,

And it seems to be true of the universe that everything

Is in serene repose,

Although I am quite happy watching the light

Glance off the rotating fishes

In the sky.



There was a huge noise a while back

And I have absolutely no idea who could have generated such an unearthly racket-

But now all I can see is mummy's half-pulled-up rug

With her toes open to the elements

Her mobile vibrating silently while she snores

And granny wheezing breathlessly in the corner

And daddy collapsed on the carpet

My brother sleeping in his crook

And I have no idea why it has gone so quiet

Though I am beginning to suspect it could be

That we are all victims

Ambushed unawares by a couple of urban terrorists?