The Lie-in, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I shivered beneath the covers, aware of the horned fellow with cloven hooves beside my bed.

“Make it quick, foul demon…” I said, defiantly. “If it is to hell you wish to take me.”

The strange, little creature laughed. “I’m not the devil.”

“Then who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Tumnus, the fawn.”

“A fawn?”

He nodded. “Haven’t you read the Chronicles of Narnia?”

I had.

I breathed more easily. He was not beelzebub, he was a fawn; and I was not going to hell, although a sojourn to warmer climes had begun to appeal.

Inspired by Nature

Man is a lucky creature indeed. We won the evolutionary arms race, a triathlon that started in the primordial soup, then grew legs and ran a foot race out of Africa, before ending with the invention of the wheel. Once clear of our nearest competitors we became the lords of our kingdom, developed an intelligence that sets us apart from every other creature on the planet.

Take for instance the butterfly. It struggles for life over four events, not three: egg, lava, pupa, and then adult.  And it’s prize for completing the race, though majestic and graceful, is short-lived.

Man, as a self-conscious entity, observes this struggle and paints the butterfly’s bitter-sweet existence with brushes and pens – which makes you wonder why a creature so disposed to creation also has such a propensity for destruction.

Seven Doors

 

            It was a cold January day and there was nothing to do. The usual drivel was airing across the morning TV schedules, and it would be hours until my flat-mate Benny was home.

I had to get out, do something with my time off.

The sky was grey and it couldn’t decide whether to rain or snow. I trudged through the sleet, to the flea market in Camden Lock, and spent a couple of hours browsing through a second-hand bookstore.

Boy was there some junk in there. I mean, who’d pay a pound for a copy of the Hound of the Baskervilles that’d been knocking around since 1902? Not me, I can tell you. Nope, I fully intended trading that pound with Ronald McDonald for a hamburger.

Christmas Eve – a haiku

Rest now sleepy head

for dreams are fast and fleeting

wrapped in tinsel gold

The Snow Kingdom (part 1)

The Snow Kingdom

Peaks of ice-capped mountains

in the distance slowly climb,

long ago the winter came,

gripped this land for all of time.

Frozen wastelands bordered by

an endless sea of ice,

Serene, bewitching, guileless climes

beneath cold-blooded skies.

 

Father Time

I ask for no intrusion,

give no welcome here.

The hour is late,

Or mayhaps not.

 

Time plays on in timbres unfathomed -

that orchestra of woe,

winding wood and brass face;

a metronomic bomb

 

swaying

back and forth;

tick-tock – from dawn of time,

back and forth,

through rhyme and minuet,

forth and back -

the pendulum chimes,

into oblivion

and…

 

“The End is nothing to fear,”

they say -

read the scriptures, say your prayers

and virtuous death awaits.

 

…funny how you live your life

believing in a lie.

I see forever now,

fading into view,

crystal clear,

variant truth -

all but a breath away.

 

(C) Darren Hawbrook

This was another stab for Free Write Friday, which is hosted over on Kellie Elmore’s blog here. If you want to try and free your inner voice I seriously recommend you give it a go.

The prompt for the piece was “Funny how you can live your whole life believing a lie,” which I may have cheated on, if only ever so slightly.

Fear of the Dark

With Halloween just passed and long dark nights upon us, it’s a time of year that really whets the appetite for things macabre and frightening.

Autumn is the season of long shadows and withering sunsets, grey days and sullen skies; a time to hunker down indoors, out of the cold, and allow the machinations of our mind to rattle at the windows like an ill wind.

So why is it that we like to be scared?

Abandonment

Nothing moves,

save the mould

and microscopic tentacles of decay

 

We sit and wait -

Watch the fabric of existence tear itself apart

Autumn Song

When leaves of autumn gold fall down,

nights draw in, and cold surrounds,

there is a fire within my heart

that burns away when we’re apart.

Apocalypse How…???

For many years writers and moviemakers have enjoyed bestowing terror on the masses with their predictions of Armageddon and apocalypse, but what are the chances of life imitating art?

I decided to look into the common themes and rate the chances of such events actually happening (Note: there is no scientific formulation to any of my ratings).

So, which scenario is the most likely?

Zombies

Dawn of the Dead – Universal Studios

Brains…brains…brains…okay, you get the idea. Zombies are rife on our TV screens. George A Romero kicked off the trend, and now the Walking Dead is a not to be missed TV show. The dead rise from their graves and start eating the living. With in excess of 7 billion people to go at they won’t go hungry, but could this actually happen?

Probability: 1/10

The Day After Tomorrow

The Day After Tomorrow – 20th Century Fox

Perhaps the topic that divides opinion the most: climate change, or in this case, extreme climate change. In this flick the weather does for mankind as the collapse of a huge ice sheet ushers in a new ice age. And there’s not a sloth, woolly mammoth or saber-toothed tiger named Diego in sight.