a gift from above

Edith lived alone. All her adult life she had lived alone and was very much content with the silence of solitariness which pervaded her cosy bottom-floor flat. She had neither radio nor television, she has neither a phone nor a computer and she had never owned a pet (not even a goldfish.) Edith passed most of her time polishing her very extensive collection of glass ornaments which pleased her very much.

Mr Greenbaum lived in the flat upstairs. Old age had left his legs almost entirely useless, even accomplishing the short trip from his arm-chair to the bathroom and back required much deliberation and strain. Hour after hour he sat in his favourite arm-chair, sometimes just thinking, sometimes trying to remember people's names, places he had visited or things he used to know. Yet most of his time was spent sleeping. Sometimes day would roll into night and then turn to day again and Greenbaum would sleep right through the transition. On one fateful occasion Greenbaum fell into one of his deepest sleeps unaware that he has left the kitchen tap running.

Edith had just finished polishing her most favourite glass elephant. She had been extra cautious to make sure she got into all the nooks and crannies round is beautiful retroflexed trunk. On finishing she took an upwards glance at her ceiling, ‘that’s funny,’ she thought on noticing an extremely ominous shadow spanning almost the whole length and breadth of her ceiling. Then she heard a crack followed by a lot of creaking. Edith began to panic, ‘by gum what on earth is happening.’ Before she could gather her thoughts any further a colossal smash resonated and water, dust and a Mr Greenbaum fell down from above. Greenbaum’s arm-chair crashed through the plaster and landed squarely in the centre of Edith’s sitting-room floor. Edith removed her dust coated glasses in disbelief, ‘Good gracious’ she said aloud. At that moment Mr Greenbaum woke up and timidly introduced himself.

After a while Edith got used to this new arrangement and was content to allow Greenbaum and his arm-chair to remain where they had landed, in the centre of her front-room.

On the bus everyday to uni I pass a block of sheltered-housing flats for old people. I was thinking how lonely it could be in those wee one person-flats and that's when this little story came into my head.

Happy Days

Sometime one day I lost my tomorrow. I bet Frank £200 that I could run up the stairs to level eight faster than he could get there in the lift. Turned out the lift was functioning uncharacteristically fast that day and Frank beat me there.
‘£200 please? He said.
In hindsight the bet was a thoroughly ridiculous idea. It was Frank who had initiated it. ‘But I don’t have £200 Frank. The rent’s due this week and it’s my mum’s birthday. I just can’t pay that.’
‘Well time is money,’ said Frank, ‘you’ll have to pay me with your time.’
‘How much of it do you want?’
‘Your tomorrow.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes’
‘Well can’t I give you my yesterday, it was really good me, Gareth and Sue had a picnic in the park then fed the leftovers to the ducks.’
‘No, I don’t want your yesterday. That’s been used already. I want your fresh, untouched tomorrow.’
Frank is good at arguing his point, he has very persuasive eyes and he clasps his hands together when he is talking with the sincerity of a priest in prayer.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I suppose you can have my tomorrow, but don’t waste it.’
‘Excellent!’ said Frank. And that is how I lost my tomorrow. At the time I didn’t realise that there are always tomorrows. Every day has one and every day becomes one. We never specified which tomorrow I would lose to Frank so since then I have been in a perpetual today. I’m poised somewhere unsettling in time where nothing progresses, nothing changes, everything is now. I am now. Concepts are growing hazy, words like "seconds," "minutes," "hours" rest on my tongue like foreign words; merely sounds with the meaning behind them fading. Soon there will be nothing.



started out as funny story but by the time i got to the last wee bit things became a tad bleak...i can't really think of a way to give it a happy ending...so i will just leave it with its grim gloomy end :)

Examerama

I walked into my exam hall today and found my way to a seat that looked most pleasing to me. Near enough to the back that I felt far enough over the door threshold to have fully committed myself to this exam, yet not too far as to feel peripheral. On settling myself down I noticed that everyone else in the exam-hall was me. Calculating that if the probability of a given outcome to an event is P and the event is repeated N times, then the larger N becomes, the likelihood increases that the closer, in proportion, will be the occurrence of the given outcome to N*P, then the probability of one of me passing was pretty good. On looking down at the paper I realised that the questions were all written in my hand-writing and on closer inspection all the answers were in fact filled in as well. Well that’s convenient I thought. Reading over what was written confirmed that these were my practice essays that I had written the day before; all perfectly transferred into the exam booklet. However, on reaching the end of the paper I realised that there was still a question left incomplete. Pfft I thought, the last one is always the toughy. I braced myself and read over the question:
Robert Burns was situated at a pivotal time in Scottish history both politically and linguistically, being profoundly influenced by the vernacular revival of his predecessors Fergusson and Ramsay yet also foreshadowing the lallans ‘plastic Scots’ movement of MacDiarmid; while also writing after the 1707 Union of the Crowns. Please colour-in the picture of Burns, Ramsay and Fergusson below, keeping within the lines....


if ONLY my exam had actually been like this!!!!