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Summer brings a Christmas of memories:
Mobile library, Shell petrol station, the slideaway, The rope, the camp, lollies, walking to Dalton, The suitcase prepared - In the event of nuclear warfare. At the windowsill, Reading the Tron novelization, Return of the Jedi soundtrack On the alarm clock cassette radio: ‘The Battle of Endor’ The smell of cut grass, sports day gone, Birthday to come, Going to bed and there’s daylight glowing from the ceiling. Thinking: Why can’t it be this way forever? And the cut grass answers: It’s gone.
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 This is the first draft of a novel which I have decided to publish on the blog chapter by chapter as a work in progress. Any comments, suggestions, etc will be much appreciated. It will only be up temporarily.
I can remember an exact day. It was April the Fifth, 2015. It was Easter Day. I had been invited round to a barbecue – a grigliata – at a friend’s house in the village. They knew I was on my own, I had no family and few friends and so I was frequently invited to get-togethers especially when it was on a holiday. Initially, I’d made excuses, but it got so it was more awkward and embarrassing to get out of these things than to simply go. Most the time I ended up enjoying them.  This is the first draft of a novel which I have decided to publish on the blog chapter by chapter as a work in progress. Any comments, suggestions, etc will be much appreciated. It will only be up temporarily. When I wake up, I can hear the cars passing on the road below the hill. They make a sound like tearing paper. I can hear the sound of a horse in the triangle field. I can hear the thud of the hooves on the turf. She is being put through her paces. I hear her gallop, and then slow as she approaches the hedge and turn at a walk and then gallop again across the field. I can see it in my head. I can hear the twigs of the branch scraping at the slates of the roof. A job to be done. Take that branch off with a chainsaw before the next gale force wind turns the twigs to prying fingers, capable of damage. We lived to see our kitchens become unfashionable,
Stood in showers carefully checking our testicles and tits, For lumps While the furniture around us turned into the wallpaper From our parents' young photographs, Our memories became bigger Than our plans, Our Christmases were mostly In our pasts, We wheezed When we laughed But it never stopped us Laughing In our unfashionable kitchens.  Two men with guns killed a bunch of people, nine in the US Church shooting at Charlseton, South Carlina and thirty eight on the beach in Tunisia. Both men were fuelled by hateful philosophies that reduce the value of human life of certain prescribed groups and renders murder a moral act, worthy in their eyes – and the eyes of their sympathizers – of heroic status.
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AuthorJohn Bleasdale is a writer. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Il Manifesto, as well as CineVue.Com and theStudioExec.com. He has also written a number of plays, screenplays and novels. Archives
March 2019
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