Tales From The Town #165: A Postcard From Deep Beneath The Sea

The Picture On The Postcard

Jellyfish illuminate the murky depths. There is nothing else to see.

The Writing On The Postcard

Beneath the sea there’s another sea and beneath that another, each one as distinct from the other as the land is from the sky. And beneath even that there’s the true surface of the earth, as alien to us and as unknowable as whatever it is that waits below the clouds of Jupiter, whatever it is that still sleeps and dreams in the heart of the sun.

The Reaction To The Postcard

Tina: “Dad’s kind of strange really, isn’t he?”

Ethel: “Very strange.”

Daniel: “Maybe he’s a merman now!”

Tina: “He’s not a merman, Daniel.”

Ethel: “He can’t even swim underwater.”

Daniel: “So how is he even breathing down there at the bottom of the sea with all those jellyfish he’s friends with now?”

Claire: “He’s not breathing down there because he’s dead!”

Tina: “Claire can you please stop saying Dad’s dead. It’s very upsetting.”

Ethel: “And we all know he isn’t dead at all anyway.”

Claire: “Well he might as well be! And we definitely don’t know that at all, Ethel. For all we know he’s been dead for weeks.”

Ethel: “Then how come he’s sending us all these postcards?”

Claire: “He obviously sent them ages ago. And then he died before they arrived.”

Daniel: “Because he sent them from SPACE! And UNDER THE SEA!”

Claire: “Exactly!”

Tina: “And also a nearby town.”

Claire: “Which town?”

Ethel: “One that’s almost but not exactly like this town.”

Claire: “That could be anywhere!”

Tina: “What about the one he sent us from the castle?”

Ethel: “And that one he sent from the woods? The woods aren’t far away at all!”

Claire: “What castle? Which woods?”

Tina (pointing out the window): “That castle! And those woods!”

Claire: “Yeah well maybe he forgot to post those ones until he was already in space. And then he died AS he posted them. And that’s why he forgot to sign his name to the bottom of them OR put a date on them to say when he posted them. It would also explain why that one’s all covered in blood.”

Tina: “Actually I think that’s just jam.”

Claire: “Why would dad cover his postcards in jam?”

Daniel: “Maybe Dad lives in the toaster now! And also the postcards pop out of the toaster when he’s written them! And then they land in some jam for some reason.”

Ethel: “The reason is because Claire spilt all the jam because she drinks it straight out of the jar like it’s a milkshake.”

Claire: “I do not!”

Daniel: “I do!”

Claire: “Daniel! You’re not supposed to admit it!”

_____________

Notes:

1. The postcard was written on May 16th, 2024
2. And the reaction to the postcard was written on May 22nd, 2024

Tales From The Town #164: Tales From Other Towns

What did they believe in down there, in those other towns that were so different from our own? What did they do over there?

Everything, nothing.

They took pride in things others took for granted, took for granted what others took pride in. Kindness came as easily as cruelty. Love as often as indifference. They fished and farmed.They bought and sold. Gifted and gave, stole and hid. Some sang songs so beautiful they could make a stranger cry, some told stories so crass and vulgar you were ashamed to ever hear them, couldn’t bring yourself to look the teller in the eye.

They lived, they died.

That’s what they believe in down there, in those other towns that are so different from our own. That’s what they do over there.

__________

Notes:

1. Written in May 2023

Tales From The Town #163: An Amazing Aggregation Of Articulate Assessment

“Accessary,” Tina said.

“Ooh, let me think,” Daniel said, tapping his chin with his finger as he thought very carefully about his answer. “9.”

Ethel scribbled something down on the book her and Tina were reading and nodded in agreement.

“Accumulation,” Tina said.

“Hmmm,” said Daniel. “8.”

“WRONG!” Claire shouted from across the room. “The actual answer is 13!”

“What actual answer?” Ethel said. “You don’t even know what we’re doing!”

“I do!” Claire said, throwing her hairbrush on the floor and then running over so she could loom authoritatively over the others. “You’re playing “how many letters does this word have“. And the answer is that accumulation has 13. A. C. C. U. M. M. U. L. A. T. I. O. N.”

She counted the letters off with her fingers and then finally also Daniel’s fingers.

“We’re not playing that,” said Daniel, taking his fingers back under his own control again.

“We’ve never even heard of that,” said Ethel.

“And if we were playing that, the answer would be 12,” said Tina. “Accumulation only has one M.”

She showed Claire the relevant article in the dictionary as proof.

“Not when I spell it it doesn’t,” said Claire. “And anyway, that’s still closer than Daniel’s answer. So I still won.”

“But we aren’t playing that,” Tina said again. “So no one won.”

“We aren’t playing anything,” Daniel said. “We’re reviewing. And I gave “accumulation” 8 marks out of 10!”

“You’re reviewing… words?” Claire said.

“Yep!” Daniel said. “Straight from the dictionary!”

“But… ” Claire said. “But… WHY?!”

“Daniel’s looking for a new favourite word,” said Tina.

“He’s totally over abyss,” said Ethel.

“I never want to see an abyss ever again!” said Daniel. “Or smell one.”

“Well how about boring, then?” Claire said. “Or stupid? Cause that’s what this game is!”

“We’re still on A,” Tina explained.

“So those words are (2) absolutely (7) anti (6) appropriate (5)!” Daniel said, holding up the requisite number of fingers as he said each A word.

“Anti is not a word,” Claire said. “It’s a bit of a word.”

“You’re a bit of a word,” said Ethel.

“Yeah, well you’re not even a word at all,” said Claire. “You’re just air!”

“That’s only a 2,” said Daniel.

“If we were playing by my rules it’d be a 3,” said Claire.

“But we’re not playing by your rules,” Tina said.

“Because your rules are annoying,” Ethel said, holding up 6 fingers.

“At least then the answers would mean something,” Claire said. “Instead of being Daniel’s opinion.”

“What’s wrong with Daniel’s opinions?” Tina asked.

“Everything,” Claire said. “And we all know it.”

“Only because we’ve made a list,” Ethel said, pointing to the annotations they’d made in the dictionary. “Otherwise we wouldn’t know what Daniel thinks about… acciaccatura!”

“10!” Daniel said, with alarming alacrity.

“You don’t even know what that word means,” Claire said. “What’s the point of rating a word on how it sounds?”

“It’s really fun to say!” said Daniel. “Acciaccatura! See?”

“You don’t know what it means AND you don’t know how to say it,” Claire said, even though she didn’t know how to say it either. But it definitely wasn’t how Daniel said it, she knew that much.

“Also, ‘an acciaccatura is a very short appoggiatura’,” Ethel read out loud. “So now we all know what it means.”

“11!” Daniel announced with astonished adoration. “I wish I was an appoggiatura!”

“You probably are,” Claire said (apoplectically). “You probably all are!”

“Claire, you can’t just end every conversation we have by shouting at us,” Tina said.

“I can,” Claire said. “And I will.” She stood up on tiptoes so she could see over the top of the dictionary and then tried to read it upside down. “Accordionly! So THERE!”

__________

Notes:

1. Written on May 21, 2024

Tales From The Town #161: Stinkhole

“And where do you think you’re all going?” Claire said as she caught the others trying to sneak out of the back door. “You better not be going somewhere without me!”

“Out,” said Ethel. “And you can’t come, Claire. You’re ill off school.”

“Not any more I’m not. It’s the weekend,” Claire said, already putting on her boots. “So where are we going, then?”

“We don’t know,” said Tina.

“We’re just following Daniel,” said Ethel.

“We’re going to see the stinkhole,” said Daniel. “It’s brand new!”

“The what?!”

“The stinkhole!”

“You just made that up, Daniel,” said Claire. “There’s no such thing as stinkholes.”

“We think,” said Tina. “That Daniel means a sinkhole.”

“No, I mean a stinkhole,” Daniel said.” A stinkhole is a sinkhole that stinks. And this stinkhole stinks so much that if you smell it at all you die INSTANTLY!”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound likely,” Claire said, as she finished tying her shoelaces. “I mean, if everyone died as soon as they smelt it, who’d be around to know that smelling it killed you? Cause everyone that had smelt it would be dead!”

“Ted said,” Daniel said.

“And…?”

“And Ted doesn’t have a sense of smell,” Daniel explained. “So he survived.”

“Oh right, that actually makes quite a lot of sense,” said Claire, putting on her sunhat and following the others out of the door. “I still don’t know why you’re so excited by a hole, though, Daniel. Holes are rubbish. Like the well. Or Dad’s boring cave full of stupid crabs.”

“I dunno,” Daniel shrugged, before finally giving in to all his excitement and sprinting off towards the fields behind the garden that went up towards the cliffs which was where the stinkhole supposedly was. “I just want to see what it smells like!”

“Last one there’s a rotten Claire!” said Ethel, as her and Tina ran after Daniel.

“You can’t see smells, Daniel!” Claire shouted after them, indignantly. “Hey, wait, how are WE going to survive?”

But whatever her misgivings, Claire still trudged off up the path behind the others as they made their way towards the stinkhole and all that it promised to be.

___________

Notes:

1. Written on May 19th, 2024