Tales From The Town #157: A Postcard From The Depths Of Space

The Picture On The Postcard

A sea of stars, and in the middle a tiny little spaceship all alone out there in the vast infinities of space

The Writing On The Postcard

Out here in space sleep forms 99% of your life.

The sleep of boredom and tiredness
of stasis
and time dilation

Endless sleep
without even the solace of dreams

The Reaction To The Postcard

“That postcard came from space!” said Daniel. “That is so cool.”

“I don’t think it actually came from space, Daniel,” Tina said.

“But imagine if it did!”

“I think it just came from wherever all these other postcards keep coming from,” Tina said, as she held up the other ones they’d received on and off for a few weeks now, about things like mysterious towers, abandoned shops, cats, castles, forests, days.

“Maybe they also came from space,” Daniel said hopefully.

“Nothing came from space, Daniel,” Ethel said. “Not unless Nanny sent us some liquorice from the moon again.”

“Well they must be coming from somewhere,” Daniel said, thinking as hard as he could. “And… from someone!”

“Very cleverly deduced, Daniel,” said Tina.

“But I wonder who they’re from…” Daniel pondered, ponderously.

(“They’re from Dad, aren’t they?” Ethel said, quietly. “Definitely Dad,” Tina said even more quietly somehow.)

“I suppose we’ll never know,” Daniel finally concluded. “It’s a mystery.” He looked at the latest postcard again one last time (definitely his favourite postcard). “A space mystery!”

“Dad’s dead,” Claire said, stomping into the room from wherever it was in the house she’d been stomping about before. “And his postcards are all stupid.” She snatched them up out of everyone’s hands. “And I am ILL!” She threw them all on the floor and stamped on them. “And this is the worst week ever!”

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Notes:

1. The space poem was written on May 10th, 2024
2. And the rest was written on May 14th, 2024

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Tales From The Town #105: Unscheduled Weekend Away

Hana spread her wings and let the breeze take her where it wanted, floated away until the town was indistinguishable from the city, from the sea, from the forests and the fields, the sky, the clouds, the stars.

Closed her eyes, let the sun turn everything red, and didn’t open them again until she was on her way past the moons, halfway to Mars.

Maybe Jupiter if she missed her stop.

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Notes:

1. Written on March 20th, 2023

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Tales From The Town #74: Surveillance Tapes (27-30)

27: Playground (break time)

“Who are you?” Tina asked the new girl.

“Who are you?” the new girl asked Tina.

“Tina,” said Tina.

“I’m called Tina too,” said Tina. “I can’t believe we’re both called Tina.”

“Everyone’s called Tina,” said Tina. She pointed round the playground. “Tina, Tina, Tina. And she’s Tina, and she’s Tina, too.”

“What about her?” the new Tina said, pointing to the only other girl hanging around outside.

“Oh she used to be called Tina but she changed it,” said Tina, rolling her eyes. “She’s called Teena now.”

Tina looked at Tina in confusion.

“With two E’s,” Tina clarified.

“Oh right,” said Tina. “How pretentious!”

28: The Beach (lunch time)

Antoine: How’s everything back at the house?
Agnes: Fine, fine. (pause) Actually, it’s pretty awful. Well, not awful, but, you know, there’s lots of weird things going on back home.
Antoine: New rooms again?
Agnes: No. Well, yes, but it’s not that. It’s the unsettling sort of weird. Strange phone calls, things going missing. Sometimes I keep getting the feeling we’re all being watched. And now today all the dolls disappeared. That was pretty weird.
Antoine: I thought you hated those dolls.
Agnes: Of course I don’t hate the dolls. They’re just… You have to admit they’re a bit creepy, right?
Antoine: I always thought they were sweet.
Agnes: Yeah, you would, I suppose.
Antoine: How are the kids?
Agnes: Oh they’re fine. Last week someone gave Claire some Wotsits. She went bright orange and started babbling about the future apparently. Then she threw up everywhere.
Antoine: Oh no. Is she okay?
Agnes: Yeah, she’s fine now. Worse than ever. But still… At least they’re back to school now, I suppose. Man, the summer holidays are so long…
Antoine: At least it looks like it might rain later. Finally wash all that summer away.

21: Detention

“What did you do?” Claire said.

“Nothing,” said Carolina. Carolina was a whole year older than Claire. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Claire. She sat down on the piano at the front of the class room with a big discordant clang. “I never do anything wrong at all. Ever. I don’t know why I’m here at all.”

“Me neither,” said Carolina. She came over and sat down next to Claire with a smaller, higher pitched, discordant clang. “I’m the best behaved girl in the whole school and they’re all jealous.”

“I’m the best behaved girl in the whole town,” said Claire, proudly. She swung her feet back and forth and kicked the stool over.

“I’m the best behaved girl in the whole world,” said Carolina, as she swung her arms round and smacked the little pots of sunflowers off the window ledge and onto the floor.

“I’m the best behaved girl in the whole universe,” said Claire, as she jumped off the piano and stamped in all the mud they’d just spilt.

“What are you two doing in here?” the head mistress asked from the doorway.

“Nothing!”

22: Kitchen (after school)

Agnes: Look, I’m sorry everyone, I know it’s Friday, but I can’t find my purse. I think I might have left it in the cafe at the beach. Well, I hope I did, cause otherwise I don’t know where it is. So all I’ve got is… a pound. You’re going to have to share.
Claire: I don’t want to share. I got home from school first, so I should have it all to myself!
Ethel: You didn’t get home first.
Claire: I did!
Tina: We all got home together.
Claire: I rang the doorbell. That means I was first.
Ethel: We even waited for you while you were getting told off.
Claire: I wasn’t getting told off. I was getting told on!
Ethel: That’s not even a thing.
Claire: It is!
Ethel: It isn’t.
Tina: Anyway you weren’t first. Ringing the doorbell doesn’t mean anything.
Claire: If I hadn’t rung the doorbell no one would have answered the door and we’d all still be outside in the rain. We might all be DEAD!
Ethel: No we wouldn’t be.
Tina: It’s not even raining.
Claire: Not now. But it was. And I WAS first and that means I definitely should have all the money and you should all have nothing!
Agnes: None of you are having nothing. Or all of you are having nothing. It’s your choice.
Ethel: And she wasn’t first, Mum!
Tina: We were all first.
Claire: We can’t all be first. You might as well say we were all last when we all know Daniel was last because we ran ahead and left him.
Agnes: You shouldn’t run ahead and leave anyone. You’re supposed to come home together.
Claire: Well he shouldn’t have been spinning round and round on the spot and refusing to move then!
Daniel: I wasn’t spinning. I was rotating. Like the earth. Or the moon.
Claire: The moon doesn’t rotate. It just stares at us like a great big gruesome eye!
Daniel: You’re a great big gruesome eye!
Agnes: Daniel!
Claire: I am not! And even if I was a great big gruesome eye I still got home first.
Ethel: You didn’t!
Claire: You didn’t! I did.
Ethel: She didn’t, Mum!
Claire: I did. I definitely did.
Agnes: Actually, I think I’m going to have to agree with the others here Claire. Sorry.
Claire: But Mum! I really did. No one else rings the doorbell as loudly as me. Or as long.
Agnes: I know that, Claire. It’s not that, though. It’s more the, er, philosophical nature of the debate.
Claire: The what? I was first and that’s that.
Agnes: Look, how shall I put this. Okay, as we were just talking about the moon. Who was the first person on the moon, Claire?
Claire: I don’t know. Selene?
Agnes: What?
Claire: You know, Selene. She was born on the moon.
Agnes: I see. Well, I’m not sure she could have been the first person on the moon if she was born there.
Claire: Selene’s Mum then.
Daniel: The first person on the moon was Noel Wrongson and the second person on the moon was Fuzz Buzz Buzz.
Claire: Fuzz Buzz Buzz? You’ve made that up, Daniel. Mum, Daniel made that up!
Agnes: Well it doesn’t matter what their names were, Claire. The point is that actually they were both the first person on the moon. Who the first person to step outside doesn’t matter. Because they were in the spaceship together and they’d already landed on the moon by then.
Claire: So who was the first person to step outside?
Agnes: Neil Armstrong. But that’s not the —
Claire: See! Someone’s always first and someone’s always last. And I was first and Fuzz Buzz Buzz was last and that’s that. Now where’s my pound, Mum?

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Notes:

1. Written in May, July and September 2022

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Beneath A Kaleidoscopic Sky: Episodes #1-#8

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Notes:

1. These were made on May 13th, 2022
2. But written in January/February 2022
3. Initially as scripts for actual cartoons
4. Based on this animation
5. Which was to be the title sequence
6. But unfortunately I did not have the necessary technical skills to actually make that happen
7. And so here we are

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Other Worlds

I would quite like to live on a planet
where the people are pianos
and they play each other
in increasingly intimate ways

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Notes:

1. Written on 11th May, 2022
2. I should have included this in Places In Space at some point really
3. But god knows how I’d ever have been able to draw it.

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

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Thank you!