tales from the town

Tales From The Town #88: The Ever Growing Urge To Do Something Else Other Than This

Claire could have been watching TV. She could have been sat on the wall. She could have been shouting at everyone. She could have been throwing rocks in the lake. She could have been pretending to be one of the dolls. She could have been eating. She could have been writing poetry while no one was looking and then scribbling it out and pretending she had never written any poetry at all not ever she was too good for poetry it didn’t deserve her. She could have been holding the cat in the dark beneath the second lot of stairs and planning her revenge. She could have been doing cartwheels in the park. She could have been having a bath. She didn’t want to be having a bath but she could have been having a bath it’d have been better than this. She could have been throwing a ball against the wall over and over again until someone told her to stop. She could have been bursting balloons. She could have been stamping in the mud in her wellies. She could have been stamping in puddles in her wellies. She could have been stamping on people’s toes in her wellies. She could have been pushing people over into the mud and then stamping in a puddle in her wellies. At the same time. While laughing.

But she was pretending to be ill so she didn’t have to go to school so she couldn’t do any of those things at all because she was too stubborn to stop pretending to be ill and go and do any of them at all.

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Notes:

1. Written on January 1st, 2022

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Tales From The Town #87: The Very Best Idea Ever

“What if,” Claire said. “Instead of going to school, we just didn’t go to school? Like ever again?”

At first Claire thought the silence that followed was because everyone was in awe of her great idea, but then it turned out that Tina and Ethel just didn’t understand it all, the idiots.

(Daniel wasn’t listening.)

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Notes:

1. Written on December 7th, 2022

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Tales From The Town #86: The Very Last Page Of The Book

It was always blank, the very last page of a book. Tina found this almost incomprehensibly sad. She always had. She always will. The sort of sadness that if you tried to explain it would simply dissipate away as soon as it left your lips, like your breath in winter. The sort of sadness that if you tried to alleviate it by filling all that emptiness in with words of your own would only get worse and worse until you could not look.

So she treasured it for herself. Her own secret sadness. It was nice knowing it was there. She could look at it whenever she wanted to. Look away when she’d had enough.

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Notes:

1. Written on January 1st, 2022
2. This is the last chapter of the pointlessly palindromic sequence started here.
3. 30 odd tales ago.

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Tales From The Town #85: The History Of The Well

The well wasn’t always haunted. But it had always been a well.

It is an echo of that which happens above, shaped by all the things it cannot see.

It’s as young as the rain, younger than clouds, newer than children, more recent than sleep.

Its memories are memories of the memories it once remembered itself. It longs. It yearns. It needs. It wants. But for what it does not know.

The well is a mouth that feeds on old bones. The well is a prison that is impossible to escape. The well is a hole even blacker than our hearts, even deeper than our despair.

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Notes:

1. Written on 29th March, 2022

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Tales From The Town #84: On The Nature Of Excitement

1. It’s going to snow. It’s not snowing yet but’s going to snow this evening. We don’t care if you don’t think it’s going to snow, Mum, because a boy at school said it was going to snow and his mum’s a farmer and she said you can get snow in November, Mum, you can. It’s going to snow before dinner it is and if it doesn’t it’s going to snow during dinner you’ll see, Mum, you’ll see!

2. It’s going to snow. It’s going to snow this evening once it gets dark and we’re going to sit here and watch out the window until it does and even then if it doesn’t snow this evening it’s definitely going to snow tonight while we’re asleep and then we’ll wake up and there’ll be snow everywhere and it’s going to be so amazing, Mum, it’s going to be just like Christmas, not real Christmas but pretend Christmas from a book! It’s going to snow in the middle of the night and when we get up and look out the window it’s going to be like we’re on the moon.

3. It’s going to snow. It’s going to snow today, Mum, while we’re at school, and we’ll be in the classroom and we’ll see it snowing outside and we’ll all run to the windows and watch it and it’ll be like being in a film, Mum, and then we’re all going to go outside and play in it and throw snowballs at everyone and make snowmen and and and igloos! and we’re going to crawl inside the igloos and pretend to be penguins and eat snow just like real penguins and it’s going be the best day ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever everve evrevevrveevevevevevevevevvevvvvevvev

4. It did not snow.

5. It was never going to snow ,was it?.

6. Not now.

7. Not ever ever ever again.

8. Stupid snow.
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Notes:

1. Written on the 18th and 19th of November, 2022.

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