This was not a pregnant pause. The sense of expectation was something altogether more profound and powerful. For most watching, it was like the moment when a giant firework screams upwards into the midnight sky at New Year, drawing every eye and inspiring the mind to speculate upon what exciting and marvellous spectacle of explosive beauty could follow in the moments to come.

There was a preternatural hush. The unsound of every breath held in anticipation, and for a few scant seconds, time was suspended into tableau. From forth movement, activity and life there was birthed a stillness which transformed the instant to a photograph captured by the camera of every eye present. Something wonderful was about to happen, a culmination and catharsis which was both long expected and yet in the moment surprising.

Standing alone in the middle of this captivated audience I felt only clammy nausea. The cold, sickening churning of dread in my stomach, seemed to drop like lead as if I was in a high-speed lift going down fast. This was akin to standing before the darkened radar screen of an air traffic control room and watching two points of light merge into one, flaring more brilliant, the second before it blinked out forever.

But, as everyone else there present, in that moment I only had eyes for Roxanne.

She looked ethereal in profile, like an antique watercolour. Her hair the living copper shades that Titian craved, her face damask, skin with the softened radiance of fine porcelain or bone china. I could not see her eyes, they were not fixed on me, but I knew they would be as compelling as the sea, the colour of the Mediterranean, neither blue nor green but some special tone that ascended beyond those both and was all her own.

She wore white, a symbol of purity, innocence – and sacrifice. For a moment, when the red fell against it in a liquid splash of violent colour, I felt as if a blade had slid into my own throat and I couldn’t breathe from the pain.

Then she spoke and time returned.

Roxanne was smiling. People sighed, words broke the mirror of silence and there was even clapping as she lifted her hand to show the ring and cup the ruby pendant her fiance had just slipped around her neck,  so she could see it better. In seconds she was surrounded by a thicket of family – mostly female – and friends – exclusively female.

The sea of well-wishers, oblivious to my presence, washed around me like an incoming tide and my isolation deepened. It took me a while to realise that I was still breathing, that the world was still turning and that the painful constriction in my throat and the cold knot in my stomach were invisible to everyone.  I became aware that for someone in that moment the centre of the universe was not Roxanne. Someone was watching me.

I did not need to shift my vision very far. He was close, very close, to where Roxanne was holding her impromptu court. Her fiance. His lips were addressing words to her fawning father whose broad back was towards me, but his chilling blue gaze rested on me.

They held no trace of triumph, no gloating superiority – in fact, no real emotion at all. All they contained was the cold dispassion of menace – a statement not a threat. This was not a battle lost, a campaign defeated. This was the end of the war. I had lost everything and had no hope. Life itself was without meaning. I was nothing now and despair settled into me, it’s vulture’s beak ripping the soul-flesh from my heart. Then, abruptly, the ice blue eyes shifted away from me and, dismissed, I turned, left the room and walked out of my own life.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

He’d been planning it for weeks, deciding what to cook and choosing a day she would be visiting anyway. It was their regular Friday evening wind down for the weekend, chilling with a box set and a bottle of wine. Usually, it was ‘order in pizza’ day, but today it’d be special – his meal, candles, flowers and the ring, of course.

He was just discovering that flower arranging was a lot harder than it looked, when the phone rang. 

“I need to tell you I’m seeing someone else…”

He put a ready meal in the microwave and ate it alone.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Ponies and Progeny or the graceless art of equine management as envisaged by the pen of Jane Jago and inspired by the genius of Norman Thelwell (1923-2004)

Today we consider the talented rider…

***** ***** *****

Agnes had been the Easter Bunny for so many years now that even the teeth didn’t bother her. Way she looked at it one day of frantic egg hiding beat three hundred plus in any other job.

Okay, maybe the belly and the ears weren’t exactly attractive. But hey, she coulda been a flower fairy condemned to droop around dressed in bits of colour and freezing cold for most of her life. Or, even worse, the tooth fairy. The very thought made her gag. Picking up rotten bits of children’s mouths every night. 

No. All in all chocolate was best….

Jane Jago

Sometimes we walk the edges of reality…

A scream went up which penetrated soul-deep, the sound shaking the very foundations of the underworld and the roof of the cavern began to fall. Stones, dropping around her and the low rumble that presaged its final collapse. Then Annis was there, gripping her wrist..
“How did you know?”
Something was gone from her, as if a horror had passed and she looked more child again than feral being. Jessica pulled her close into an embrace, as if her own weak flesh could protect the child from the collapsing cavern. Eyes closed they clung together.
“It’s alright,” Annis was saying, her voice almost happy.
The rumble faded like summer thunder and Jessica became aware of a slight breeze on her face. She was standing with Annis and the two huge cats in an empty field, under the fading stars as dawn was breaking. Her car was pulled up nearby, beside an open gate. Jessica’s phone played a few bars from Dvorak’s ‘New World’ and she reached to answer it without thinking.
“Jess, I’ve been worried about you.” Uncle David’s voice sounded as if it belonged to another life, in another galaxy. 
“It’s – it’s alright. I’m alright,” 
“Your Aunt was sure you were in trouble, you know how she is. Ever since that Roald didn’t show up for dinner.”
“Yes, Look, I’m coming home. I had engine trouble. I’ll be back soon.”
“Long as you’re alright, lass.”
She put the phone away and looked back at Annis. The girl was bending down, grabbing at something gleaming in the grass.
“I think you should keep this,” she said, holding out the necklace of silver ammonites.
Jessica took it and for a moment she had the fleeting sense of Hild, smiling and she realised she felt whole again at last, more fully herself than she had done for a long, long time. She undid the catch and slipped the necklace around her neck to lie on her breasts, Then she turned her attention back to Annis, her indomitable young friend.
“Thank you, I don’t know how you got us out of there.”
Annis shook her head.
“You not understand, we not there. Never. It never happen. You – unmade it.” She reached out and kissed Jessica quickly on the cheek.
“I thank you. You take demon from me – free me. Make it never happen.”
“I – I am not sure I understand,” Jessica said, but then she was not sure she understood any of it. “What happens to you now?”
Annis smiled and it was the saddest thing Jessica had ever seen,
“Nothing happens to us Jess. We died before we were born. Only we never knew we was dead…I am just a dream of hope in the darkness.”
As Jessica watched, Annis and her cats grew more and more insubstantial until she could see them no longer. She thought she felt small fingers and a rough tongue on her cheek until the morning breeze blew even that away.

Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is available from Amazon.

Things that make us go poop…

Granny and the ‘ladies’ darts team of The Dog and Trumpet alphabetically collate their collective contempt for the inhabitants of the twenty-first century.

Right, before we go any further the obligatory sensitivity warning –  this is about sex. You know the activity – where some version of Tab A being shoved into Slot B occurs. That having been said I make no effort to pretty up the subject. So those of a virginal, celibate, or easily offended nature, or those under the age of consent, should stop reading now and go away. You Will Be Offended if you read on.

And now to consider the pros and cons of rude things under the sky….

Given that most people between the ages of sixteen and, say, sixty will harbour a secret desire for alfresco nookie, I feel it is incumbent on me to dispel a few myths.

Romance – It always sounds kind of romantic when some country singer is mooing on about making love in the moonlight. And I guess it may be okay in the Ozarks – they have plenty of room. In Clapham it’s less delicate delight and more amateur dogging.

Sensation – Dirt between the cheeks of your arse is abrasive. Stinging nettles sting. (As a female I can attest to the fact you have never laughed until you have seen a naked man prancing about a moonlit field clutching his knob and screaming for a dockleaf. But I digress.) And whatever kind of a prick does it for you, thistles up your nethers won’t help. 

Oh and. On no account allow yourself to be tempted onto a moonlit beach. If dirt is abrasive just think what sand can do. Sand forced into your delicate places by something resembling a piston wrapped in glass paper. Ouch. (Apparently A&E departments in seaside areas have special fanny douching nurses.)

Temperature – Unless you are lucky enough to live in some balmy tropical paradise it will be cold. Cold enough to ensure that the male half of the equation will have to be about his work quickly before Mr Willy decides its cold enough so he needs to go home.

Privacy – That secluded forest glade. How secluded is it? Will you be making love in the tender grass watched over only by the moon? Or. And this is the most likely scenario. Will you open your eyes to see you have collected: two joggers, three Boy Scouts, one man with a bicycle and a head torch, one man in a greasy macintosh whose hands are suspiciously hidden, and your brother and four of his mates? You are never going to live that one down.

In conclusion alfresco hide-the-sausage is most definitely not what it is cracked up to be. Besides which, if you are a yummy mummy to be, how the feck will you explain calling the fruit of your loins ‘Dogging Area to the Rear of Sainsbury’s Car Park’. It doesn’t quite have the ring of Brooklyn does it?

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Jane Jago

Mum and Dad have been taking in traumatised kids for as long as I can remember. When they couldn’t have any more children after me and my sister, they decided not to moan about it. Instead, they put their energies into helping the less fortunate. We got used to little ones who had been beaten, or starved, or treated worse than dogs. But when Billy came along it was hard not to cry because of what the poor little blighter had been through.

I remember asking Dad how anybody could treat a little kid like that. He looked at me soberly.
“Honestly? I don’t know. All I know is that we have to do our best to mend him.”
And so we did.

We all knew the drill well enough to ignore his peculiarities, and not push him or impose ourselves. At first, it seemed like each tiny step was agonisingly slow, and I sometimes caught a look of almost despair on Mum’s face. But then Billy seemed to start understanding that he really was safe. He began sleeping in his bed instead of crouched in the corner. He started to eat proper food instead of baby milk from a bottle. He even smiled every once in a while.

The one thing Billy didn’t do was talk. Come to think of it he hardly made a noise at all. He never cried or laughed, and if he sneezed or burped he looked so frightened that we soon learned to pretend not to hear.

It was Mum’s birthday, and she wanted to go to the aquarium. So we all went. It’s a funny place, full of soft blue light, and while most of the kids ran around from window to window Billy stood watching a tank full of jellyfish, touching the glass with gentle fingers. My sister went and stood behind him, and he actually leaned back against her.
“Look, Billy,” she said gently, “custard fish”.
Billy made a funny rusty little noise, and it came to me that he was laughing. Mum grabbed Dad’s hand and held on real tight. My sister put a gentle hand on Billy’s head.
“Whipped cream fish?”
He turned to look at her, and in a tiny, creaky, rusty little whisper, he explained where she was going wrong.
“Jellyfish.”
Then he hid his face in her sweatshirt while she stroked his hair.

And that’s how a Portuguese Man of War gave Billy back his voice.

© jane jago

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

In leaving it, the earth was lost to me.
My heart twisted back and forth, between anguish and hope, anxiety and excitement. Yes, I was abandoning friends and family forever, but that was in order to embark on the greatest adventure humanity had ever undertaken.
The thrusting acceleration marked the moment I departed the womb of humankind and became isolated, cut off. Drifting in infinity, regrets and doubts whispering their woe to my innermost being.
Then the screens filled with images of the world we were heading to, beautiful beyond belief, and I fell in love with my new home.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Ponies and Progeny or the graceless art of equine management as envisaged by the pen of Jane Jago and inspired by the genius of Norman Thelwell (1923-2004)

Today we consider good communication between rider and mount…

***** ***** *****