Terminal Station
He looked around the metro station, the same one he'd used almost daily for years. It was a lot busier today, but the crowds gathered without the usual pushing and shoving.
He glanced round at the various commuters and wondered what lay ahead for them. A couple of businessmen, a few children travelling to school for the week, the odd lawyer who'd decided to take public transport for a change.
This was a always a favoured pastime of his, imagining the lives of the people around him. Who would be getting that promotion? Who's hating every day at their job, yet unable to find anything better? Who's travelling into the city on their day off?
That's what he liked about the metro. Queues in particular: society's great leveller. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're going, we all start in the same place. The train doesn't arrive any quicker for a rich man than a poor man. It arrives precisely on time for everyone.
But not today, for some reason, he thought. The train was running late today. "If I wanted to wait this long I'd have taken the bus!" he chuckled. There was no reply, no one even noticed he'd spoken it seemed. "Typical, civility is a thing of the past, indeed!" he muttered to himself. Again, no one even looked at him. He gave up on trying to engage in any conversation and returned to watching the other people waiting on the platform.
He noticed a few of the younger passengers, schoolchildren mostly, with despairing looks upon their tear-streaked faces. 'Must be finals' week', he thought to himself, 'I remember the feeling.' If only they knew, it's just a couple of silly exams, it doesn't need to define their lives. Hell, he was never top of his class and his life turned out alright. He had a wife and a beautiful daughter, and he wouldn't trade them for a few extra letters on a piece of paper, or a few extra zeroes on his bank balance. He wasn't a rich man, but he was sure that he was a happy one at least. He thought about the other commuters, some of them much richer than him, but still waiting for the same train.
He heard a thunderous echo further along the tunnel. He stepped closer to the safety line in wait of the oncoming train. He took out his wallet and opened it to take out his metro card. That's when he saw it - the picture of them. Front and centre in his wallet. He knew now it was time to stop pretending.
He slumped back into his blanket against the platform column, held his head in his hands, and listened to the whistling and wailing coming from far above ground.
The Mole
There's a mole that lives beneath my pillow. Raising dirt beneath my head, he keeps me awake at night. It doesn't stop in the morning either, as I find him tunneling through my thoughts all day.
"Why can't you leave me alone?" I say to him, "I just want to sleep."
"I'm only trying to help you," is his reply.
"Help me? I haven't slept in months!" I cry out helplessly.
And with that, the tunneling stops for a while. Yet sleep still won't find me without a fight, the mole has traipsed dirt through my mind that I try to clear up. A pointless endeavour, as I only shift it from corner to corner, or sweep it under the rug.
His hills remain under my pillow, I don't know how I'll shift them. But at least he is quiet for now.
That is, except for a distant rumbling that I feel in my bones. It's only a matter of days before he comes burrowing back to the surface. Just like always.
Glorious English (A Script)
Li Jing: "So have you ever taught the children before?"
Ben Loach: "No I haven't, but I used to be a child myself."
LJ: "Great! That's almost the same. And how about your Chinese? Did you learn any before you came?"
BL: "Oh... just a few words, I didn't realise I would need it!"
LJ: "Hehe, it's fine. You'll seldom need it. Can you say something to me in Chinese?"
BL: "uhhh 你好，我叫Ben, 炒饭有吗？"
LJ: "Wow! It's so good!" [Walks over to the door] "天天啊！过来，来听新的外教讲中文！"
Liu Mengtian: [enters] "hello Ben, can you speak the Chinese?"
BL: "你好，我叫Ben, 炒饭有吗？"
LMT: "Wow it's so good! Maybe you won't need an assistant in your class."
BL: "Oh no no! It's really not very good, that's all I know."
LJ: "I think it's very good."
...
In a classroom down the hall, a broad and portly man enters.
Class: "Good morning, Mr. Lowe!"
Tommy Lowe: "Still Mr. Lowe, huh? Why can't I be Mr. High!"
Class: [stares at Tommy]
TL: "Can everyone remember the hello song?"
Class: "YEEEEESSSSS"
Everyone:
"Say hello to me,
Say hello to you,
Say hello to the tiger,
And the monkey at the zoo!"
TL: [dances like a monkey]
Class: [raucous laughter]
Everyone:
"Say hello to grandma,
Say hello to me,
Say hello to grandpa,
With his dodgy knee!"
TL: [walks like an old man]
Class: [Round of applause]
Everyone:
"Say hello to your friends,
Say hello to them,
Say goodbye to bad guys
Because they're not your friends!"
TL: [Scowls and shakes fist at the door]
Class: [Giggles and copies Tommy]
Sunrise
“Why did you move out east?”
“Many reasons, I was looking for something.”
“Does the chance to see the sun rise before others lie among these reasons?”
“Yes, I suppose it does.”
“But why? So others can watch that same sun fall later?”
“Only for it to rise on me again the next day.”
“Then? The process just repeats. Besides, are you using these extra few hours to achieve anything?”
“Of course!”
“Like what?”
“I... I can’t tell you, it’s not ready yet.”
“Can it ever be finished if you never start it?”
“How do you know I haven’t started it?”
“Because I know you, I’ve watched you, you don’t even see the sun rise as you claimed to be so important to you.”
“Just because I didn’t see it, it didn’t happen?”
“Well, no...”
“So just because I didn’t start, doesn’t mean I didn’t finish.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Something that is never started, is surely already finished.”
“How so?”
“Something has to be in a state of change to be declared capable of being finished one day. Therefore, if it’s never started, it can never be in a state of change, and is then already finished.”
“So an unplanted seed is a tree?”
“No, but it is a seed nonetheless. Perhaps it never had any ambition of being a tree. We may be given the necessary tools and traits to achieve a certain thing, but that doesn’t mean we have to.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t. But who seeks the shade of a seed?”
“None, I presume. But who seeks to taste a tree? Either way, who says our ambitions should be guided by the benefit of others?”
“It’s true, yes, but know that the capacity for you to have such ambitions is made possible by the ambitions of those before you being achieved. If every seed was already finished, there’d be no air to breathe.”
“Be that as it may, perhaps it’d be for the best anyway.”
“Quiet now, the sun is rising, isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Thanks, dad.”
“I’m not your dad.”
“Oh.”
A Beginning, An End
“Your sorry shortsword slew no dragon on my watch,” she said, her words as biting as the sword she spoke of.
“It drew no blood, I confess, though it’s an insurmountable feat when the dragon has been slain by every man across the land,” Berin countered.
“If only you spoke true, though I dare wager any other man would provide a finer opponent than you,” she scoffed, with no sign of dullness creeping into her words.
“Your tongue is sharp, my dear, perhaps sharper than the ears that bookend your head,” Berin replied.
“I am pleased to hear you admit that I possess something that you lack, a point,” she glanced at him, her emerald eyes burning, “yours expired when you sired our daughter, your one great feat, though I daresay she will grow to regret her heritage from you.”
“How can it be so that such fiery words eminate from a frozen heart such as yours?” Berin continued, “though I do believe the only regret she’ll grow to have is being unable to see you draw your last icy breath.”
With that, Berin’s wife stormed out of the cabin. ‘To the tavern again?’ he wondered, ‘shes done so a lot in recent weeks. One too many nights there, I reckon, and one too many knights!’ A clever riposte, if only he’d thought of it sooner. The self-indulgent smile brought on by his own wit quickly faded to a sudden realisation. For the longest time, he’d felt nothing but love in his heart for her, though now he could feel it laced with contempt for the first time. ‘Is this union worth preserving,’ he pondered, ‘if it shall only lead to more bloodshed as we sling arrows at one another daily? I dread the thought of my daughter being caught in the crossfire.’ He crept slowly, into her room, surprised that she had not been roused by the battle commencing beyond the door. He gazed at her for a while, his wife’s words still yet ricocheting around his mind. ‘Perhaps she’s right,’ he thought solemnly, ‘why ever would she be proud to call me father? Why, I’m but a lowly merchant.’
Lowly, as he may be, but alive nonetheless. Berin retreated to the central room, fixed himself a mug of ale, and proceeded to stare out of the window. Fixated on the horizon, wondering if there was something out there that could rekindle his quenched desire for life. Wonder, he did, until wonder gave way to sleep.
Define “Better”
"Have you started taking them yet?" She asked with a stern look upon her face.
"Not yet." He replied.
"Why not? Don't you want to get better?" Her words piercing the still Autumn air.
He thought for a moment, as if chewing the last mouthful of a meal, though now devoid of flavour, wanting to savour the last few minutes of rest before returning to work. Then he replied. "Define 'better.' This condition didn't come into effect with the diagnosis, did it? In which case, how long has it been going on? How much of me is a reaction to and a result of this condition? If I take it now, won't I stop being me?"
Her eyes lit with shock momentarily, then doubled back into the lucid glaze of misplaced concern. "Well, it could help, if you don't take it you'll never find out."
"And if I do find out, then it'll be too late." He shot back.
His hands twisted in the grass behind him. He knew she was right, but a part of him worried that he was too. They were legitimate fears he told himself. But were they really? If his mind is truly in turmoil, is he in a position to objectively appraise the extent of the chaos? Then again, it was his decision to go. He knew the outcome, and he'd expected it to be the case for a while. Nevertheless, things seem so much scarier when they have a name.
...
"Thanks for the talk last week, it really helped. I've started taking them now." He said sheepishly.
"That's great news!" She beamed. "Are you feeling better?"
"Define 'better'".