Instalment One Hundred and Fourteen

The speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second.

The speed of sound at sea level is 340.29 metres per second.

The speed of grief is that of a glacier, grinding slow and languid, gouging gaping trails of scarring in its wake.

The speed of insanity is erratic and creeping.

The speed of insanity through a crowd is rapid and wild. Contagious, it consumes reason as tinder in its wildfire.

The speed of time is variable and is dependent on levels of happiness or sadness. Happiness does not have a speed as it is an accelerant. Similarly sadness is a retardant. They act upon time as the pedals of a motorcar act upon an engine, you however are not the driver, merely the gearbox, often ground down as time is roughly shifted between these two competing forces.

The speed of regret is exponential, as is its weight.

The speed of laughter arcs and crashes as a wave, all froth and foam, then scuttles away like the tide.

The speed of life is an equation of an individual’s exposure of the all these measures, as subtracted from an unknown constant X.

The speed of death is an endless and unbroken stroll.

Instalment One Hundred and Thirteen

The Earth one day, through no fault of its own, fell in love with the Sun. A shiny, blond beacon with fire in its belly and a glint it its eye, the Sun’s warmth was like a siren song to the cold and lonely Earth. Like all those in love, hopeless, unrequited love, the Earth coyly circled the object of its affection from afar. If the Sun was there, the Earth was likely caught in its orbit, hoping to be noticed, hoping the Sun would shine some affection down on it. What the Earth would have given for a beaming smile, or even just a simple nod, that would nourish the earth down to its very core.

Like a little lost dog the Earth followed the Sun around, and around, and around. Until one day the Earth noticed there were others, others fighting for the Sun’s affections too, some bigger and better looking. The Earth spun widely out of control.

The poor Moon, as far gone for the Earth as the Earth was for the Sun, could only reflect the Sun’s brilliance, a pale ghostly imitation that won it no favour, was left alone to moon over its lost love.

Instalment One Hundred and Twelve

“Mistakes are good as long as they don’t kill you.”

Those words rung in my ears. I was always finding Mistakes where there had been none previously, but they were all small, little things. Sure a Mistake might have tripped me up and left me scared, a red mark or two, but ultimately I had learnt something. They made me the man I am.

Mostly though I kept my head down, worked hard and did my best to avoid Mistakes.

But this Mistake, the one directly in front of me now, was the biggest Mistake I had ever seen, mean looking too.

I had rounded a blind corner down an alleyway late at night and found it standing there, waiting for me.

It grinned.

I stepped back.

’Ello, it said.

Whatever you want, I won’t do it, I said.

You already ’ave, it said, You missed all the good stuff.

What tonight? No I am a bit tired is all so I am calling it a night, I replied.

In your life, it laughed, you worked too hard, you missed all the fun.

I thought I was meant to, I stammered, I didn’t want to… I was afraid of Mistakes.

Instalment One Hundred and Eleven

"HUGS!?!" click to embiggen

Different things are created in different ways: Time carves mountains and worry lines, love breeds angels and monsters and hate multiplies hate.

The Rhinoceroos came to life through a simple spelling mistake. A slip of the pen, an accidental addition of a tiny O, which are more air than ink really, and a new beast was born.

Rhinocesroo, half Rhinoceros half Kangaroo.

Like all mistakes, Rhinoceroos were accident prone creatures with cheerful natures. They would hop across the savannas of Africa and the outback of Australia in mashes (mobs and crashes), frolicking joyfully, pounding the landscape pancake flat as we know it to be today.

There was nothing in this world they loved more than hugs.

It was their size that was the issue, size and the great big horn on the end of their noses. That combined with their perpetual desire for hugs caused trouble.

From across vast plains, one mash would spy another and the cry would echo, HUGS! Blissfully happy, each mash would charge the other in rapturous anticipation of impending embraces, their heads bowed, forgetting that they all had those damned horns.

So you will never see Rhinoceroos. They were killed by their own good nature.

Instalment One Hundred and Ten

Click to embiggen

The pen, the pen was the thing. She had never been able to write before she came across that pen. She knew how to write, of course, but she couldn’t write like she could when she held that pen. A pen that came at a cost. 

She and that pen, they told some stories, classics, the pen bringing them from her. And those stories brought her the world.

They would turn, in turn, a dull line to sparkling verse, polish a cliché to a gem, a groan to a laugh.

Soon it became hard to tell if she was scratching the nib across the page or if the pen was leading her hand. 

Ashamed, she only communicated in writing, finding her own tongue too clumsy and coarse, but on paper she soared.

Still she kept on writing, the pen wicking her wit, spilling her across the page for all to see in blood red ink. 

Her tongue withered to mute, she worked through writer’s cramp, hunger and sleep, until there was no more left to say. Her ink had dried. Used up by her pen and public, she died.
 
I found this pen, in her hand. It hasn’t left mine.