This blog is changing. It will now be the place where I put all the stories I have ever written. I will write about gardening elsewhere at https://newburyorganicgrowers.wordpress.com/ which is the site for a local group called NOGG

I will start with my story about Ol. I will tell this story in installments, with a recap each time.

Ol was born on September 1^st 1976 and he died on November 5^th 2017. I had a son called Daniel who shared these dates. My story about Ol assumes that each life has certain span, but there are different lives that can be lived within that span. In this story Daniel is called Ol.

There is something about all my stories that I must mention. They all arrive. I do not go looking for them, other than by sitting at the keyboard and writing. When this story arrived Ol and Bro are in Thailand

In Thailand

Ol is talking to Bro, who is not his brother. Bro is, they both like to say, often in chorus, his brother from another mother. They then laugh and hug, or bounce bellies.

Ol is holding a guitar. Ol is always holding a guitar. Ol is Godlike, somehow. That’s what Bro says.

“You’re a God, man. One of those Greek ones.”

“Wouldn’t mind a suck on Hera’s breast.”

“Yeah, man. Apollo.”

“That’s me.”

A chord on the guitar fills the room with sound. It has such simple clarity. It is a sound that is inescapable, a sound that grasps the listener and ends everything else that is in the listener’s mind, leaving only the sound of the guitar and the anticipation of the voice to come.

“Fuck, man…” Bro sits back and sighs. They’re on an open dais, a shaded platform that resembles a Greek temple among the rocks, between the ocean and the forest. Below them a sandy beach and a still blue ocean that drifts into the distance; above them their elegant villa rising among the trees. Another chord, and then a soft voice that brings tears instantly into Bro’s eyes.

“Oh, man!”

Ol smiles, and continues to play the guitar.

“I love how you do that. The guitar sounds like something else when you play it. Oh, man!”

Ol goes on playing, and Bro falls silent. As the song ends there is only the sound of the ocean. A flock of birds takes flight, their wings beating out a gentle approbation.

Bro gets up from the floor.

“I’m going to get the recording gear. I wanna get the ambience. Box it. The next pod is singin’. Yeah. You’re a fuckin genius, Ol. You know that?”

“Don’t happen without you, Bro.”

Ol picks out notes on the guitar, letting a little singing rhythm fill the air. He idles away, making happy little sounds. Then the sound becomes angry and dissonant and he drops the guitar.

“Where are the coloured pencils?”

Ol starts searching under cushions and mats, and then decides they must be in the villa.

“Hey Bro,” he shouts. “Where’s the coloured pencils?”

Bro has gone to the villa, and is in the basement digging out the recording equipment.

“What you doing, Bro?”

Bro ignores him, and continues to select the items he needs to make the recording.

“I need the coloured pencils.”

“What coloured pencils?”

“Oh, doesn’t matter.”

Ol has changed in an instant from playing beautiful music to desperately needing coloured pencils to not caring. Bro doesn’t take very much notice.

Ol goes out of the basement, which is accessed from outside the villa, and climbs the stone steps, heading for the roof. He passes the pool and removes his shirt and jeans and falls into the water.

“Oh yeah,” he says, “this is wonderful.”

Eye, the housekeeper, walks past.

“Eye, Eye, I need a massage.”

“OK, yes please,” she says. “12.45 On the roof. Yes please.”

Ol doesn’t acknowledge her. He knows where the roof is but he doesn’t know what time it is.

“Coloured pencils!” he says, seeing them on one of the chairs beside the pool.

“Yes please. 12.45” She bows slightly and moves on around the pool to the kitchen.

Ol splashes about for a while and then goes up to the roof. He brings his sketch pad and the coloured pencils, and he makes an intricate and detailed drawing of the banana leaves that rise up from the ground some distance below. He watches the leaves move, and becomes aware of the sound they make as they move against each other.

“Bro! Bro! Where is he? Eye! Eye!” Eye appears. “Where’s Bro?” Eye points out towards the ocean. Beyond the huge rocks which the villa is built on the sandy beach fills the end of the curved bay. Bro is crossing the sand with armfuls of electronic equipment. He is well beyond shouting range. Ol settles on the raffia mat and goes back to his drawing, but he is haunted by the sound of the leaves rasping against each other. Sound is sacred to him, but the sacred nature of sound can sometimes be terrible imposition.

“Massage now?” Eye says.

“Oh, yes, that might be it. Yes.”

“Lie on back. Clothes off.”

He slips his wet boxers off and lies down. Eye is small but very strong. She may not know much English, but her strong arms, and her feet will unhinge his tight body. She always started with his arms, and it felt as if she was removing them and realigning them before replacing them. Then she would move on to  his legs. Her hands dive into the hip joints, sending her fingers deep inside to disassemble them. She is not the least afraid of his genitals.

“Turn over,” she says brusquely, after she had reassembled him. He turns over meekly and is only conscious for a moment as she jumps onto his back and runs up and down. The rasping sound of the banana leaves rubbing together, that had so disturbed him, disappears, and the only sound he can hear is far far away.

“Drink water,” he vaguely hears, as the fear recedes. Time has passed. He does not move. He might have slept. He does not know. He is still. That is enough. He is still and his world is silent.

Something wakes him. Like a slap, a gentle slap. Then the slap moves. It is a long slap and now it is sliding.

“Eye?” He says it quietly. The slap stops. No response from Eye. Then movement again. It is movement that stays still. Ol opens an eye. He instantly regrets it. He closes his eye. There are two other eyes near his face, and a flickering tongue. They live in a green head. He wants to shout but he does not want to open his mouth. The movement on his back becomes heavy and stops. He is sure somebody had once said to Keep Still when confronted by a Dangerous Wild Animal. Was this one of those occasions? It felt very heavy. He wonders if it has just eaten a goat, and will lie in the warm of his back to digest it. Or was it planning to eat him. Was it holding him down until it could work out the best way to swallow him? Then he remembered that this sort of snake usually strangled its prey first. He opens his eye again, feeling incredibly brave. The head has gone somewhere and a length of green body as thick as an arm – lime green with some black and green cross hatches – he knows he will need to remember this, although if it eats him who could he tell? – if it bites me and escapes – that’s why he needs to know. He tries to turn the description into musical notation, making a melody of it that he can remember.

Then something happens that causes all calm and brave thoughts and actions to suddenly cease. The thing slides its head around his neck and makes a loop. Later he would say he felt it tighten. He leaps up and wrestles it off him.

“I’m nobody’s breakfast,” he shouts as he collapses back down to the floor. His legs aren’t working. Oh God it’s already stunned me with its venom. And he begins to moan and howl, and intersperses the moaning and howling by calling Eye’s name and Bro’s. At the same time he drags his poisoned body towards the steps.

Eye appears.

“Get up too soon. Told you rest. Body mending.”

“I’m dead. Snake eating me.” And he howls. “Huge snake. You need to suck out the poison. Poison. Poison.”

Eye looks across the roof. A small green snake is reaching up to a branch of the overhanging tree. It manages to land itself on the branch and quickly disappears into the foliage.

“Noo ton mai si tong,” she says, and he is sure she is laughing. “Happy snake.”

Ol tries to get up, but his body was still not working.

“Must rest. Body mending.”

“I’m not staying here. I’m nobody’s lunch.”

“Snake eat gecko. You rest.”

Ol was not about to stay anywhere near this part of the house. He drags himself to the top of the steps and slides down, and flops into the pool. He floats in the cool water, and looks out across the rocks to the bay. Bro is still out there, waiting for the birds to perform for him.

“Watch out for water snake!” Eye says, as she goes back into the kitchen. “Very dangerous!” Is she laughing at him?

Ol wakes in the big double-bed under the canopy. He cannot remember getting out of the water. It is dark, and he rolls off the bed and finds that his legs do work again. He wraps a sheet around himself and walks onto the roof and lies down on the mat and looks up. The Southern Cross is the only constellation he recognises, although he supposes the drift of stars across the sky is the Milky Way. He closes his eyes and imagines how Hera was tricked. It was Heracles who sucked her breast, not Apollo. He smiles. Zeus was married to Hera, and Heracles was his child with a mortal, Alcmene. This meant Heracles was also mortal, and needed the breast milk of a goddess to attain immortality. Hera had given birth the day before to Eurytheus so her breasts were full with milk, and as she lay sleeping Zeus crept into her bedchamber with the baby Heracles. When he saw her magnificent body draped across the bed, naked but for trails of beautiful locks, he rather regretted bringing the child. But Heracles saw the great milk-filled orbs and latched on voraciously. Hera woke in a moment and wrenched the child from her breast and threw him across the room. A great spume of milk filled the night sky, and when the wind settled it was a track across the sky, reaching from one side to the other. The Milky Way. Ol smiled and stared up at the great white spume and felt majestic. I am a God, he thought. I’m a God visiting one of my worlds. Apollo.

“Hera,” he called gently, “Are you visiting tonight?”

Ol liked that story. He rather wishes he had a large breasted goddess in his bed tonight.

When he was in Estonia he heard another story. Lindu is the daughter of Uko, the King of the Sky. She falls in love with the Light of the North, and marries him, but soon after the wedding he leaves her. Lindu is heartbroken, and the stars of the Milky Way are her tears twinkling in her wedding veil as she flies across the sky beside her father. And according to this legend migrating birds follow her across the sky, led by the twinkling stars. Ol likes this story as well, and is rather excited by the fact that scientists have recently discovered that migrating birds do indeed follow the Milky Way as they travel. Ol likes to think that this opens the possibility for the other story to be true as well.

“Hey Ol.” It’s Bro.

“Hey Bro. Did I tell you about Hera?”

“Many times. Lindy was looking for you.” Lindy. Oh, Lindy. Thank you Zeus. I’ll treat her well.

“Did I tell you about Lindu?”

“Lindu. No, but I think you are about to.”

“Lindu was the daughter of Uko, King of the Sky.” Ol begins.

“A bit like Zeus.” Bro said.

“I suppose. This is a true story. It comes true.” Ol thinks about this, about the idea of a story coming true. It puzzles him. He stares up at the sky.

“Do I want to hear about Lindu?” Bro asks patiently.

“You do, you do. Well, Lindu is the daughter of Uko and she falls in love with the Light of the North. We call him the Northern Lights now, but he was the light of the North then. He was a slippery fellow, never there when expected and everywhere when not looked for. But Lindu loved him, and kept him still just long enough to marry him.

“Hi Lindy.”

“Hi Ol.”

Ol stands up. He is quite naked, his heavy blonde hair falling onto his tall thin body. He does not speak any more. He takes Lindy by the hand and leads her into the bedroom. Lindy turns to Bro and thanks him with a small gesture. Ol has his Hera. They fall into bed and make love for a long time, then sleep and wake and make love again.

On the roof the night animals run about, and in the trees roosting birds shuffle on their perches. The sounds filter down to Ol and in the morning he reaches for his guitar and begins to find the music of the night. A few notes to start with, then large chords, then a pitter-patter of notes.

“A fire,” he sings “did burn[1]” and then the notes run on and on, getting brighter and brighter, and Lindy sits up and listens, and Bro comes in, and Eye is at the door with her little boy and her brother Yoghurt who works in the garden.

“A fire did burn into the night and chased away our terrors sight,” Ol sings. He has a voice that both captivates and releases anyone who hears it. The little boy clambers into the bed and snuggles into Lindy’s naked body. Eye and Yogurt drop to the floor. Bro has set up recording gear all over the villa, and touches a switch before he too sits on the floor.

There is a pretty little melody that keeps recurring, and from somewhere a gentle, but insistent beat. And the voice carries the strange words, sings alive a life. It is possible. It is possible to be alive. To be alive is natural, ordinary, magical. Also transcendent. There is no need to go anywhere or do anything. God is here with us, all the time. Sometimes it takes a naked blonde angel singing and playing a guitar. Sometimes it takes noticing the sound of two banana leaves rustling together.

For Ol this is all normal, all simple. For Ol every day is like this, every moment. Nothing ever happens that is not happening now.

“But when the rat did cower before

An angel, hound, a horse and a whore

He met with all his terrors grief

And saw a moth upon a leaf.”

In Ol’s body the music exists and plays. Nothing can stop it, and anyone who hears it can only stop whatever they are doing and listen. Ol does not engage with those listening, he exists elsewhere, in the music. And the music fills the room and goes on and on.

“A fire did burn into the night

And chased away our terrors sight.”

Nobody notices the silence at first. Lindy lies back and sleeps, and the little boy suckles, hoping for immortality, until his mother lifts him away. Yoghurt finds himself in the garden stroking a banana leaf. Ol is nowhere. Ol is everywhere. He lies on the roof watching the banana leaves move. He swims in the sea. He lies on the rocks.

Bro is the only one who focussed. He checks the recording. All good. Bro is how it can all happen. Since Ol awoke from his coma Bro has held him, every moment, ever since.

Next installment follows soon

---

[1] Little Moth, Joseph Blake