Dreamy.

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His feet pad on the sand, his large grey-black boots hammering the compact grains with each step. The ocean waters collide with his feet as the white wash crashes onto the shore. The man’s eyes are locked onto his feet, his head bowed as he walks heavily. Still in doing this his dark red-maroon eyes are hidden by his brown hair hanging by his face. He sighs. The man is tall, muscular, well built. He wears dark blue jeans and a tight black tee, nothing much else other than those, underwear and boots. The sun sets over the sea as the man walks. The sky a deep orange, the sea a deep blue, the man silhouetted against the skyline. His head is heavy, his eyes tired, his legs weak. The man could continue walking for hours, as he has for the hours before. But he decides against it when coming close to a small beach village.
The man trods towards a beach hut, a man in tattered clothes stood outside, this being easily visible as a visitors hut by the colour of the sticks, being painted red rather than the natural brown of the other huts. “I’d like to stay the night” The man sighs, his eyes moving up to those of the tribesman. “30 caruca.” The tribesman nodded, his long braided hair shuffling on his head. The man in the boots handed over the coins, no hesitation at all, already knowing the cost of huts on this island that he’d walked upon for so long. “I am Cammir, enjoy your stay” The sharing of names was important to the tribesmen of this island. “I am Tiger, thank you” The weary man replied, walking into the hut through the palm leaf door. Tiger listened as the man began to stroll home, he’d have waited all night for a passerby to take homage in the hut if he’d had too, the money from this being all he’d get. Tiger kneeled onto the palm leaf bed on the floor. His palms and fingers pressed together tight as he prayed, warding off all evil in God’s name. Once done Tiger lay down on the leaves, pulling another set of leaves tied together over himself as a cover. With nothing but money and clothes on his person there was little else for him to prepare before sleeping and thus the tired, tired man lay down for the night, the weak light from the sun on his face through the gaps in the wooden twigs. His eyes were tight shut. “Goodnight darling” he muttered to an entity that was not there. His body relaxing as sleep consumed him.
His fingers entwined with hers, their palms pressing up against each other. There was a warm connection between them that wasn’t present between themselves and any other persons. They were subject to something special and they could tell, and everybody else could tell; simply from the way that their hands fit into each other, from the way they touched. They walked side by side across the beaches, their hands always together. The beaches were the same. They never changed. But the two had little care of where they were, as they walked together. Always together.
Tiger's eyes dragged themselves open, wincing as the light thrashed his retina. He sighed, rolling from his side and onto his back, staring up at the dream charms hanging from the roof of the hut. “Cammir, could you come in please?” He asked, knowing that the man was stood outside. Cammir walked in gladly, assured that nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen. “The charms, wh-” Tiger begun only to be interrupted, “The charms, they give good dreams, they give perfection”. “Thank you, Cammir” Tiger said, paying the man for his information as would be expected. The tribesman then left the hut and standing once again outside the hut, giving Tiger his privacy. Tiger pondered over this perfection, his past was amazing, but was it perfect. The world was invisible to him, all he saw was her and all that he had ever known was her. Is that perfection, love, true love. He pondered this for hours, unsure what to make of the theory that was “perfection”. What was he to know of perfection, how was he to experience such a thing before coming to the pearl gates of heaven. He hated the idea of perfection, despite that at the time all that was, was perfection to him. He had learnt since then, his knowledge and experience having expanded higher than that of his younger self, his views on the world had changed. His view on perfection. ~S

Tis the Season

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I don’t want to seem cheesy – but did I ever tell you about the day I learned the true value of Christmas? I thought I mightn’t have. 

I recall it was Christmas Eve, some year or another, I don’t remember all of the details, nor all of the setting, but the result, I remember with great fondness.

Once again, I had neglected my present buying until the very last day, Home Alone and Elf had been playing since November, so my seasonal radar was thrown off and I’d lost track of the days – after all, it’s a season, what does the actual day matter? Or so I thought. Nonetheless, Christmas is nothing if not a time to empty my wallet into various shops and inundate my family with knick-knacks and clothing they don’t really need and don’t really want, so I headed down to the shopping centre, wrapped in all manner of festive garb: garish green and brassy red adorned my jumpers and hats and scarves and gloves, as I ambled outside and towards town, Jack Frost nipping at my toes all the while.

It has to be said, one dreams of a White Christmas, yet it’s rather hard to achieve through all the grey of society, and on top of the brash bright blues and reds and golds. It could have been snowing for all I noticed.

As I swung round the corner towards the main straight, walking down a tunnel of festivities, a street engrossed by tinsel, lights, fairies, trees and more, my goal was decided: it was present time. The insurmountable goal every year was, to buy as huge, gaudy and fantastic a present as possible for as little money as possible, yet I was perpetually draining my funds, exponentially, into indistinct stores selling indistinct tat, that, naturally, I had to buy. Headphones nestled in my festively cold ears, toddling down the street like an oversized, brightly coloured penguin, swaying to Slade, engulfed by Christmas, oblivious to the world, I saw him. That man.

Sitting on the floor, in front of some frosted glass fronted store, dreary, tired, with a straggly, sooty, grey beard, just spilling over onto his worn, tatty, dark red – although it might’ve been black for all the colour it brought – and a couple of old, mittened hands, grasping a lone carton of milk. Homeless. This was my conclusion. So, inspired by the message of Band Aid and deciding to Feed the World, I chucked the man a couple of pounds, awaited his “Thank you, sir” and “Merry Christmas to you” and waded off. If you take something from this story of mine: don’t judge a book by its cover, nor a man by his beard and coat. So, off I went, into the field of festive frivolities, in search of gifts.

I returned later that night, not all too late, but, due to the season, it was nigh-on pitch black. Now carrying the added weight of large, bright bags of indistinct gifts, I was toddling slightly slower than earlier, as I passed the same spot. As I arrived at the frosted glass once more, I saw no sign of the, presumably, homeless man; inclined by festive charity and curiosity, I did a slow, static circle, looking for the old, scratty gentleman. As I got about half way through my slow, shivery circuit, I spotted the man, tottering off, slowly, but with purpose, into a dark, desolate looking alley. Now, speaking from experience, dark, desolate alleys are rarely a smart idea when it’s nigh-on pitch black, and even more rarely when one is, presumably, homeless. So, spurred on by some daft thing that we call conscience, I also made for the dark, desolate alley.

Now thrust into a far more ambiguously threatening side of December, I wandered, along this, seemingly, unending alley, before I reached, nothing. I arrived at a dead end. The man had, apparently, disappeared. There was nothing around, save for one, lone, immaculately wrapped present. The ribbon sparkled, even in the dark, and I found myself leaning towards it, pulled by childlike fixation, I picked it up. I turned over the pure green label and read the message, addressed to me; “Thank you, sir, and Merry Christmas to you!” Shocked and intrigued in equal measure, I ripped it open, and was taken aback. Overwhelmed with catharsis and joy, I removed the small, teal kaleidoscope; the very one I had clamoured for as a child, the very thing I’d asked Father Christmas for. The very one.

As I heard a tinkling of bells, I looked up, just in time, to catch a glimpse of a bright shadow moving off towards the moonlit horizon. A bright shadow of an old, antiquated sleigh, pulled not by engine, but by a natural shine, a natural magic, helmed by an old man, with a new breath of life in him, with a straggly, grand beard, just spilling over onto his worn – by a lifetime of service and altruism – suddenly brighter, red – ever so red – coat, and a couple of old, mittened hands holding the reins. As I held that kaleidoscope of my dreams up to my eye, I saw things entirely differently.

WJ