What time is it?

Dear Sir,

I am writing to ask you what time it is? My brother Bill says its a different time in your country and I wanted to know if he's right. He's usually a stinking liar. He always fibs, like the time he said I spray painted the cat or when he said we could make Dad new glasses out of bits of plastic bottles and he wouldn't know we'd broke them.

But he was really going on about this. It seems stupid, he's stupid anyway. Do you have a brother? I wish I didn't, you can have Bill. He's 9 years old and he thinks he's the boss in our house. Just cus Dad's not here any more.

My Nan says Dad is overseas. You're overseas too, can you say hello to my dad if you see him. He's very tall and strong and wears glasses. He's really nice, he always brings me a toy when he comes home. My favourite toy is a frog, it goes ribbit when you squeeze it. It makes me laugh. Do you like frogs?

I saw a frog once. But it was dead, I didn't kill it. I think maybe Comet might have bitten it. Comet is our cat. She's normally orange but she was purple once. She brings things into the house and my mum screams. She's a good cat, she lets me pet her when I don't pull on her tail. She doesn't have baths, I watched her clean herself, she uses her tongue. Boys can't do that, my dad said its cus I can't lick my elbow. Did you know you can't lick your elbow? Dad says its the same for everyone.

Do you live near Disney land? That's overseas too. Dad says we can go when he comes home. I have seen in on a DVD. It looks brilliant, even Bill said he thought it was cool. I suppose it will be brilliant enough still even if he comes too.

It is nearly six o'clock now and I have to go and get ready for tea. I can lick my hands clean like Comet does with her paws but mum makes me use the sink. Even though I have to use a step. There's a frog on my soap bottle, but he's a picture not a real frog.

Mum said she'll post my letter while I'm at school tomorrow. And anyway its six o'clock now, what time is it where you are?

Thank you.

Peter. Age 6

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418 Words

Dreams that wont fly

Last night I dreamt I couldn't fly.

It was a complicated dream, that took as it's source material many previous dreams.

Normally when I fly in my dreams I am lying on my back and fly feet first through the air, but sometimes I can float just a little above the ground in an upright standing position. When I float like this a foot or so above ground I can spread my feet out like I would on a surf board, occasionally I'll use a floating platform as a means of propelling myself along streets and through buildings. It is exhilarating.

When flying and floating my dream self travels through high streets that amalgamate locations from the cities and towns I am familiar with. I'll descend a hill from one town toward a shopping centre from another, or glide through the halls of a mall filled with stores from every city I've ever shopped in.

There must be some reason why I associate shopping and flying. But let's not examine that too closely.

Well maybe the credit crunch has got me down, maybe the connection is more concrete than I'd imagine, as last night I dreamt I couldn't fly.

The plot behind the dream was that a reality TV show was being filmed in my local shopping centre and the topic of that show was how some people fool themselves into thinking they can fly. I just stumbled on the show being filmed and saw as a guy with gull wings on his boots failed to take off in front of the crowds gathered around. The presenter explained how common this delusion was and asked if anyone else felt they could fly. I had to step up and show them what I was made of.

I'm sure that up until then I had been floating along as usual. Within the continuity of this dream I knew I could fly, I felt it was common place and I felt sure that I'd be able to set the record straight on the TV show. But when the cameras focused on my I couldn't lift my feet off the ground like normal.

The presenter spoke to camera and they ran footage of me from earlier showing me standing on a poorly maintained polystyrene float. Sliding around on the polished floors convinced I was flying. I felt foolish and disillusioned. The filming ended and the crowd walked away. I sat there feeling low and ruined, the guy with the gull wing boots was there two and seemed equally upset.

I couldn't tell you who he was, the guy with the boots, but I wish him well. When he said good-bye he shook my hand then those winged boots flapped and he just lifted off the floor and flew away.

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465 Words

Dominion

I am running late with my writing tonight, though I haven't slept so its still Saturday no matter what the clock says. We had a few people over seeing as the vampire game didn't happen, and as the night started to wind down I was asked to teach a few of the guests a new game.

Dominion is a fast paced card game, flavoured around establishing a mighty medieval kingdom. The game comes in a box and is simply five hundred plus cards. It is the way those cards work together that builds an interesting and dynamic gaming experience.

The game has been compared to Magic and other trading card games, and there are elements shared with that gaming model. It is mainly a resource accumulating game. From the set of five hundred cards each player starts with a ten card deck, and spends a part of each turn adding more cards to that deck. Each player starts with seven treasure cards with which to purchase those additional cards. The other three cards are victory points. Each turn you have a hand of five cards of which some may be treasure, and you get one opportunity to purchase new cards.

Each game has a selection of ten cards from twenty five different action cards, plus six cards that increase your score and provide for more treasure. The ten actions in the game change how often you can buy cards, or increase your spending power, or swap cards. Each of the twenty five different action cards has its own effect on the game, there are ample permutations available and for the foreseeable future every game promises to be different.

Purchase by purchase you add cards to your own small deck, building a strategy and accumulating victory points. By the time you have a deck together enough to get to your treasure cards its time to buy more of the green victory cards. Then its a race until the game ends.

As each player buys up the cards laid out for the game some of the options dry out. If any three piles run out, or if the highest scoring victory card pile empties then the game ends. Whichever player has the most victory cards in their deck at this point wins the game.

In every instance where this game has been demonstrated I've seen it prove popular. Every house hold that has tried it has followed up with a speedy purchase of the game. So far I have seen it grow from one box a friend brought over to a game our local community has embraced five times over. We are never far from a box of Dominion. It fires our imagination and fulfils our gaming needs.

In short this is a good game and one we'll no doubt keep playing most of the way through 2009.
If I'm wrong you'll probably hear about it here.

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485 words

Fairy Tales

The really good happy ever after stories all contain a lesson or a moral. In general all the popular fairy tales are aimed at girls. At the center of these stories the message is loud and clear – You are a princess and if you only believe in true love your prince charming will come.

I always saw their origins as starting around a camp fire, some old gypsy grandmother telling the wee children a story of magical adventure, of dragons and witches and princes and damsels in distress. The story would entertain the little ones, but just at the edge of the fire light some older girl, probably in her mid teens just in ear shot is hearing the wisdom of the story. Maybe the details are being carefully reshaped to connect in some way with the troubles in her life.

Trouble with controlling maternal figures, longing for the boy of your dreams, worries about your future, wishes that time would stop or simply continue without you; all these plots are investigated in the fairy tales we all know. Each story carries a truth.

Sleeping Beauty shows that no matter how long it takes true love will set you free. In Cinderella we find that no matter how bad things are it could always be worse, and in case you think things can't get better even Cinderella got to go to the ball. Snow White teaches you can count on your friends and that jealousy and envy can make you do wicked things. In the story of Rapunzel the damsel in distress, locked away from the world, finally finds an escape through a man willing to go to extraordinary lengths to be with her.

In short each of our princesses needs to learn patience. As Diana Ross tells us “you can't hurry love” There are other lessons to teach after all the Big Bad Wolf is still out there threatening to gobble up Red Riding hood, though these days it is less likely to be an actual canine in the woods.
All these stories are as important today as ever they were. The Disney studios have taken on the mantle of the fireside storyteller in today's world. Thanks to the Brothers Grimm we have a rich heritage of fantasy and adventure to draw lessons from. Think how attitudes might change if the meanings behind the fairy tales were made more apparent.

Children need to hear the stories but they also need to recognise the lessons.

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417 words

New Years Resolutions

There are so many areas of need, so many projects that require attention and support. We all have so much spare time and how do we use it? As one year passes and another begins we set our selves a challenge, we define new years resolutions and we try to stick with them. Whether we aim to attend a gym, eat more fruit, drink less beer, or write more often, we set our hearts and minds on a noble end.

Yet how noble? We expect these wishes and plans to improve our lives, that they will make a difference in how we live and change things for the better. Most of us fail and give up rather than continue on for the full twelve months, with research showing that only twelve percent of our new years resolutions actually stick till the end of the year.

I know that last year's plan to write four hundred words a day failed, and I don't know how well that goal will be met this year. With these basically selfish goals failing on an annually repeating cycle how can we hope to effect any realistically worthwhile changes.

I suggest that for your next round of resolutions or personal improvement goals you set ones that benefit other people. Suggestions might include – host more gatherings, cook a meal every week for a none family member, once a month give time to a local charity or shelter, help elderly neighbours deal with their recycling each week.

What difference will this make? Well even if you stop doing this part way through the year at least for a short while you improved someone's life a little. If you doing good makes you feel better about yourself, and you even enjoy helping in this way then maybe you'll be able to stick with the plan.

Yes it all sounds like liberal hippy do-gooder nonsense, but this is the human race and we need all the help we can get. Who am I suggesting should go out and do these things? Me, I am just as likely to read this and shrug off my responsibility to help as any of you. So if I sound preachy and in your face I hope you'll realise the face I'm getting into most is my own.

And if you beat me to it; If you were looking for ideas as to what new years resolutions you might try out and picked something like the above; I wish you all the best. Also I wish you a Happy New year.

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427 Words

Sacrifice

There's music in the air, wafting bye from the village green. Minstrels produce fine music for the crowds and all the youngsters dance and play. Their cares and worries are forgotten and they enjoy the mid summer festivities. I sit in my cell rotting away forgotten, only listen to the follies playing out.

The cell is comfortable, the cold stones keeping the chill where the summer sun can not find it. The simple desk and the light from the window, the wooden cot and a tiny locker furnish my room in the monastery. Hearing Gretchen's laughter from somewhere nearby I force myself to ignore the distractions. Blocking the noises from outside I look at the scroll in front of me. The manuscript has to be prepared. With the friar so weak in ill health I must tend to his scribing.

I dab my quill in the pot beside me and continue to transcribe the scribbles penned by Friar Thomas. My ears betray me even in my concentration on the task before me, I still feel the beat of the tune outside. My penmanship is not as fine as the other members of the clergy and I must focus. The tip of the quill hovers over the page as I read over the last sentence again.

The village elders are to sign this document this evening, it forms a settlement for the damages caused by the fire after last years harvest sacrifice. The accident cost one of the farmers dearly and he's been negotiating a payment from the village through winter and spring. Now as we approach the next sacrifice his plea has been heard and retribution is being made. Friar Thomas had promised the document for the end of last month but in his current condition he only recalled the promise this morning and now it falls to me to finish his work.

I press on, the letters coming together one at a time, forming words, that themselves collect into sentences. I puzzle over a clumsy scrawl on the parchment I am copying off. Is that ten or two measures? It looks like ten. Yes I'm sure of it, ten measures of something called composite feed. In exchange for a higher percentage tithe for the next three harvests. The majority of the clauses are of this form, the village provides assistance to the farmer but to redress the balance his share of the levy is increased until the patchwork moon returns over the harvest fields. It's been two and a score years since the last sighting of that blue and green sphere, and the monks are all sure that it is due again in three years time.

The farmer wasn't so certain but couldn't call the church out for lying. Still it is written into the contract that in three years or under the Patchwork moon the debt shall be repaid and the village will no longer hold an interest in his produce.

There is wisdom here, as much as in any of the scriptures and holy books, a kind of common sense yet applied in more general terms, I'm still learning at the feet of the monks and clergy but I feel I understand that while there was a debt to be paid to a man who was wronged the village as a whole should not go without. This way the investment of resources is returned and all can prosper.

These matters of governance intrigue me. The music and chatter no longer entice me to leave this work. I will finish here then study some of the older records, maybe there are more insights to gain in the archives.

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610 Words

Morning Love

I see it there in her eyes, the dark brown melting away like warm chocolate, and I see a spark of mischief and lust in the way she turns her attention to me. I smile and we close the gap between us, Our kisses have always fuelled the moments when we cast off all inhibitions, she's irresistible and arousing. She's like a flame, something chemical, elemental and consuming.

The sleep and dreams of night have passed, and now I hold her in my arms, she rubs noses exchanging Eskimo kisses, I press against her and we cuddle the closeness lends heat from the other body and I realise there's a cold draught in the room I snuggle up and we wrap ourselves in a duvet cocoon.

Its morning and we have all day to ourselves. The room is lit by the rising sun, though I suspect it's already fairly high in the sky beyond those curtains. I kiss her forehead. We tumble around in the bed pinning each other down exchanging tickles and gropes. Communication is pretty simplistic, we exchange plenty of meaning in a look or through the position our hands take on each others bodies.

She looks sleepy and I lean on my elbow just watching as, cat like, she stretches into a yawn. My other hand strokes down into her arm pit and she squeals then finds a pillow in her hands as she slaps it across my head. Play fighting again we eventually tumble into each other's arms and chuckle. Relaxing and lying there till she rolls over in my arms.

I feel a thumping pressure in my heart, a surety of the love I feel for her. Its the precursor of the gut wrench other relationships have ended with, an equal and opposite force that makes the risk of loss worth trying for the reward of success. I frown but chase the doubts away and trace a finger over her shoulders.

I smile again and lay beside her. I hold onto her and rest my head on the pillow. The scent from her hair fills my nostrils, my heart registers it's recognition. I hug her into me.

“You ok, pokie?” she asks.

“I'm great, you make me feel so happy.”

She wriggles around and plants a kiss on my chest. I consider myself lucky to know her. I can only hope she feels the same.
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400 Words