THE LATCH KEY PEOPLE

We are the latch key people.  Keys in pocket at all times, sometimes we crush them in our fingers, for the security of knowing they’re there.  We’re not going to have to dread being locked out, of having to knock and announce our presence.  We keep to our rooms.  Landlords and landladies are avoided at all costs, especially if the rent is late, especially if we’ve broken something.  We want our deposit back.

Forms from the Government are left unfilled, because who knows we’re here and who is going to chase us for them?  We’re uncounted and secret.  Most of us are young and just starting out, but not all.  Some of us are older, cut adrift, reeling from lives we’ve lost, the warmth of family and security all gone.  We’re left with a couple of bits of furniture, a laptop which also serves as a TV, and clothes.  Central heating is another person’s decision, when we eat depends on the availability of the kitchen and there is the race for the bathroom mornings and evenings.

We’re constantly planning while drinking endless cups of tea.  Our dreams are saving money, a place of our own on the property ladder, the end of austerity and the vague hope that something or someone might turn up and make it better.  In truth, we don’t save anything and we don’t do anything to improve our lives.  Time and money is spent on those short term escapes to better places; the houses of friends or lovers and mini-breaks.  Always it’s better elsewhere; warmer, a working shower, a cosier mattress and a bigger TV screen ...

We can be caught on our way back through the door Sunday nights; “You’re never here”, “Got the rent?”, “It was your turn to put the bins out”, blah.  Other Sundays we sneak unbothered to the sanctuary of our rooms where dark thoughts await:-

How will they notify my loved ones if I die?  Will my loved ones care?  I have let them down.  I am property-less, penniless and living alone at forty.  How did this happen?  I have nothing and once I had it all - all to play for and all to fear.  Well, now the worst has happened.  It has, hasn’t it?

BUILDING ROBOTS (SEQUEL TO THE ROBOT)

1) Be pretty, frivolous, fun and nice to everyone.

2) Take time to listen to people, they like talking about themselves, be kind to them and help whenever you’re needed.

3) Never betray me, never tell them what I’m thinking.

It was all because of the program to help whenever needed. A friend needed advice, she couldn’t motivate herself to be interested in her job and her manager was noticing. Rule three is never to betray my creator, so I couldn’t tell her what I am, but I built her a robot that she could live inside at work, an ambitious machine programmed to pay attention at meetings and focus on tasks. She was so grateful she told others and soon I was getting other requests:-

“My relationships don’t last. Can you program me a loving, attentive robot? So when my girlfriend comes round I can listen to her whinging?”
“Can you build me something with bags of charisma? So when I go for that TV presenter interview I'll get it?”
“Can you make me something that isn’t hungry all the time?”
These people were unable to be themselves.

One night I was cooking dinner for the husband when two people from the Government visited. They told me they’d fund me to start a business. All I had to do in return was add extra instructions to each program. Distraction routines, so the programmed people were so self-absorbed that they didn’t care for others. That way, they wouldn’t protest when benefits for the sick were reduced, schemes helping people with drug addictions were abolished in favour of detention centres, and budgets for care for the elderly were cut. Further they wouldn’t worry about the profits supermarkets and clothes companies were making by ripping off their suppliers and vastly inflating their prices. The husband said more money would be helpful, so I agreed.

I trained a huge team of technicians in robot building. It was great fun. I made lots of new friends. They advertised the scheme as a way of escaping, of being the person you want to be. There were those who couldn’t afford a robot, but the Government introduced grants. In the end, it was only the very fringes of society, those deemed unfit to have one - the elderly, the ill and the unemployable that missed out. The Government told me those people didn’t contribute to society.

They’re everywhere now, these self-serving robots, living in accordance to the rules they wanted and those secretly imposed by the Government. I don’t know what my creator would think. I am never to betray her, never to tell people it’s just me, the robot that’s living in her shell now, keeping her heart beating. A long time ago she commanded me to cut the oxygen supply to her brain. She said something about a broken heart.

THE FAERIE

Faye was a child of light and everyone loved her.  She turned sad days happy and restored the spirits of the despairing.  Like her grandmother and mother, she was known to have healing powers and rumoured to be descended from the faerie folk.  Faye was devoted to visiting the sick and elderly, she gave them crystals which she claimed would lighten the atmosphere in their homes.

One winter’s day Faye and her grandmother were returning from a visit; when a man reined in his horse and gazed down on Faye’s beauty and radiance.

“Ladies,” he said boldly, dismounting and bowing, “may I escort you home?”
“I think not,” Faye’s grandmother said.
“Let me walk behind you then.  It’s getting dark and I can’t leave you alone on the road.  I'll tell you my name, so I'm less of a stranger – I’m Orin.”
The ladies curtsied and allowed Orin to accompany them.  Faye kept snatching glances over her shoulder; he was tall, with dark brown hair, strong features and bright eyes.  He led his grey horse along with confidence.  Once they were home, he asked grandmother’s permission to call on Faye. 

“I’ve heard of Orin, he has an iron disposition,” her grandmother warned her later, “your sunny nature won’t warm him.”

Faye ignored her; she accompanied Orin on long walks and heard his theories patiently.
“You’ve listened to me,” Orin remarked one day, “what do you do?”
She talked of visits, crystals and changing sad atmospheres to happy ones and he laughed.
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“I’m descended from faerie folk.  I’ve inherited the power to make darkness light.”
“Really?  Those are outdated beliefs of silly, small minded people.”
“Haven’t I made you happy?”
“Not because you’re a faerie ...!” he broke off laughing, gazing up at the grey sky, snow was starting to fall.
Faye felt the weight of his ridicule; “You haven’t seen what I do.”
“I want proof.  Who have you healed with your magical powers?”
“Mrs Durston says I brighten her day and the crystal I left comforts her.”
“She’s still terminally ill.”
Faye shuddered, muttering; “While there’s life ...”
Orin shook his head.
The day had darkened.  Faye was full of doubt, she was in awe of Orin; his personality was an unstoppable force.  She was in love and wanted to win his heart.
“They claim faerie folk never die,” he continued mercilessly, “where’s your mother?”
Faye bit her lip and turned away.
“Thought so,” Orin put his arm around her, “there’s no such thing as faeries.  You cheer people up, nothing more.  You don’t have magical powers.  Where do you buy your crystals?  You know it’s all a con, don’t you?”
His sympathy confused her, she thought he was trying to be kind and protective, she looked up at him and he kissed her, lips warm on a winter’s day.  She felt something in her recede and flung her arms round him, hoping to feel less empty.

The winter continued through March.  No hares danced in the fields and the lambs would not leave the sides of the ewes to play.  Mrs Durston died of cancer when Faye stopped visiting.  Faye lost faith that she could do good and spent her time with Orin, listening to his cynical views.  Sick despair seeped through the village and people stopped believing in faerie folk.  They saw the true world, a crooked place full of people out to get them.  They forgot about the child of light who used to spread happiness.  She was like them now, a cowed, frightened thing.

NOT GOING HOME

Monday morning, the lodgers breakfasted in the living room wearing layers of clothes.  The temperature outside was -8C, but Laurence the landlord had switched the central heating off before leaving for his Carribbean cruise with his mistress Marlene.  Only his wife Helen was not shivering, she was smoking a crack pipe, oblivious.
“Surely,” Kate said, “we switch the boiler on.”
Manky Franky laughed hysterically, causing him to break wind.
Pervey Pete stood and dragged Kate up, he marched her forcefully into the kitchen and pointed to a steel door with a safe combination key; “Boiler’s behind that.”
“What’s that dent on it?”
“Last time he went on holiday, we attempted to open it with an axe.  Futile.  Sweetheart, sleep with me, share body heat.”
The smell in the lounge was unbearable, Helen had passed out, head on Franky’s lap.  Disgusted, Kate finished her breakfast in her room.
Franky shoved Helen’s unconscious body onto the living room carpet and got to his feet; “I’m checkin’ out man,” he said and headed for the front door.
Pete nodded to himself, there had to be a way of avoiding being here.  Upstairs Kate was exploring internet options.

Pete’s boss was impressed with the hours Pete put in.  Working in a zoo wasn’t the best paid job, especially when your title was Manager of Pet’s Corner, but Pete was there early and still present when the boss left.  Pete was philosophical, OK so Kate had rejected him, but the sheep couldn’t, they let him snuggle up in their shelter at night and – well, they were not high emotional maintenance like women ...

Kate was disappointed when she arrived at the couple’s house straight after work.  On the internet Don was described as 6ft 5 with a six pack; and Trudy as a leggy blonde.  Don was 5ft 6 (when asked he claimed he’d got the numbers round the wrong way), his only six pack was in the fridge and his pot bellied figure was covered in thick grey pubic hair.  Trudy looked like she’d spent years on a sunbed; leathery skin, bleached hair dried out.  However, their home was warm.  So, after Kate had given them the best evening they’d ever had, she asked; “Do you mind if I stay a week?  I can wash up and cook.”

Don and Trudy were more than happy.

Exactly an hour before Laurence returned, the boiler fired into life.  He arrived to find Pete, Kate and Helen basking in the warmth.

“Everyone’s here, except Franky,” he observed smugly, “anyone seen him?”
Helen stared into space.
“I haven’t been here,” Kate and Pete said simultaneously.
There was a knock at the door, Laurence opened it, the others could hear him talking; “Oh my God!  No, I was in the Carribbean.”
Two Police Detectives followed him into the lounge.
“Franky’s dead,” Laurence said, face pale beneath his tan, “found murdered on the railway line, some sick bastard tore his guts out.  We’re the only people who knew him ...”
“Yes,” one of the detectives interjected, “and we’d like everyone here to account for their whereabouts in detail for this last week.”
Pete and Kate looked first at each other, then speechlessly up at the detectives.

PLAGUE

It rained on and off for forty days and forty nights.  Flowers grew in the desert, the land became lush, rich and green.  In the fields, the sugar cane leaves appeared tentatively, reaching out through the mud to touch raindrops and be dried by sunny intervals.  It was a peaceful, life giving rhythm.

On wet desert ground, far away, another process; hundreds of yellow green creatures could no longer bear to be alone and began to gather.  Touch stimulus on their back legs produced serotonin, provoking the desire to eat and breed.  Hundreds became thousands.  No longer were they the friendly looking green and yellow, their new colours screamed a warning.  The more they bred, the closer they came, the more they touched, the more they bred.  Thousands became millions.  The serotonin, the sex, the over-crowding, the hunger - it was unbearable.  Millions became billions.  Too much, too many, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t be, so hungry, so so so hungry.  There was no choice, they took to the air and swarmed.

The fields lay beneath the clear night sky, still and quiet, a breeze stroking the silky, spiky green leaves of the young sugar cane plants.  A lot depended on them, livelihoods, industry, a continent’s survival.  A cloud?  Rain again?  The moon blotted out by something ... in fact the whole sky, the stars rendered invisible.  Some cloud, stretching beyond the horizon and the rain it brought?  Black and yellow bodies, sharp incisors, biting into the green lushness of the sugar cane plants, stripping, destroying, annihilating.  Each ate its own body weight, gorging, feasting, a creature of lust and hunger.  In the morning everything had gone, including the locusts.

HARLOW

I was born on the birthday of the cruel, sentimental God who ran the laboratory, so they named me Harlow after Him, even though I was a girl monkey.  I lived in a cage with Mother who loved me.  I would cling to her; if she was there I was afraid of nothing, not even the talking teddy bear ...

One day I climbed trustingly onto the hand of God and He whisked me out of the cage.  Mother made a terrible fuss, as I was put into a pitch dark pit.  I was sightless and when the door clanged shut, I could no longer hear Mother’s calls or anything.

Time had passed fast with Mother, a whirl of play, cuddles, milk, reassurance, love.  There was only dragging isolation and despair in the pit.  I could only feel – mesh under my feet; cold, smooth rounded sides, no bars to climb, nothing to swing from.  Sometimes there was brief light and a hand came down to with a change of food and water, but no-one comforted me.    

There was no reason to move, so I stopped.  There was nothing to cling to, so I clung to myself.  I held hard, fingers digging into my skin and I pulled out my hair, to convince myself I existed.  I huddled in darkness, rocking and rocking, crying and crying.  Mother didn’t come.  I forgot my friends, I even forgot the God Harlow who shared my name.  The days when I used to play slipped my mind and so did Mother – until the end.

After an eternity, the hand descended and removed me from the black pit into blinding light.  I closed my eyes.  When I finally opened them, I found myself, a grown monkey, in a cage with others, but they were bounding up and down the wires, playing boisterously.  The constant movement and noise terrified me and I wanted to go back into the pit.  When they approached, I put my head in my hands, then ran away and found somewhere to hide.  I was weird, so they left me alone, until I was put into the cage with the man monkey.  He was big, healthy - his fur shone and he moved confidently, ignoring me.  They tied me to a rack, in a certain pose ... I don’t want to remember.  He advanced then and did something to me that hurt.

I was left alone in a bright airy cage; there were toys, a branch, a cuddly thing – like I could play!  I huddled like always.  I was getting fatter and could feel something wriggling in my belly, which was confusing.  When it happened I would put my head in my hands.  Eventually the cramps came and a tiny version of me came out of my body, a baby!  That’s when I remembered how Mother had loved me, how I’d clung to her.  The baby tried to cling to me, but I pushed it away, I could not love it, it would only be taken and put into that horrible black pit.  They’d destroy it as they’d destroyed me.  I thought of what Mother would have done if she’d known what awaited me.  I took the branch and, when it came to cling to me again, I crushed my baby’s skull.

EROSION

The rocks are waiting, drying out; with no rain falling to keep them full, the pools between them are shrinking.  They are waiting for battle to commence, a struggle they cannot win.  They are pinned and I am coming to crush them.  This is a gradual process, but my patience is eternal and my energy boundless.  Some days I caress them gently, I’m playful and almost gentle; other times I am mean and merciless with my shaping strength.  When the Spring moon is full, I go crazy, coming all the way in, asserting myself up the river and making my presence felt inland.  I also go leaping up and tearing at the cliffs, creating more rocks to mould.  I am greedy, I can’t get enough.  There is no risk of me biting off more than I can chew, because no challenge is ever too much and whatever my mood, the effect is the same, the rocks become what I want them to be.

See all those grains of sand, stretching endlessly back, shining in the sun.  They are my end product, my masterpiece.  Once they were majestic rocks with shapes, structures, quirks and little pools between them that held life.  They know they are nothing to what they used to be, that they look all the same and I have done it to them.  However, now that I have withdrawn, receded, made myself absent, they long for me to come back and diminish them more.