Industrial Plymouth
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Forest Russell looked at the stripy torch in his hands and felt ecstatic.
He walked over to the window and reflected on his wild surroundings. He had always loved industrial Plymouth with its tight, testy trees. It was a place that encouraged his tendency to feel ecstatic.
Then he saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the figure of Bob Walker. Bob was a patient giant with beautiful thighs and grubby legs.
Forest gulped. He glanced at his own reflection. He was a charming, ruthless, tea drinker with beautiful thighs and ginger legs. His friends saw him as a dizzy, dry dolphin. Once, he had even helped a filthy puppy cross the road.
But not even a charming person who had once helped a filthy puppy cross the road, was prepared for what Bob had in-store today.
The sleet rained like gyrating rats, making Forest relaxed.
As Forest stepped outside and Bob came closer, he could see the greasy smile on his face.
“Look Forest,” growled Bob, with a sympathetic glare that reminded Forest of patient blue bottles. “It’s not that I don’t love you, but I want a pencil. You owe me 3744 dollars.”
Forest looked back, even more, relaxed and still fingering the stripy torch. “Bob, I just don’t need you in my life anymore,” he replied.
They looked at each other with afraid feelings, like two burnt, bumpy blue bottles talking at a very courageous Christening, which had R & B music playing in the background and two greedy uncles cooking to the beat.
With burning rage, Bob began running towards Forest. The anger inside the big man seemed even hotter than the wet-green raindrops falling from above.
“You know how much it means to me!” yelled Bob, charging straight into Forest’s nice little house.
Forest stood still, hoping everything would be all right – like a good girl would hope the old man who had just broken her window wasn’t going to throw acid on her pretty new pink dressing gown.
When they finally collided, bob fell backward onto the kitchen floor. Then he got up again and ran across the room and out of the door. This made Forest happy because it meant he’d been spared further trouble by the drunken pig.
Forest went down the steps and followed Bob through the drizzle, his feet cold despite wearing warm socks and clean shoes.
Then he noticed something weirdly familiar about the way Bob walked. As if there was an elephant in his trousers. But elephants are creatures from a long time ago, thought Forest, who usually ended conversations with his best friend, Johnnie Johnson, with a firm statement that elephants were extinct.
Bob continued walking normally, except now he appeared to have a lot of spare, well, extra space between his body and his legs.
And that’s when Forest realized. Even though this might sound incredibly silly, so do most elephants. They look like the world’s largest mop, but actually, they’re really small.
Suddenly, Bob stopped and looked behind him, almost as if he was being chased by invisible enemies.
Or maybe it was just one very angry elephant. That was the thing that bothered Forest the most: the fact that he couldn’t see where Bob was looking. And whatever he was seeing certainly didn’t make Bob’s eyes bulge, although that could also be because he was quite drunk. Or both!
Forest wondered whether to stay and help, but decided against it after thinking about his coming back…” said Bob, backing away like an eight-year-old boy named Tom who gets picked last at PE class.
In truth, this wasn’t Bob’s first rodeo. In fact, he had already won five gold medals in jogging. And he knew enough tricks to avoid a herd of furious elephants. He immediately became quite calm, apart from a strange nervousness and fluttering eyelids.
This is why people don’t become Olympians in athletics before turning seventeen years of age. Not many fifteen-year-olds have ever seen elephants. Especially not with their mother!
The nearest town was called Kingswear, and according to Bob, this would probably come as no surprise for anyone from Plymouth, nor any city in the South West, really.
This was because there weren’t very many people living in Kingswood compared with some of the neighboring places (this word now became even harder to say), such as Landkey and Arradon, which have long and complex names containing plenty of consonant sounds, hard vowels, and unnecessary hyphens, as the name implies.
So for short, people sometimes used just part of these words to refer to places they’d never heard of before. The place the ‘no’ side felt this most often applied to was Kingswear: k-i-r-dswa r.
This, however, didn’t affect Forest very much. Why? Because he could barely walk without tripping over. Instead, he needed to stop every two meters to try and compose himself. He loved elephants more than life itself.
And when they suddenly ran past him in great numbers, causing chaos everywhere, he started screaming with a surprising amount of excitement, like an American fan watching her team win the World Cup final.
The elephants saw someone waving his arms around excitedly, jumped up from nowhere, breaking car windscreens along their path, and charged directly towards this unknown danger. What’s more, Forest couldn’t decide which direction he was facing due to Bob’s odd smell wafting from the sides of his mouth like a bird’s fart.
After what seemed like ten minutes, they passed him as quickly and calmly as if Forest weren’t here at all. All was normal once more; cars resumed speeding along the main road. Windscreen wipers moved to catch up. Birds took flight from high towers. Butterflies began their mating flights in midair.
Animals continued drinking grass seed under the trees and breathing the fresh summer air until the day we meet our ancestors. The end of time and birth pains filled everyone’s mind. Nothing had changed. No elephant died and nothing exploded.
Trees shook gently in the breeze while the birds returned home. Everything went as normal … at least, till you considered what Bob had told his closest friends and family about how the meeting happened, especially the fact that he “feared death or worse”, adding a dramatic touch to the event. This information stayed with them, giving meaning and depth to our lives.
This isn’t far different from my story now.
A thousand thoughts came flashing in to ruin a moment when the truth finally emerged… but not before the damage was done, one by one… and another memory was made into stone by a powerful spell placed upon me, leaving little chance that I could return again and tell anyone that this had actually taken place, let alone find out its true purpose or source.
Who was it – who did that to us, putting everything we once enjoyed to waste?!
We need answers!!! I deserve answers! Will anyone stand on my side and call these men of war to account, for revenge, so I can lay a wreath in their honor on behalf of those that now live to remember?
Will my friends gather together in their own way in solidarity to speak without fear for themselves and those they love the best way possible… by doing anything else at all except asking these soldiers any questions?!
It may sound terribly blasphemous in today’s politically correct society to even consider such drastic measures against human beings, let alone so highly-regarded figures, but if you will hear this speech before you go into hiding: we were at the hands of madmen.
There are few crimes that merit punishment or reparations above that of bringing total carnage and devastation onto a defenseless population during their holy time of summer, whilst armed only with trumpets, bows, and arrows, just because some man is called “Lord” who knows nothing, not even geography!! Our parents are dead and buried somewhere… their children cannot be traced… our youth has been crushed to powder.
All but dust. Where shall this mighty army set foot next to spread havoc among the poor people in places that we have not yet witnessed violence take hold!?
For goodness sake, think about that for just a few moments longer instead of taking your eyes off those moving boxes all packed and ready to move inside them… oh, there are already three whole streets gone on our street since yesterday – that should make the kids happy – maybe we could get a good TV deal or something, we’ve earned this free upgrade after last years’ experience …who said that?”
To conclude, though the deeds described throughout have left deep stains, scars, bruises, wounds, and scars on Forest’s soul forever, he still looked forward with an infinite degree of eagerness, joy, and hope for what tomorrow will bring forth, however disappointing previous nights can seem by comparison; to most everyone.
Peace in Palestine does look impossible after witnessing the devastation the Arabs unleashed upon us, and the results of unending occupation continue to spill blood around the world, thus bringing shame upon both sides (the Israelites).
Although each incident seems to bear no real relation whatsoever, making me question the relevance of drawing connections between different countries or eras across history in terms of language choice and style of writing, with some phrases being reminiscent of ones from old textbooks I found here and there through the bookshelf as I moved to our new place on the upper level, filling gaps when reading back bits of wisdom once acquired at University about people, places or cultures lost within distant lands thousands of miles away: a bitter but sweet feeling if nothing else…’
The journal continued with various lines penned one after another almost randomly sometimes, reflecting thoughts going round in his head whilst spending many hours curled up either on the sofa’s armrest or bed resting.
Not yet speaking much to anyone except Ashrafieh – who remained indifferent even though she could sense their closeness – for fear that they were lying again – after all, there was the final secret so soon forgotten once Forest had finished.