Goodnight and Good Luck

May 24,  2020

Day 64

A couple of things right off the bat. The quail haven’t left, the meteorologists were right about the rain and Hong Kong is in trouble.

In other news today a salon worker in Missouri infected 91 customers over seven days last week, Sweden stands by their plan and Putin’s approval ratings have dropped from 100% to 97%. In Moscow a third doctor who worked for an ambulance service has fallen to his death after expressing dismay about two doctors who earlier died in similar incidents. A government spokesperson is reported to have cited ‘unwarranted agitation for parachutes for health workers on the frontline of the fight against Covid-19’ as the cause of his ‘inadvertent and totally unrelated high speed convergence with the earth’. In Norway, BOC Aviation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the state owned Bank Of China, has purchased a majority share of Norwegian Air after the cash strapped startup completed a debt for equity swap in order to survive the downturn in revenue caused by the Covid-19 contagion. Media representatives for BOC Aviation were unavailable for comment at the time of the transaction as they were busy threatening Australia with ‘new much needed regulations’ on the import of beef and ‘technical inspection issues’ affecting the shipping of coal and iron ore. Elsewhere, North Korea still has zero reported cases and credits this to Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s ‘Superior Leadership and Beneficial Practices’. The Hermit Kingdom has offered to help the world combat Covid-19 by teaching these principles to all countries except Turkmenistan, citing a long standing dispute with that former Soviet republic about which nation had zero Covid-19 cases first. Resolution of this dispute is proving to be difficult as President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has banned the word coronavirus. And in New Zealand toady, Ministry of Health figures were posted on their website and this is what they say…

Zero New cases. 1 Recovered case. Ratio of recovered cases to confirmed and probable cases is 96.8%. Five Zeroes on the board. 27 Active cases remaining.

 

 

 

And in our final story tonight…

 

Goodnight and good luck.

 

 

 

The Things Not Meant for Me

May 11,  2020

Day 51

3 New cases. 15 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 92.5%.

 

And this, since it represents progress toward wherever it is we’re going to be in a few weeks.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300009818/coronavirus-new-zealand-will-start-to-move-to-level-2-on-thursday

New Zealand is moving in three step phases to Alert Level 2. Most businesses will be able to reopen with new guidelines for social distancing in force and certain provisos re maximum capacity of establishments in place. I’ve got some timber to buy and there are some time sensitive documents that I have to get into the bureaucratic pipeline so I hope the government will be open for personal business. Those are the only things I’ll be out doing over the next few weeks other than, as you have no doubt figured out, watching the numbers.

We appear to have dodged the bullet, but as that fellow from Sweden warned, we still have to maintain our quarantine of incoming visitors and figure out how to cure/treat/prevent/mitigate Covid-19 for the long run. So there’s still people out there pulling the trigger and bullets will be flying and all it takes is a few bad breaks and happy people sharing a beer (Bars are the last in line for reopening for just this reason) to reverse the gains we’ve made thus far. But it’s another step in the right direction and that is good.

 

 

 

 

I started writing this diary because things were, across the board, on the cusp of going seriously awry. I had done what I could to prepare in a material sense and as lockdown loomed I realised I was like a passenger on a hijacked plane, cell phone in hand and little time between the slowly unravelling present and the implacable unknown future. Only I had more time than those poor souls who can only text a few lines to their loved ones before their plane disintegrates around them. It was a gift I did not want to squander. I had time to gather my thoughts and put pen to paper with that long arm from the grave to say…

That I apologise to all I have hurt in my long life. It was not my intention. I was young and ignorant, untried and unsure. I made decisions that experience has taught me could have turned out better had I gone another way. Much later, when I was older, Clavell’s description of prisoners of war in Changi fit me well. Of them, he wrote, ‘These men too were criminals. Their crime was vast. They had lost a war. And they had lived.’ In the eyes of the woman I loved my crime, too, was vast.  Like all the people who had ever hurt her, I was a man. My mistake was thinking that she would know that I was different. In the end her constant fear became a self fulfilling prophecy. I am sad at how things came to pass, but I was not those other men and to be tarred for so long with the same brush became unbearable.

There is the brother I never knew because I never asked about his life. It is a shame and a sadness that is hard to bear. My brother deserved more and I am sorry I never gave it to him. There was a sister once who wanted to be right more than anything else and got exactly what she wished for. Nothing to apologise for there, but had I known then what I know now, I’d have altered my course a few degrees to help her find a better way.

To my co-authors whose long and heartfelt labors of love saw only the slush pile of various agents offices, I apologise. The stories were good and true and though they float now on Oblivion’s Sea with countless others, there was worth in the writing.  I know this to be true and I offer this knowledge in exchange for the time we spent filling them with life. That they were stillborn, silenced before their time, is unfortunate. I apologise not a second for striving, but wish that you had been spared the long ordeal of being tied to my falling star.

To the keeper of the light across the channel, I would have loved to love you better. I am a slow learner and thank you for the patient way you showed me.

 

Every villain is a hero in their own mind. I never meant to hurt anyone. I’m sorry if I did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sink or Swim

April 30, 2020

Day 40

Skies getting bluer, water clearer. Too good to last? The gains made by nature will not be lost quickly. Air travel will rebound one day, but the question is when? New Zealand used to be able to count on 10% of it’s revenue coming from tourism. That was then… It’s all in the wind now to the extent that Queenstown, an utterly beautiful, formerly prosperous tourist destination on the South Island is now one of the poorest cities in the country. ‘Jafa!’ is a commonly used epithet here that means ‘Just another F#$%ing Aucklander. Now that New Zealand has basically quarantined itself, the city fathers of Queenstown are trying to lure locals to visit by rebranding Jafa to mean ‘Just another Fabulous Aucklander’. Kind of desperate, but these are desperate times so good luck with that.

Optimism of another sort is evinced by TWG, one of the major retailing groups in the country as they made a plea today for everyone to buy local by supporting their stores. This despite having a reputation for importing nearly their entire stock from China. Can they make a profit without China? Hope springs eternal, and it’s hard not to applaud a good try, but maybe people will be less gullible now.

 

 

The old saying that ‘the bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price fades’ should be changed to ‘the cratering of the worldwide economy should not be forgotten just because a toaster from The Warehouse costs seven dollars’. If people don’t wake up and vote with their wallets, they might as well start learning Mandarin. A realist would.

https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/archive/thisweek/2008/06/02_made_in_china.asp

 

The road ahead will have these numbers as mileposts…

2 New cases. 12 recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 84%. 16% to go. One Zero on the board today and it’s a good one for somebody. More power to them. 235 people still have it. An unknown number don’t know they have it and are in for a rude awakening in a few days time.

 

 

 

 

Low Brows and High Art

100 words for Friday Fictioneers based on the photo prompt below from Lauren Moscato.

(Copyright Lauren Moscato)

“Who was the artist?”

“Salguod Yorlicam.”

“How long’d it take?”

“Three days. Dude asked could he put a mural on my wall, slept on the scaffolding I rented when he wasn’t painting, then signed it above the air conditioner when he was done and walked off. Some gallery owner just offered me three-hundred grand for the whole building. Said an original tromploy by Yorlicam was well worth it.”

“A what?”

“Tromploy. Means fool the eye. He did a good job, don’t you think?”

“You going to sell?”

“Shark fart in the water?”

Them That Ask No Questions Isn’t Told A Lie

100 words for Friday Fictioneers based on the photo prompt below from Rachael Bjerke, a green hued picture that seems synchronistically perfect for the celebration of the day of St. Patrick, who, as we all know, was canonized by Pope Bartholomeo the Pre-emptory for driving all the frogs out of Louisiana. Imagine that.

 

(Copyright Rachael Bjerke)

In 1954, a talking frog said goodbye to his thousands of brothers and sisters and climbed to the top of a magic fountain to ask about his future with the spirit that lived within.

“You will live in a big city but make your living on the street. Each year before the ponds turn to ice, people will inflate a gigantic likeness of you and pull it between tall buildings.”

“Why?”

“It’s not clear.”

“Anything else?”

“You will marry a pig.”

“I’m going back to the swamp.”

“It’s not easy being green.”

 

Last Line Lane, Speed Limit — Somewhere in the Eighties

100 words for the film buffs of Friday Fictioneers, directed by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, based on her photo prompt.

 

(Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields)

Was that Gaff behind the hotdog stand?

“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?”

 

A pair of tawny tomcats rested in the shade on a second floor balcony.

“Deny’s will like that. I must remember to tell him.”

 

Two men at a bus stop share a bottle of liquor.

“Well, what do we do?”

“Why don’t we just wait here a while and see what happens?”

 

Walking through Hollywood, memories come alive. Well, most of them.

“One thing about living in Santa Carla I could never stomach. All the damn vampires.”

 

 

Lyme Regis, Then and Now

100 words for Friday Fictioneers based on the photo prompt below.

 

(Copyright The Reclining Gentleman)

 

“Sooty-winged tern.”

“Pterosaur.”

“Common shelduck.”

“Dimorphodon.”

“Stop that, Mary. None of those creatures are out there.” said Mary’s birding partner, Shannon, from behind her binoculars.

“It’s not what you look at,” Mary replied quietly. “It’s what you see.”

“Leave Thoreau out of this.”

“I can’t help it, Shannon. In the Jurassic period the ancestors of today’s birds ruled these wetlands.”

“When was the Jurassic?”

“Long ago, Shannon. In deep time.”

 

In the distance, curtains of mist parted. Something rose silently from the water.

 

“What on earth?”

“Plesiosaurus marcrocephalus.”

 

 

 

(Research for this week led me to the story of Mary Anning, whose spirit moved through my character, Mary, and breathed life into my tale. She was a fascinating woman who should be remembered for all that she endured thoughout her life and for her contributions to our present day window on Deep Time.)

Like Roses

 

I usually only post when the subject has merit of some sort. Today I’m posting because I want to share something and ask a question.

I’ve been sorting through five and a half boxes of old manuscripts of the first novel I co-wrote with John Pace, titled The Last Resort. I’m saving files of attendant research and snippets of early copies to establish provenance and throwing the rest away. In one box, along with several ‘good’ rejection letters from major publishers at the time, letters from our agent and bits of history germane only to us, I found four copies of a poem which I’ve included below.

Something about it resonated with me and I thought about using it as a flash fiction submission for Friday Fictioneers. Have any of you have ever read Like Roses. Can you tell me the name of the author?

Sincerely,

Doug

 

P.S. To those of you who have ‘followed’ me recently…and to the faithful old timers…thank you. I hope you agree with my preference for not constantly spamming this space with filler. I do appreciate your readership and try my very best not to abuse the privilege. Aloha, D.

 

Like Roses

The freshness

of her smile delighted;

Like roses.

And her life

was filled with beauty;

Like roses.

Peaceful

from the land she grew;

Like roses.

Abruptly

but inevitably she was snipped;

Like roses.

May the earth

fall gently on her coffin;

Like roses.

What do you think of this poem? (WordPress will not let me add spaces between stanzas…or this poor workman doesn’t yet know how to format in WordPress) Who wrote it? John Pace? Perhaps someone out there knows the author. I’d like to give them credit. Thanks for reading.

Musings

100 words for Friday Fictioneers, all of whom can see their reflections in a mirror. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields frames the photo prompts and this week’s is from Janet Webb, mayor of Webb City, Missouri. Thank you, Janet.

 

 

 

Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and had a cup, and looking up…

…I shake off Aoide’s insistent voice. Nothing in five weeks and now she’s all I hear. Figures from the past speak to me, an incoherent cacophony. Mneme making up for lost time? There is a note on the hall mirror.

 

So, back on the horse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Mayor

Vampires From the Sky!

 

 

Not really.

 

 

(I kept it short because stories with this subject matter tend to bite. Thanks to Kelly Sands for the other-worldly picture.)