A Brilliant Life

Martin was a man.

That was the best and the worst of it. He lived in a room that served as his bedroom and sometimes as his kitchen. He had no friends to speak of but then he had no enemies either.

His parents, Fred and Annie had high hopes for their boy. They had fought so hard to have a child that when Martin finally did arrive, he was their moon and stars and sun.

He had a good heart and some might say he had the best of hearts.

He tried to be strong for himself and his family and he made sure he smiled every day but he did find, as we all do, that there are people in this world who won’t let a soul breathe. He didn’t judge them too harshly as they had their own reasons. He would simply let the world get him down for a while, pull the covers over his head then after a sleep he’d feel better once again.

Martin had his dreams of course. He’d wanted to be a professional footballer then he’d wanted to be a famous actor and other times he’d wanted to sing in front of a million people. After his mother’s death, he’d wished he’d been the person who had found the cure for cancer.

Martin never became any of those things, not because he lacked talent but because he felt there were better people than him. Those who knew how good they were, those were the ones that deserved success.

He dreamed of love and being loved but it never came to be or at least he may have had his eyes closed as it was passing. He watched his school friends grow and marry and have children and he wished them well and just sometimes as he sat in the park and saw the parents and their children play, he wished that he was them.

Now don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t jealous, not for a second because the world shared out its good and bad and with his parents Martin had the best of all worlds.

Sometimes he wished that he’d had a brother or sister, just someone to visit at Christmas. To have nieces or nephews that he could buy presents and birthday gifts.

Martin saw every single day as a bonus. He wasn’t lonely and he wasn’t a loner, he just felt people had better things to do with their time than talk to him.

But he watched the world and he saw the people and their troubles and without letting anyone know he would try to help.

When he had a little drop of extra coins in his life, he would put the money in an envelope and leave it on the step of some deserving door; the lady whose husband who’d left her alone, the child who needed an operation, the man who just wanted a day away from the house.

Martin wasn’t a saint, not by any stretch of the imagination. Martin had hurt people and he’d wasted opportunities and most importantly he’d wasted time.

Because we all have our own ideas of what sin is, but to Martin, wasting time was up there with the big ones.

He sent Christmas and Valentine cards to the lonely souls in the street. He sent postcards to the old lady who, like him, had no family. She probably didn’t know who or where it came from but the important thing was that someone had written to her.

You see none of what he did was ever big but it mattered to the people he helped. This world is awash with lonely souls and to someone like Martin who could appreciate that point, he felt it was his place to do something about it.

Martin’s gone now and I’m not sure if he moved or just closed his eyes for the last time.

No one really noticed that there was no longer a light on in Martin’s house but they did notice there were no longer little gifts on the doorstep, or that cards were no longer being sent.

Martin had accepted that what he had been given in his life, was his life and he had used it all in the best way he could.

He sometimes smiled, he sometimes cried and he nearly always laughed.

bobby stevenson 2020

(I am happy to inform you that your piece,

'A Brilliant Life', has been selected for a

community reading group project at the University of

Northampton. 'A Brilliant Life' will not be sold and

will be used for educational purposes only)

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https://randomactsstories.blogspot.com/

Born by the River

I was born by the river,

And I’m missing the sea,

The smell of the ozone is bubbling in me,

When you’re trapped in a town,

And you’re aching to flee,

‘Cause you’re born by the river,

And you’re missing the sea.

bobby stevenson 2019

One Summer, Eastbourne, 1880

In that long gone summer of 1880, my Aunt Eliza, who wasn’t actually a relation to me, but we persevered in the pretence, had paid for the whole family to take a few days down at the Albion Hotel in Eastbourne.

Aunt Eliza had been an assistant to a Mister Charles Dickens and when he had left this world in the Spring of 1870, she had retired on the little money that aforementioned gentleman had left her in his will. It was enough to keep her in comfortable surroundings, and she was also able to save a little. She had no real family of her own and therefore treated ours to a wonderful few days each summer.

With us, that particular summer was a remarkable man, called Henry Richards. He was whispered to be the beau of Aunt Eliza, but no one ever said as much in public. It was he who took this photographic plate of our clan standing down from the door of the Albion. Henry would later go on to use his science to assist the police in the search for the Ripper of east London Town. One who was never caught, unfortunately.

Due to the particular demands of photographic science, we had to awake very early in the morning to allow the plate to be unblurred. This meant that we were required to stand in the morning sun for over fifteen minutes while Mister Richards conducted his business. It also had to be early enough that no one would ruin the said plate by perambulating by, although Henry had a young lad available to ‘shoo’ folks away should they attempt to pass the spot we were standing upon.

Aunt Eliza sang little ditties of tunes to pass the time in a happy manner - ones that she had taught to the children of Mister Dickens when she was employed at his abode in Higham in Kent.

It was as we were ready to collapse from the standing about, that Aunt Eliza finished off with one more song, and to everyone’s relief, Mister Richards shouted that we were complete with the photographic exercise. Aunt Eliza turned to me and said the most curious thing, so curious that I still remember it after all these years.

“Of course you know, sweetest, it was I, Eliza Shoemaker who wrote all his stories”.

I didn’t have the heart to ask her to expand on her comment. She took that particular explanation to her grave.

Bobby stevenson 2019

The Shoes on Rannoch Moor

The first time I saw them, I thought to myself, ‘hello, something up here’ and I had these visions of an office worker who had had enough, who had then taken off his shoes and wandered into the wilds of Rannoch Moor. Never to be seen again.

It can be a lonely place, can Rannoch Moor. Full of pools and bogs that can pull a man 
down and never let him see the sky again.

As the weeks passed, I was amazed that the shoes remained there, I had thought that some wild beast might have a taken them back to their lair or home or whatever, or that some numb skull would have thrown them away.
But there they lay. A little tired and worn, perhaps, but aren’t we all?

One Spring day I decided to stop to have a bit of lunch and thought that perhaps the stone table would be a good place to do this.

So I moved the shoes over a little to give me some room, and that was when I noticed the handwritten note pushed down into the toe of the right shoe. I unfurled the paper and read it:
“These are my shoes. Once I was caught on Rannoch Moor with nothing more than my bare feet (it is a long story, don’t ask). So these shoes are for you, for whoever needs them. That’s what life is about – sharing.”

I had to smile, and you know what? I smiled all the way back home. Life wasn’t so bad after all.

Bobby stevenson 2019

Dear Darling....

Dear Darling,

Hopefully, this is the last letter I write to you before we meet again. I fall asleep at night thinking of what it will mean, to you, and to me.

When the guys ask me where I’m from, I never say Scotland; I say Harris, South Harris if they really push it.

The things I have seen and done over here have made my eyes grow old and tired, but I know when the bus drops me off at the end of that road, I will breathe in that good clean Harris air, and my body will return to the old days.

I miss you, and my family. How many times I go over that walk in my head. Down that beautiful little road and then make a left at the fork, and up to the church of St Clements. They are all buried there, my grandparents, my youngest brother who never got to start his life, and my mother.

My family.

 

So that is where we should meet. I want you to stand by the door of the church, just like we might do someday when we marry (that is if you say ‘yes’).

Hopefully, the sun will be setting, and you will be standing on the hill waiting. I promise not to cry.

We just have one more push tomorrow, and I am hoping that we will send them back to where they came from. The General says that we shouldn’t be afraid as we have everything on our side. I hope he is right.

With all my love and heart, I live to see you at the church. 

X

bobby stevenson 2019