The Man Who Wore His Coat Indoors

He was a guy. Just a guy.

That was the beginning and end of it. He loved football, drinking, singing, and making a mess of himself on a Saturday night. So why did he end up being this way?
I mean, his only ambition was to get from Monday to Friday in the quickest time possible. 

Okay, he knew that sounded stupid, but that was the kind of guy he was. Stupid.

He was a man. Just a man.

One who loved lots of things and hated some other things. Okay maybe not hated, but he could do without them in his life. Some people he liked instantly, others took a bit longer, and the same went for disliking people. Did he have to say it again? He was just a guy.

When his back started to hurt he thought about going to the doctor, but he knew he’d never go. He was the kind of man whose legs would have to actually fall off before he went near a medical centre. There he was again - being stupid. How could he get to a doctor if he didn’t have any legs? He had a quiet chuckle to himself. That was a laugh he couldn’t be bothered to explain to anyone. No one else would have understood.

When the nodules started growing in his back, he asked his sister to cut both of them off. She thought it might be serious, like cancer, or something. He told her not to be so stupid, however the one thing that cutting them off caused was that they just grew back faster and bigger. His sister was happy enough to do the odd cutting here or there, but this was starting to get really stupid – and anyway, unlike him she had a partner. So, she stopped.

He was a man who now had difficulty sleeping.  He had to lie on his side, or, better still, his stomach.

Then he started wearing a coat to work - actually, in the office. Folks thought he was nuts. If he told them the truth, he would probably have been thought even weirder. That was the source of the problem, he didn’t like standing out from the crowd – he never had. Now he was the Nutter who wore his coat indoors.

It only took two weeks for them to fully grow. He would go into the bathroom and lock the door, then feel the relief as he could give them a shake in the fresh air.

He was a man with a serious problem.

He wasn’t sure if he could fly with them – but wouldn’t that be cool? He started to cut holes in some of his shirts, so that he could give them an exercise, now and again. His sister and mother would knock his bedroom door from time to time to ask if anything was wrong.

Anything wrong? Of course, there was something wrong, I’ve got a pair of wings growing out of my back, he wanted to shout. But he didn’t, he was just a man after all.

Then a thought hit him: what if he was really going around the bend? Stone cold crazy, like.  Perhaps the growth had been something medically wrong with him. Maybe his sister was correct and that it would follow that the wings didn’t exist. All of it was in his head. What then?

He’d stopped going out with his pals to the bar, in fact, to be honest, he had stopped going out anywhere apart from work. He phoned his best pal, and asked him to meet him in the park.

“This is all very weird,” his friend said, “but then I heard you had gone a bit……you know……”
“Nuts?” Said the man.
“Exactly. Are you having a break-down?”
“Don’t think so.”

The man got up, told his friend to close his eyes. That was when his friend said that if he tried to kiss him, he might punch his pal.

The man took off his coat.
“What do you see?”
“What do you mean what do I see?”

And then he saw it and he used a few choice words, to colour what he had seen.
“You’re an………”

His friend got up and started pulling on the wings.

“They’re real….they are actually real. Did you have an operation or something?”
“Of, course I didn’t, they just grew.”
“Just grew? A boil on the tip of your nose, just grows. But this?  So, what do you do now?”
“How should I know.”
“Has God contacted you or anything?”
“Now you’re being stupid.”
“I’m being stupid? You’re standing there with a couple of wings on your back and you’re calling me stupid. Why don’t you just go home and wait for a call or something.”
“Like God is going to call on the telephone?”
“He might.”

So that is indeed what he did. He said goodbye to his pal, put on his coat again and headed home, - and now he is waiting - just waiting - to see if anyone needs an angel in their lives.

bobby stevenson 2017

ONE FINAL THING

ONE FINAL THING

It was as Thing got near to the end of his time in this world, that all the confusion seemed to melt away. Sure, old age never arrived on its own (as his mother used to say). He had found it a little harder to climb and descend the mountain-side, and Thing found sleeping didn’t come as easy as it once had. His eyes were a little less sharp and his hearing failed to notice the sweet chirping of the morning birds.

Yet he was luckier than many. Despite his troubles, he had three things: he had always had someone as a friend, and a roof above his head, and always had food to eat. These three items should never be taken for granted, and Thing had never, ever, thought like that.

Thing had seen great changes in his lifetime. Folks of his type were now welcomed in public places. The children of people happily let the children of his kind play together. Thing had never thought that possible in his lifetime.

As he walked through the streets of the town, he noticed how more peaceful the place had become. Kids still threw stones, but they were at old tin cans or at old doors. Yet this part of the world was an exception. Thing had heard of places, where to look different got you banned from entering a town, or a city, or a country. All because of the differences – no one ever seemed to look at the similarities.

And Thing realized he must always be on his guard in his own home. The world still threw up people who would rather stand on top using others’ suffering, than stand beside them and help. Thing wondered if these people were born that way, or if they were made that way? A question he had never got to the bottom off.

If the world had been created by a God, did the God look like Thing or did the God perhaps look like the others – the humans? Did it really matter as-long-as your heart was beautiful?

As Thing strolled, he remembered a story his father had told him many moons before.

“Whether the world was created by a being or a bang, in the end it is like a bar of chocolate. At the start, we are all one – all one piece of chocolate – all made from the same ingredients. Now if you break that chocolate bar by hitting it with your elbow, it will shatter into many pieces. Every piece will look different, some might look similar but no two pieces will be the same. No matter how much you may think you are different or better or worse than the piece of chocolate next to you, you are the very same – created from the same stuff, but shattered according to the laws of mathematics, or the universe or a supreme being. All you can do is enjoy and believe in your piece. Never doubt yourself and never hurt others.”

And Thing had kept that story etched across his heart.

As he closed his eyes for the final time, Thing appreciated that the way he appeared to others said nothing about the contents of his heart. That the most beautiful of creatures sometimes held the ugliest of hearts.

At the end of it all, Thing had been entered into a game, which he had never invented, nor had asked to join, but had played it to the rules, to those he understood that is - and had done it to the very best that he could.

If, whatever or, whoever was out there was unhappy with that, it wasn’t of Thing's doing and as the final breath left Thing, it exited a mouth with a gentile smile of contentment.

bobby stevenson 2017