The House with the Red Roof

One year, I decided not to walk the West Highland Way; a path of about a hundred miles leading from the central belt of Scotland into the glorious Highlands. Instead, I ventured out to the west coast – because here, it was much more remote and there was less chance of running into hoards of people. Not that I sought out loneliness, nor did I try to avoid it – I’d reached that stage in my life when I was relatively content with myself (regardless of my many faults). 

The problem with the north-west of the Scottish mainland is there are very few paths and even less places to take shelter, should the weather dictate.

That day, when I found the house with the red roof, that was such a day. I almost thought I was going to be wiped out in a snow storm. 

It was an old abandoned farm house which had transformed itself into a bothy ( a place of shelter if you should find yourself stuck out on the hills). Inside there was a little fire in the corner, and some kind soul had left a few twigs and branches to help start a fire. They had even left a few matches.

I managed (eventually) to light a fire – it is not as easy as they make it look in the books – besides, it was a damp room and the wood was slightly wet. I took out a bar of chocolate and warmed some milk I had brought. It made a lovely drink. Needless to say, I fell asleep almost immediately after my supper. The glow and crackling of the fire brought a peace to settle in the room.

For some reason, I opened my eyes – and to my shock (for that is what you told me later), a woman was sitting warming herself at the fire and rubbing her hands.

“Oh, hello,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Who are you?” Was the only thing I could think of to say.

“Sophie.”

“Harry, pleased to meet you.”

And that night, started something that changed both our lives. We sat and talked all night (or what was left of it) about the stars, and the world, our families, our dreams and hopes. Before we both knew it, the sun had come up. You said you were heading off to the east and I was going to take the western path, along the loch.

It had been the wee small hours of the fifth of November – remember, remember.

I went back to my job of teaching in Bromley and you said you were taking a PHD course in Physics at some south eastern university.

I have no idea why, but the following 4^th of November, I happened to be walking near the house with the red roof. Maybe I hoped to run into you again. If I was being honest, you had been on my mind for much of the last year.

You were already there when I arrived.

“Imagine meeting you here,” was what you had said as I entered the house.

Imagine, indeed.

It was an extremely cold night, and I had actually brought some wood up here with me. For if there was no one here, I was going to light a small fire and then leave the rest of the wood for the next lonely traveller caught by the weather.

But you were here. Somehow I knew you would be. It was like that book ‘One Day’. Although neither of us saw anything romantic in what we were doing. At least, not then.  And once again, all we did was talk and lie by the fire.

I met Susan the following Spring and by Autumn we were wed. I don’t know if you sensed the change in me, but I went to the little house the next November and you didn’t show up.

Something must be wrong – I thought to myself.

Then I saw it – a letter on the mantlepiece of the fire – addressed to Harry. I was surprised the letter had survived. It said you had come a week early to the cottage as you were taking your final exams the week of the 4th of November. I remember sitting by the fire and wishing you well (at least in my head).

The following year we met again and this time you looked tired. Apparently you had nursed your mother through Alzheimer’s and now she was gone. You told me that night, that the walk had helped with the sadness. The fresh Scottish air had diluted your troubles.

It was crazy, but we continued to meet up over the next eight years. In that time I had become a father to two boys and you told me you had met someone special.

You looked, and grew so much happier over that time.

I just want to say thank to you for your friendship and your beautiful soul – and our meetings which kept me going over all the years.

If you are reading this letter dear Sophie, it is because I can’t make it this year. Susan took the boys to the hut (probably because she was curious herself) and she left the letter I wrote for you.

I will be watching you from the stars. I wish you all the love in the world.

Harry x

bobby stevenson 2018

Me and My Pal, Thing....

Long after Thing had departed the valley, and long, long after those who were his kin had disappeared; a woman came calling on me, one oppressive day in May. Her name was Esther Williams, and she apologized for the way the sweat stains on her clothes had made her appearance look disheveled.

“It was a long train ride from the District,” she said, and by the ‘District’, I knew she meant Washington, D.C.

She was a pleasant woman, of about forty, red hair, a lip-sticked face and she seemed to always have a notebook in her hand, or at least nearby. Miss Williams, as she asked me to call her, was a features editor and reporter on The Washington Post, and she was researching an article on Thing and his ilk.

“Where they came from, where they went to, and why they disappeared,” was her remit, she told me.
I told her that I hadn’t realized they had all gone.
“Oh sure, there ain’t been one seen, since…,” she looked at her notes, “since 1953.”

So I guess she was right, Thing and his crew had gone off somewhere better, maybe they were hiding out in the woods, waiting on us to become kinder folks – heck, I don’t know.
“You were close to one,” she stated - or maybe she was just askin’ - I ain’t too sure what she was getting at, to be honest.
I simply nodded.

“So?” She said.
“What do ya want to know?” I asked.
“Everything,” she said. “Everything.”

I told her how I was a grand pappy now, and how I wish my kids and their kids had gotten to know someone like Thing.
“He was the best,” I told her. “The kindest, most caring, individual I ever did know.”

“I met him one day, when he was sitting by the road, on the way back up to his cave. He was in my class at school, but I guess I hadn’t got around to talkin’ to him. Some of the older kids had been throwin’ rocks at him and one had hit him on the head.”
She asked what had caused the kids to throw stones at Thing, and I told her, most probably their parents.
“Kids ain’t born with hate in their heart. No, that kind of thing is taught at home and it goes deep, real deep. Anyway, I cleaned up his wound and he thanked me and he walked off towards his home. You know the funny thing is, I went to one of those school reunions a while back and all those stone-throwers were sitting at the one table. All of them proud - a table of bullies – and by the looks of them, they hadn’t learned a thing. I guess hate knows its own,” I told her.

Then the reporter asked me, if anything had changed in the general attitude to Thing. Had he changed? Had we changed? I told her that I didn’t think it was Thing’s place to change.
“He was just who he was. The way he was made.”

We did get a young teacher once, came to the school. She didn’t last long, on account that her, and some of the staff didn’t get on. She taught us all about tolerance, or at least she tried. Some didn’t want to hear what she was saying – I guess being deaf to certain words is another skill that some folks are taught at home. The teacher’s name was Miss Walker, I think I might have been in love with her. I think most of the class were. I could never work out if she was for religion or against, but she used to quote the Bible some. One day when Thing came to school after gettin’ a beatin’ by a few of the older boys, Miss Walker slammed a book so hard on her table that Jessica Smith fell off her seat (I think she may have been nappin’). She said that pickin’ on folks was wrong and especially when they looked different from what you saw in a mirror. She told us that some of the greatest devils had the sweetest of faces. Then she read from the Bible, especially the bit about the sixth day – the day when God had created all the land based creatures and when man was formed. That was when she wrote on the board:

We are all children of The Sixth Day.

She said, that whether we believed in the word of God or not, there was a lesson to be learned there. We were all created equal. Tommy Rogers said that his daddy said that kind of talk was for Commies and he walked out of the class.

But I noticed a change after that day. Some folks took some time from their lessons to talk to Thing and I saw him smiling for the first time in all his days at school. Sure there were still the stone-throwers, but they found other targets for a time – although they mostly picked on anything their folks had told them was different. Maybe they were just behavin’ the way they were made, and they had no choice either. Yet I still think - you can see badness for what it is.

So this reporter, Esther Williams, thanked me for my time and for the delicious iced-tea I had served her and said she’d let me know when the article was being published in the Post.

They never did find any more of Thing’s kind of people. I hope they didn’t get wiped out by our hate, and that maybe, just maybe, they are hiding out in the woods waiting for us to become better humans.

bobby stevenson 2018

The Halloween Mirror

For the last three weeks, he’d been shaving. He was proud of that, I mean most of his friends had started a year or two ago. He hadn’t been able to find enough hair on his face to convince his dad to let him use the razor, up until then. 

So, that morning, he did what he had done for the last 20 days, he went into the bathroom to shave. He pulled the mirror his dad always used, down a little, and started to………..

Except there was one thing missing. One important thing.

He was missing. There was no reflection in the mirror. Oh, sure there were the walls and the shower behind him, but nothing stopping their reflections. He didn’t exist – as far as the mirror was concerned. He stupidly turned the mirror over to see if he was reflected on the mirror on the other side. He wasn’t.

He ran back into the bedroom to ensure he wasn’t still asleep and dreaming. But no. The bed was empty and the mirror in the bedroom was the same. No him.

He could hear his mother downstairs preparing the breakfast and he was unsure as to what he should do next. If he told her, she’d think he’d been on some drug or other – not that he had ever tried anything – but she tended to think the worst of all his exploits. He popped his head out into the hall, to see if the coast was clear – and another weird thing happened: he could see his reflection in the hall mirror …..except…..except…it, or rather his reflection, stuck a finger up in a rude gesture and ran away. Well disappeared out of the side of the mirror, that is.

He chased it to the mirror at the bottom of the stairs, but all his reflection did was laugh and run on to the next mirror. He knew there was a mirror in the kitchen and his mother was also in there. He walked in, trying not show any panic, and wished his mother a good morning. She asked if he wanted toast, and he said he did. She wasn’t looking, so he had a quick look in the mirror and sure enough his reflection was there. His mother turned around and scolded him for being so obsessed with his appearance. “You boys,” is what she’d normally say, and then laugh.

When his mother turned around, the reflection started to make stupid faces, and so he responded by giving a rude gesture back. It was as his mother was buttering the toast, that the reflection reached out from the mirror and grabbed him – so hard and fast, that he didn’t realise what was happening at first. The reflection pulled him into his side of the mirror. Then it jumped out into the kitchen.

“Your turn,” it said. “See how you like it.”

The reflection was in the kitchen getting toast from the boy’s mother. ‘Doesn’t she know it isn’t me?’ He thought. But she obviously didn’t. The reflection smiled back into the mirror – and because his mother was watching , he thought he should smile back – like a good mirror should.

Then the reflection and his mother left the kitchen.

 
And the boy? Well the boy and his unshaven face were stuck in the mirror wondering what the secret was to escaping. And how long he might be there. 

bobby stevenson 2018

Things That Didn't Make The News Today

Mrs Jacobs, from the other side of town, sat and talked with a homeless man, bought him a cup of tea and left him with a smile.

Sarah completed her Chemo today and her husband bought her fish and chips. She said she would leave them until later, then she kissed him.

John gave his last pound coin to a little old lady collecting for dementia.

Annie and Sam baby-sat for the young girl next door so she could go for a job interview.

James stopped his car and gave three people a ride into town on account of the heavy rain.

Mark talked a young girl, who wouldn’t give her name, from jumping from the viaduct railway bridge.

Margaret donated a pint of blood.

Colin stopped his bicycle and chased off some bullies who had been picking on his younger brother.

Mary brought some soup to the old man who lived on the corner.

And all around the world, the newspapers were printing that there was not enough love in the world.

bobby stevenson 2018

Being There

To hold the sky from falling on your head,
To make you safe as you dream in your bed,
To stop the world from breaking your heart,
To help you build a most beautiful start,
These are the things I wanted for you.

But being there,
Just being there -
Is the best I can do.


bobby stevenson 2018

My Squeaky Heart

He was nervous – really nervous - as he met her as she stepped off the bus. He wasn’t nervous in Sara’s company – no, sir – that is the one thing he was totally sure of. He loved Sara, no two ways about it. She was his soul mate and no mistake. She made the stars and the sun shine brighter. When he was with Sara, nothing and no one else mattered. He’d always hoped for a relationship like that.

Always, and life had granted him that wish.

He’s first met her on a train. She had just boarded at a station in the suburbs and as he looked over at her, their eyes had locked. Truly locked – like they had always known each other for eternity. He knew it sounded corny, but that was the only way he could explain it. They were destined to meet.

He had brought other girlfriends home to meet his parents, but with Sara he had waited.

Waited, so that it would happen on the right night, at the right time and then they wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from liking her.

She was special all right, all his friends had said so. ‘Two peas in a pod’ was the phrase one of them used. So what could go wrong - and, more to the point, at 27 did he really need his parents’ approval?

They couldn’t get married. They might try to achieve it, but the chances are they would be found out.

There was nothing wrong. At least they didn’t think so. They were a young couple who had met in the city, fallen in love, and now wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

It was his mother who answered the door. She was always at the door when her curiosity got the better of her. He’d even seen the curtains move a little as they walked up the drive. He could just imagine his mother elbowing his father in the ribs – as if to say, ‘she’ll do’.

And she probably would have done – do, that is – if it hadn’t taken a turn for the worse. The meal went as well as could be expected. His mother had made her special stew – ‘never fails to impress’, as she would say. Sara didn’t want to eat much. She made it look as if she was eating and then screwed up the little bits of meat and put them in her pocket. He had taught her that, something he had learnt when he was a kid and his mother was trying to make him eat up his vegetables.

“So do I hear wedding bells?” His mother had asked, only to be stared down by his father.

“Mother, we’ve only just met the girl,” Father said, kindly.

He and Sara looked at each other, then held hands tightly under the table and just smiled.

“We’ll see,” said Sara.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” he added just emphasise the point.

“You haven’t eaten much. Not of my special stew.” Said Mother.

They both tried to reply at the same time, with the same excuse: “Not hungry”.

“That’s a shame,” said his mother. “That’s a real shame.”

Perhaps it was this that put her on the defensive, but his mother had that determined, steely look in her eyes – that said,’ no one rejects my special stew, something is not quite right here.’

And she wouldn’t let it go.

“Where were you born?” Asked his mother, in a manner more akin to a secret police interview.

“In this country,” said Sara.

“Well, that’s a relief,” said his father. Actually meaning, at least you’re not one of those horrible immigrants.

“Where are you parents?”

“Mum, are all these questions, really necessary?” He said.

“I’m just curious, it’s not everyday you bring home a beautiful young woman.”

“I would have thought, he was punching above his weight

with this one,” said his dad.

“Allan”, shouted his mother. “Don’t ridicule our son in front of folk”.

He was going to wait until they were better acquainted before he had told them both, but as things were taking a downward spiral, he thought he would just blurt it out.

“Sara, is……..” , he started.

“A man,” said his dad (in jest, he hoped).

“Allan!” Shouted his mother. “Of course she’s not a man.”

“Mum, she’s a Bio,” he spurted out at last.

“What the flipping heck is a Bio?” Asked his dad.

“She’s a robot,” he said.

Both said together, “a what?”.

“Sara is a robot.”

The two of them weren’t expecting that. No way. Not the robot thing.

“You’re going out with a tin can?” Shouted his father. “Why don’t you just shag a tin of beans?”

That one hurt, but he knew he wasn’t the only one who loved a Bio. Wasn’t the first and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

The curtains were still moving (and probably more elbowing was going on) as the two of them left in a hurry down the drive and in to an uncertain and probably difficult future.

bobby stevenson 2018