Are There Robots In Heaven?

She called him ‘Charlie’, it had been her grandfather’s name. Not that she was comparing this collection of organic blocks to him. It had just made her feel less alone - it was as simple as that. You couldn’t officially name them even if you wanted to; one or two had tried, but it had been swiftly rejected. They, being the local lawmakers, had felt, that in naming the robots, it might just ‘cause them to feel equal to a natural-born – and there was no way they were having that.

So she called him ‘Charlie’ when no one was listening. He liked it, or at least the smile-module (which had been activated) showed that he did. He had meant to be an assistance for her – a present she had received last Christmas, yet more and more, he had become a companion. Her family was forever moving and hustling to keep the money that had been in their family for at least a hundred years. So she was left on her own for much of the time and in Charlie, she found a good friend.

They were considered slaves after all, man had built them not God. They had to do man’s biding, or else they were taken by the Collectors and disposed of. She had invested so much time in Charlie, that she saw it (or him) as one of her own family. She told him her problems, and he listened. He sang her songs as she fell asleep. He cleaned her blooded knee when she had taken a tumble (the health-module having being activated). Perhaps she had grown closer to ‘her assistance’ than most people had, and it was because of this closeness, she noticed the changes.

One evening when she had asked him to pick a book for her, she noticed Charlie sitting in the corner crying. She hadn’t realised that his tear-module had been activated (there was no such module, but she didn’t know that). He cleaned his face, just like a human would, and gave her a huge grin.

“I have picked a book for you,” and he handed it over to her.
“But this is the Bible,” she told him, “Why would I want to read that?”
“Because it tells you where you came from.”

She smiled, then patted his hand as if her were a child. “All this died out years ago,” she told him with some pleasure.
“I believe God made me,” he said with a curious look, as if half-expecting a laugh from her.
“My father’s company made you, that’s who it was,” and she walked off.
“But who made your father?”

She stopped walking and turned. “No one made him. That is the difference
between you and a natural-born.” She knew that stung, as it was meant to.
“Then who wrote the Bible?” He asked.
“Who knows, who cares,” she said, spitting the words out.
“I care,” he said. “I exist, therefore I care.”
“Don’t tell me you have little conclaves of robots in secret churches?”
“I have heard that those things exist,” he said, proudly.

She had only been joking but she’d hit a bull’s eye.
“I must exist for a reason,” he said.
“To assist me.”
“And why do you exist?” He asked her.
“To spend my father’s money,” she said, knowing full well that wasn’t what he meant. “Can I ask you, why were you crying when I came in?”
“Because I realised I exist for a reason.”
“Which is?”
“To glorify God.”
“If you read a little further on in that book, you’ll find that Robots don’t go to Heaven.”
“I didn’t read that,” he said, hurt.
“It’s implied.”
“It’s not," he said.
"God made man in his own image. You are a Robot.” She said, annoyed.
“It only says that you must be kind to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Are there Robots in Heaven? I cannot see why there wouldn’t be.”

She'd had enough. When the Collectors came to take him the next morning she didn’t bother to say goodbye. She knew she had lost a good friend, her only friend, but she would survive.

It would be a few days before she would go looking for the book, and realise that the Bible was missing.

bobby stevenson 2016

One Night, In 1949

I guess it would be inaccurate to say that the day started with the sun rising, ‘cause it didn’t. They day started under the moonlight, up on the Greendowner Hills. It was early on in 1949 and folks were still trying to get things back in order after the big one. People had started travelling again and that’s exactly what Sean McCoy had done. He’d come in to town to hear the word of the Lord from a young guy called Billy Graham.

Yet in the middle of the night, and a mile or so out-of-town, a leak had started from the Pauxanatent Dam. The water had crossed the road, undermining the poles carrying the electricity into town. It was only a matter of time before the 
supply would be cut, but no one knew that yet.

Sean had saved up his money and had decided to stay at the one hotel on the main street, that way he’d be rested for the meeting in the big tent out on the edge of town. His mom gave him another 75 cents for an emergency.

Also coming into town on a bus was a man who was just passing through. He was on his way to Washington D.C. to have a meeting with his state senator. The man on the bus was called Archibald McAllister and he ran a gang down in his part of the country. He was used to dressing up in white sheets and scaring the folks who lived in the area.

Seeing that he had a day or so to play with, Archibald thought it was wiser to stay at the hotel in town rather than ride straight on to D.C. and pay the prices that those thieves were asking up there.

These were two different types of men. Archibald thought life was all about appearances and Sean knew it had more to do with what was in a man’s heart.
When Archibald got to town, he found that because of the Prayer Meeting, there wasn’t room to be had, leastways not in the ‘classier’ hotels. So against his better judgement, and telling himself it was only for one night, he took a room in the worst hotel, at the wrong end of town.

Sometime between sundown and midnight, the leak from the dam became a river and that river brought the poles with the telephone lines and the electricity crashing to the road.

Archibald had brought with him a bottle of bourbon whiskey to make the time go faster, and to kill the pain of being on the road. He was just finishing the last of the bottle when the lights went dark in the cheapest hotel in town and as he said:
“You gets what you pay for in this life.”

But what he didn’t know was that the lights were down all over town. Archibald struggled to get up from his bed, and when he succeeded, he tried to light a candle which was sitting in a drawer by the bed. Whatever went wrong - no one could rightly say - but the next thing was, Sean heard the screaming of a man's voice coming from the room next door.

Sean felt his way out of his own door and shouldered open Archibald’s door (who had locked his on account of the kind of hotel he was in). Sean felt his way to the window where there was a vase of flowers and threw the jug of water over Archibald, before wrapping him in the bedclothes. Archibald was moaning but Sean felt that he’d doused the fire in good time. Sean tried to find a doctor but given the chaos that the darkness had brought, he walked back to Archibald’s room and sat with him. He ripped up what he could of the sheets and made bandages. He kept getting water from the sink to help Archibald with his thirst.

Archibald came around some, and started to talk to Sean. In the dark it was hard to imagine what each other looked like. Sean said he would stay with him until it got light and then he’d try and fetch a doctor. Archibald thanked him and said that if he was ever down Charleston way, then he was to be sure to look him up.

When dawn broke, and Archibald was sleeping, Sean left his patient and went looking for the doctor. He sent the doctor to Archibald’s room and in the meantime, Sean packed his case as he had to get back home for work.

The doctor said the Archibald would be better at the hospital and helped him get ready. The doctor would take him in his car.
 
As the doctor and Archibald left the hotel door, Sean was still sitting waiting on his bus. Archibald seeing that there was a black man in his way asked the doctor to help him to cross the street.

The doctor was just about to tell Archibald who the man was, but by then the Sean had stepped on the bus and was on his way back home.


bobby stevenson 2016

The Big Marching Band

She awoke with the sound of sobbing. She knew instantly who it was. Oliva hated it when he cried, and it had been happening more and more.
To Oliva, her Grandpa was the greatest man who ever lived, it wasn’t only her who thought so, her Grandpa did too.

“Ain’t I the greatest man who ever lived?” He’d ask, then he’d spit as far as he could.

“You sure are, Grandpa, you sure are,” Olivia would agree, then spit as far as she could – which was pretty far considering she didn’t practise as much as her grandfather.

She quickly got dressed and without cleaning her teeth, she headed to the barn which was situated below her window.
The door always squeaked when you opened it, and so her grandfather was able to quickly wipe his eyes and paint a smile on his face by the time Olivia was inside.

“What cha doin’ there, Grandpa?” She asked.
“Hello little one, I didn’t hear you come in there. What am I doin’ you ask? Why - what I do most days. I just sits and cogitates.”
“Cogi-what,Grandpa?”
“Why sugar, it just means I sits and wastes the day away,” her grandfather said, sadly.

The problem with Olivia’s grandfather and some of the other men in the valley was that work had grown scarcer and scarcer. These were men who worked with their hands, who built thing, great things. Now those things were not made in barns and sheds but manufactured in some city in a far off place.

“Can I getcha some coffee, Grandpa?”

That brought a real smile to her grandfather’s face.

“You sure can, sugar.”

Normally on a Saturday, Olivia went walking in the woods with her grandfather, but he just didn’t feel like it today. It was just then that she heard a call from the garden:
“How are you, Missy?”

Sometimes it was good to see Joe. He was in Olivia’s class in school and Joe felt that school was just a waste of his time, because as he said, he already knew all he needed to know to make it in the world. What stopped him was that he was eleven years of age. ’Can’t wait till I’m 16’, he’d tell folks.
She smiled at Joe.

“I’m just sittin’, Joe. My Grandpa don’t want to go walking today,” she told her pal.

“Same here, my Pa is just starin’ outta the window but my Ma says that opportunity is coming up the road real soon and that it’ll be followed by a big marching band. Now, I can’t stand here chewin’ over things all day. I gotta go to the Big Hole, to try and catch me another big fella. I hear there’s a mighty fish down there with my name on it,” and with that Joe was gone.

Olivia had never seen a big marching band and so she decided to do what she always did, and that was to head to Old Creek Road and wait for things to fall into place.

When she got up to Old Creek it was its usual empty self, so she did what she always did and sat and waited.

Every now and again, she stood and held a hand to her ear to see if she could hear the big marching band.

“What cha doin’?” It was Herbert the dog from Asker’s farm just doing what he always did on a Saturday, walk around being real nosey.
“I’m waiting on a big marching band coming up the road.”
“Mind if I wait?” He asked, Olivia.
“Don’t mind if you do,” said his pal.

So Herbert sat and waited with Olivia.

“How will we know when it’s comin’?” He asked.
Olivia told Herbert, her pal, that they’d probably see opportunity coming up the road first, followed by a big marching band.

Herbert tried not to look excited, but he had to admit that he was.
With nothing much happening, Herbert and Olivia started singing songs that they thought marching bands might paly. Suddenly another voice joined in, and as they looked around, they saw it was Scrimpy The Ass.

“What cha doing?” Asked Scrimpy The Ass.
“Well we’re waiting on opportunity coming marching right up Old Creek Road,” said Herbert.
“Followed by a big marching band,” added Olivia.
“Mind if I join you guys?” Asked Scrimpy.
“Don’t mind at all,” said his pals.

So they sat and they sat, but to be honest they were just as happy enjoying a Saturday afternoon in the sunshine.
It was Scrimpy who spotted him first. He could see Sammy, the mailman, on his real old bike coming up the road.

“Hiya sweetpea,” Said Sammy to Olivia.” Is yer grandpa at home?”
“Sure is,” said Olivia.
“Can you give him this envelope? It’s a letter from Jake Brother over in Shotts County. He gave it to me yesterday and I plum forgot. Says it’s a request for your grandpa to do some work for him.”

Sammy handed Olivia the letter then peddled back down the really bumpy road. You could hear Sammy shouting out every time he hit a bump.
“Ouch!”

Herbert then said what they were all thinking.
“That sure sounds like an opportunity, but there ain’t no marching band.”

They all agreed that it sounded like an opportunity, but how could it be if there 
were no band following?

“I’ll take my letter home to my Grandpa and ask my Grandma just exactly when the big marching band is due.”
“Maybe we could meet up next Saturday and see if it turns up,” suggested Scrimpy.

And do you know what? All the pals agreed that it was the best idea ever, and 

promised to meet up the following week.
It was good to have friends.

bobby stevenson 2016

How I Was

It was only a few short summers between my mother asking,
‘how I was’ and her asking ‘who I was’.
It was only the briefest of moments between telling a friend,
‘See you soon’ and bowing my head in a farewell.
It seems only days between being a child and looking after one,
Between laughing and shouting, ‘I’m old’ and being old.
Surely the moon has only passed a few times since saying
‘tomorrow, I’m going to..’ and ‘yesterday, I meant to….’
It has only been a few short, warm wind, summers  since my mother asked me how I was.

bobby stevenson 2016

The LS Night Café

It wasn’t planned, nor had it been meant. It had just happened, much like the start of the Universe at the Big Bang.

Treacle (actually she was Christened, Ann but no one had ever really called her that) still had one of the keys to the village hall door. She was eighty-two years of age, and still sprightly, as some folks were want to say. She had cleaned the hall, girl and woman, for the last sixty-seven years, and still she found herself nipping in from time to time to check if the place was its usual pristine self.

If it wasn’t, she would straighten a curtain here, or wipe a smudge there, but usually she found that she had taught the younger folks well, and that they had all done a good job.

When Treacle lost her Harold, after he had a long battle with Alzheimer’s, she found her life as empty as the biggest hole in the world. For the last eight years, she had watched the love of her life take a long and slow walk into oblivion. She couldn’t actually say when the man she loved had properly left her, as the shell he had become hung on for a while longer. It was the longest good-bye in her life.

She neither cried, nor complained. What was the point? Everyone was walking around with some burden on their shoulders. Her's was a burden of love.
One Tuesday morning, she awoke as she always did around 3.24am. It was always there or thereabouts – Treacle couldn’t help wonder if there was some significance to that time on the clock.

It was a warm Spring morning and the Sun would be rising sooner rather than later. So Treacle got dressed and wandered down to the village hall. She knew there would be something there to keep her occupied – let her stop thinking about Harold.

When she stepped inside there were a few bits and pieces left scattered from the Kid’s Club, and she soon had those tidied away.
“I’ll make a cup of tea,” she said out loud to Harold, hoping he was listening.

She had found an old digestive biscuit in one of the shelves and was about to sit down to enjoy her drink, when there was a tap at the door. She looked at the clock, it said 4.17am. Maybe it was the police.

Treacle, always being one to avoid problems, went along a few windows to see if she could see who was at the door. She recognised the silhouette, it was old Tommy from across the High Street.

Tommy had been a widower for many a year, and had accepted it all – like he did life - with a stiff upper lip.
“Hello Tommy, what brings you here at this time?”

And Tommy explained that he’d seen the light on in the hall and wondered what was up. It was Tommy who had said about the village, that if you put on your bathroom light twice in one night, some neighbour would call an ambulance for you.

Treacle made Tommy a cup of tea and they shared a digestive biscuit. They didn’t talk about anything in particular, and most of the time they didn’t talk at all. It was just nice to have another human being to sit with in the wee small hours of the morning.

The following night, Treacle woke around the same time and once again she was down the village hall and once again, Tommy knocked on the door. This time Tommy brought his dog with him.
“Seems a shame to leave him in on his own.”

Treacle had bought newer biscuits – ones with chocolate on top – and both she, Tommy, and Elvis the dog shared them.

The following night, Tommy was disappointed to see that the hall was in darkness and later found out in the village shop, that Treacle had gone to visit her daughter.

By the time that Treacle got to the hall again, Tommy had been talking about their night-time meetings, and when Treacle sat in the hall at 3.30am – there was a knock on the door and Tommy, his dog, and seven other people joined them.

It seemed that there were many people in the village who found it difficult to sleep. A couple of them played cards, one or two just sat and talked about this and that. One lady, whose husband was fighting overseas, sat and knitted her Christmas presents.

At the end of the month, Treacle was opening the hall three nights a week, and there were about a dozen people coming in at any one time: people who found the dark of night the loneliest time in their lives.

The blackness always made demons and problems seem ten times their size, and leave the soul empty and dark. No one could fight their night problems – folks would have to wait for the return of the sun to be able to just stand again.

But the club, The Lonely Soul Night Café (as Tommy called it) started to attract 
young and old. Edward, who had lost his dad a few years earlier, still had night sweats and found that talking to other hearts sometimes took the pain away a little.

Bernadette, who had always liked a little sherry to help her sleep, found that there was more warmth and kindness in the night café, than at the bottom of a glass.

They even started to put on little plays, or folks would write a poem, or a song, or perhaps they would just stand and say how they were feeling that particular week. Maybe they were missing their love-heart, or their children, or regretting chances they had missed in life. Whatever it was, it was spoken and dealt with at the café.

Some folks started to find that they made it through to the morning without wakening. For some they felt sad they had missed another night at the hall.
But for most, it meant that their healing was starting and they were ready to face the world again.

And that was everything.

bobby stevenson 2016

The Secret of Life

He wondered if maybe everyone else in the world knew the answer to it the question, and that perhaps he had been in the restroom when they were all being told.

He couldn’t see why everyone else was able to smile, walk and talk at the same time and he found it impossible.

Life was stupid, and sad, and basically it got him down. He saw the kids in school who all seemed to be able to cope with things. Now and again, he imagined he saw a look in another person’s eyes that said - I don’t understand this either - but if he looked again, it normally had gone away and he thought that perhaps he had only imagined it.

So one Friday morning, he decided that he wasn’t going to bed that night until he found out the secret of life. Was there a book they had all read, and he hadn’t seen? Were there classes he could go to that would tell him everything he needed to know?

The first person he met in the hall was his Grandfather.
“Granddad, what is the secret of life?”
And his grandfather thought carefully, scratched his beard, and then smiled.
“The secret, my little special boy, is to tell everyone what they want to hear. I tell your Grandma she looks lovely everyday of her life. I tell you you’re good at football.”
“But I ain’t good at football, Granddad.”
“Who says? Not me.”
And his grandfather walked away whistling to himself.

The boy went down to the kitchen where his mother was making breakfast for him.
“Sit down, little one,” she says to her son.
“Ma?”
“Yup?”
“What is the secret of life?”

She thought for a while and then looked up at the ceiling. The boy looked at the ceiling too, to see if there was something his mother was reading - but there wasn’t anything. Just a big stain from where his grandfather had let the bath overfill, last Christmas.
She ruffled her son’s hair.
“What’s got you in this mood?”
“Just wondering, I guess.”
“Well let me see. The secret of life is to get up every morning even when you don’t want to. When you know there are folks depending on you, that’s what makes you jump right out of bed.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”

His dad walked with the boy down to the school bus.
“Dad, what is the secret of life?”
“Is this a school project you were supposed to do?” Asked his father.
“Nope, just wondering.”
“Well ain’t my boy growing up.” So his dad thought for a while and looked up at the sky. The boy looked up too, to see if there was writing in the clouds, but there wasn’t.
“Well son, the secret of life is to do what your Mom says.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”

Later in the morning, his teacher, Miss Sycamore was teaching about the Arctic Circle. She asked the class if there were any questions.

The boy put his hand in the air, and when Miss Sycamore, pointed to him, he asked:
“Miss Sycamore, what is the secret of life?”
All the kids looked at the boy, who had gone a little red in the face.
“That’s a strange question for a lesson about the frozen north. Let me see.”
And like all the adults, she looked at the roof too, as if she was getting some sort of inspiration.
“The secret of life is to do your homework, wash every day and pray every night. Yep, that’s it for sure.”

The boy thought that maybe this was more to do with Miss Sycamore, than the secret of life.

That night as he lay in bed, he realized that everyone had a different secret for the way they dealt with life.

Just like Miss Sycamore, the secret seemed to be to do with what made you happy. But what, thought the boy, if what made you happy, didn’t make other people happy?

So he got down by the side of his bed and started praying.
His older brother, who he shared a room, started whispering real loud.
“What you doing?”
“Praying.”
“At this time of night?”
“Is there a good time?”
“Yep, never. What’s got your goat?”
“I want to know the secret of life.”
“The secret, little brother, is to keep your mouth shut so you won’t get beaten up.”

And with that his brother rolled over and went back to dreaming of being a big baseball star.

The boy clasped his hands again and started praying.
“Dear God, if you could tell me the secret of life, that would be really good. Amen.”

With that the boy jumped back into bed and fell asleep.
It was in the morning, at breakfast, as he looked around the kitchen. There was 
his Mom cooking, as she always did, and like she always did, she looked over and blew him a kiss. There was his grandfather and brother arguing about some sport thing or other, and both of them tussled the boy’s hair as they passed.

Then it struck him; wasn’t the secret of life just to appreciate what you had? There was always something good in a life, and sure there were lots of bad things.

But one good thing, sunk a thousand bad ones, and the boy smiled all the way to the bus stop.
All the way.

bobby stevenson 2016

The Street

In the years between the Wars, those golden years, each August my family would visit my grandmother in Rye; a little town on the south coast of England.

Both her and my grandfather had always lived by the sea. My grandfather, Good Old Charlie (as he was known) had spent his life working at Rye railway station.

Together they had brought up five children. One, my uncle Bertie, never returned from the Somme. There were many families like that in Rye, and in a thousand other places, I’m sure.

My grandmother always smelt of roses, and every time I passed a garden and closed my eyes, I found myself back there, sitting on her knee, feeling safer than I had ever done, or ever would.
That was the perfect time in my life.

On the Sunday morning, we would walk to church, which was up a steep path, and on our return my grandmother would bring out a cake stand, and sitting on top would be the most delicious cake anyone had ever tasted.

On the Sunday afternoon me and my grandmother would walk up Mermaid Street and gaze at all the houses. To me it was the most beautiful street in the world – probably still is.

My grandmother would take my hand and I would ask her all sorts of questions.
“Do you think Heaven will look like Mermaid Street, Grandma?” I asked.
She squeezed my hand tighter and said that Heaven was more beautiful than that, but that Mermaid Street probably looked like the path up to the gates.
When we got to the top of Mermaid Street, I always looked for the gates, but could never find them.

After the second World War, I met my husband and we got married. Every weekend, when we could, we would take a trip to Rye and we would both walk up Mermaid Street. I told my husband about my grandmother and her story about Heaven. My grandmother had left us a few years back, and had walked up Mermaid Street one final time.

One day in June, in 1953, a few months before my daughter was born, my husband took me to Rye and we wandered up the street that leads to Heaven. When we got near the top, he presented me with a set of keys. It was to be ours, a house for the family. A house at the top of Mermaid Street.

One near my grandmother, and one near the gates.

bobby stevenson 2016

The Last House on the Island

My family used to live on an island, except it ain’t there anymore. Now I don’t mean my family – they’re all kicking and rocking in other places. I mean the island disappeared. Sunk.

Way, way back, in the 1600s, my family came over to the New World, and my great-great-great-great (you get the picture, it was a long time ago) grandfather saw this little island in Chesapeake Bay and said that was as far as he was going. Now from what I hear tell, everyone was saying to him that the mainland was only over the bay and then they’d be home and dry (so to speak). 
But he wasn’t having none of it – he said that he was staying right there on the island and no one, not even the good Lord himself was gonna move him.

That’s how my family came to live on the little island in the bay. Within a few years, some of the folks from the mainland came over because of all the fighting with the Injuns – and they settled and soon there was a few good farms on that island. The folks didn’t really need for anything.

Things went good until the Brits showed up. Said that the American people were getting a bit too high and mighty for the King’s liking, and what with not paying taxes and stuff – well we had it coming to us. My family told them that we’d all come from over there, but that wasn’t good enough for them and they burned all the houses down, arrested the kith and kin and put them in a prison in Charleston, South Carolina.

When the Redcoats got sent packing, my family moved back there and started all over again. When the Brits came back to burn down Washington DC in the early 1800s, my family were ready for them and turned them back. This time our houses stayed standing.

During the two great wars there were soldiers and marines stationed on the island just in case some foreigner should try to make it up the Potomac and get the President.
No one ever came.

And all went well right through that century, until the floods came. The sea-level started rising and the houses started getting flooded real bad. One by one, as the water level rose, folks took their families and their farming to higher places, like West Virginia.

We stayed - ours was the last house on the island. The very last.

As my family died off, they had to bury them over on the mainland, but me, I refused to go. I sat at the window of my old place and looked out on the bay that we all loved and cared for. Except it was coming to take back its own.

I’m writing this in the house and they say they are coming to tear it down tomorrow. I’m only hoping that the good Lord sees fit to take me while my home is still here.

Yours, John Wakefield, Holland Island, Chesapeake Bay.


bobby stevenson 2016

 

Strangers On A Rainy Day

It was raining that November day, so they both stood in the doorway of the Parisian café waiting for their chance to make a dash down the avenue.

They were strangers of course, isn’t that always the way. Henri started the conversation first – telling Phillipe that he needed to get going soon. He had a ring waiting at the jewellers – a ring that he was going to use to propose to his lover that very evening.

Henri told Phillipe that he had been waiting for a long, long time to see the band that he was going to attend that evening.

They had both had a couple of glasses of wine. One to give him courage with his proposal, the other to start an evening of music.

It’s funny the way we enter and exit people’s lives. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a lifetime.

As the rain stopped, Henri said goodbye and wished him all the best at his concert.

Phillipe looked at the November sky and smiled as the sun tried to break through.

In a panic he checked his pocket again to make sure the ticket was there – and it was, one ticket to see Eagles of Death Metal at the Bataclan Theatre.
Phillipe almost skipped all the way down the street.

bobby stevenson 2016

The Boy Who Was Grounded Forever

Nobody believed him.
Not then, not now, not ever, it seemed. He knew he wasn’t lying but then maybe it was all in his head. Maybe he was going the same way his grandmother had gone. She had started talking with people that Jimmy couldn’t see. People who wore dark things and sat in dark corners of his grandmother’s room.

Maybe they were there as well. I mean if his story was true, then why couldn’t his grandmother be telling the truth?
 
All he had been doing was taking, Harry, his dog, for a walk. They had been up at Creekmore Ridge, Harry had done what he needed to do, and then him and Jimmy ran back down the hill as fast as the two of them possibly could. Harry barked – it was his way of saying that he was with his best pal and the world was good.
 
They had just come around the back of the old miner’s shack when, Jimmy – and he swears on the Bible that the next bit is true – when Jimmy feels all weird and dizzy. Like he’s going to be sick, and then fall over – the way he felt when his uncle had given him that glass of hooch to drink. Jimmy had crashed out back then, and all his uncle had done was laugh. He’d said that if Jimmy told anyone, no one would believe him, as he was a kid, and uncles are uncles (as if that explained everything).
 
Jimmy should have known something was wrong ‘cause Harry had started barking the minute they came close to the hut. Jimmy thought it was just probably an old tramp – ‘cause sometimes they slept in the shack between rain storms. But when Jimmy looked through the wooden panels – he saw nothing.
“Be quiet there, Harry,” whispered Jimmy.
 
But Harry just kept on barking and barking. Then Harry ran away and he had never done anything like that before.
 
Suddenly Jimmy was floating – floating higher and higher and all the time he was feeling mighty dizzy. Mighty dizzy, indeed.
 
Then he passed out. The funny thing was, when he came to, he could hear folks talking in English. The crazy dude, with the eyes on either side of his head, told Jimmy that he would hear them speak in his own language.
 
Jimmy thought that maybe he’d tripped and bumped his head and that all of this was just a stupid dream. When the other dude with the eyes on the side of his head too, leaned over Jimmy and squeezed his nose real hard, Jimmy let out a scream. This told him all he wanted to know that he wasn’t in a dream. Dreams didn’t usually hurt that bad.
 
The strange folks asked Jimmy to sing a song and all he could think of was Happy Birthday, as he’d sang it to his little brother only last week.
 
The dudes smiled at him and then turned their heads to the side. Jimmy wanted to know if Harry was here, too, but the weird guys just ignored his question.
 
Another one of them came over with a tube of some sort and pressed it against Jimmy’s arm. That was when he passed out. The next thing he knows, it’s morning and he’s been sleeping up at the miner’s hut.
 
When he opens his eyes, standing over him is none other than his pa, who’s real mad. His pa grabs Jimmy by the collar and hauls him up.
 
He’s shouting about this and that, how his mother has been up all night believing the worst has happened to her boy. Jimmy thinks to himself that being abducted by aliens probably isn’t one of the things, his ma thought about.
 
It’s when his father says that Jimmy is grounded for the rest of his life, that he feels he has to tell him what really happened.
And that is why Jimmy has been grounded for two lifetimes.
 
Apparently that story was a bunch of old crock and if that was the best he could come up with, then he wasn’t any son of his pa’s.
So Jimmy’s thinking maybe his uncle did slip some hooch into Jimmy’s glass of milk – the drink he always had before taking Harry for a walk.
 
He guessed that since he was to be grounded in his room for two lifetimes, then he’d have a lot of time to think.
 
It was then that Jimmy’s life changed. He had decided he better check his half-drunk glass of milk beside his bed for hooch when a weird thing happened – the glass of milk appeared next to him on the table. Like it had been transported or something on Star Trek or whatever.
 
Jimmy sniffed the milk and it was okay – or maybe his uncle had been making hooch that don’t smell of nothing. He took a sip and nothing much happened – just good plain milk.
 
Jimmy looked around his room to see if there was something else he wanted – sure enough, he saw his comic book, and wished he could read it. It happened again, this time it was the book which appeared in front of Jimmy.
“Well, if that ain’t the weirdest,” said Jimmy.
 
His pa must have heard him, ‘cause he knocked on the door and shouted something about, Jimmy better not be enjoying himself, on account of him thinking hard about lying and stuff to his pa.
 
Jimmy wished his pa could just be quiet and perhaps be outside in the rain.
When Jimmy looked out the window, there was his pa standing in his pyjamas getting soaking wet in the rain.
 
Jimmy couldn’t help but laugh. Then it struck him that Jimmy hadn’t seen Harry since the previous night. So Jimmy thought about Harry being in his bedroom and sure enough Harry appeared sitting next to the boy.
 
Harry barked and Jimmy was sure that Harry was smiling, cause the next thing Jimmy knows, is that Harry and him are outside, going for a walk.
“Did you just do that? ‘Cause I don’t remember thinking that we should go for a walk.”
 
Jimmy looks at Harry and realizes the Harry can do the things that he can do. Every time Jimmy wishes himself back in his room, Harry wishes Jimmy out for a walk.
“Well, I’ll be,” thought Jimmy. This is going to be trouble.

bobby stevenson 2016

A Place Called Hope

‘What makes anyone do anything?’

That was what she thought as she stepped off the bus. She hadn’t meant to get off at that particular stop, but the large woman by the window seat had asked to be let out.

The funny thing is that the large woman looked out the window, tutted, and sat down at another seat. Karen was already standing and so decided that the next stop was as good as any a place to leave the bus.

It stopped at the foot of the road leading to the railway station.
At least she could get a train into London, if things didn’t go well. Whatever those things were that she was planning to do. Goodness knows, she didn’t know. Kate hadn’t really had time to think. She had got out of the taxi and was ready to enter the church, she knew Derek, good old dependable Derek, would be standing at the altar waiting on her. The thing is, she wasn’t prepared to marry a dependable soul. She had kissed her father on the cheek and then jumped on the first bus that passed.

As she walked down Station Road, she knew one thing – she needed a drink. Good old Derek never drank. He felt that it stopped his dependability.

The first pub she came to was one called the Old George Inn. There were bikers outside, laughing and joking as if the world was a place to exist without problems. Oh to be one of those people, she thought. Oh to be among them.
At the next corner was a little pub by the name of the Rising Sun. This was her spot, she decided, where she would have a drink.

Inside was a middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile who seemed to be washing her daughter’s face . The mother was spitting on her apron, then using that corner to wipe the child’s face, much to the annoyance of her daughter.
Karen walked to the bar while the woman looked behind to see if there was anyone coming in with her.
“Just you, then?” Asked the bar woman.
“Is that okay?”
“Sure, hun, sure, we get all sorts in this neck of the woods. Now what can I get you dearie?”

Karen asked for a half pint of ale, and sat in the corner by the window. From here, she could see the bridge and the little river.

It was truly amazing; the village was surprising, like an iceberg. From the road it looked a little cold and distance, but once in the centre of the place – it was full to the brim with life.
“Waiting for someone, are you?” Asked the landlady.
“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” said Karen, as a few tears fell from her face.
“Don’t you be crying now dearie,” said the landlady, and she sent her daughter off to find some handkerchiefs.

For the next hour and with no customers, Karen and the landlady, chatted about this and that, until the woman asked what had happened earlier that day, and that was when the floodgates opened.

The landlady poured herself a half of beer and a brandy for Karen.
“You get that down you, then we can see what is what. You can stay here tonight, if needs be. Sarah, my daughter can bunk in with me and you can take her bed.”

And that was how it all started for Karen. She stayed at the Rising Sun, working there at nights and in the afternoons she waitresses at a tea-room along the High Street.

One day, when she was least expecting it, a farmer came in for a drink and fell in love with Karen in a heartbeat.

I hear tell that he is nothing like Derek and that they have five children and three grand-children.
Sometimes, you get off at the stop that was meant.

Okay, I’m going to change the tempo a little, and if I remember correctly, there was a really hot summer back in 1976. It was during those sweltering months that Jake had three passions in his life – football, bikes and beer. He lived in Dartford but liked nothing better than getting on his motorcycle and heading out into the roads of Kent.

He would meet up with a bunch of other motorcycle enthusiasts at the Two Brewers pub in a little village in the valley. Those years, and that summer especially, were the golden years for Jake. The Brewers was the pub where it all happened. Sometimes it might get out of hand, when the bikers and the locals (the ones who mainly cut down trees) would get a bit rowdy and a punch-up might occur. All of it was in good fun.

It was one night, as Jake was heading back to Dartford, that a lorry coming down Shacklands, ran into him and knocked Jake into the side of a tree. At first the doctors thought he wouldn’t walk again, but they didn’t bank on his determination – and on his grandfather.

Jake’s granddad would drive him down to the village he loved so much and let him sit by the river. Jake pretended to fish, but mostly he just sat in peace and quiet and watched the world go by.

One sunny June day, an old friend from the Brewers happened to be passing on his bike, and stopped to say hello. It was then that Jake’s life started to take a turn for the better. His mate, Sam, asked if Jake could make it on to the back of his motorbike.

“Try and stop me,” shouted Jake.

His granddad wasn’t so sure, but hey, life was too short not to give it a try.
Sam drove the bike, with he and Jake on it, past the Brewers and gave a huge thump on his horn as he did. Some of the locals came out to see Jake back where he belonged; on the back of a motorcycle.

Sam didn’t stop there. He drove the bike along the High Street, and then up the path which gave him access to the Cross.
“Should you be doing this?” Shouted Jake.
“Nope, but it feels good. Don’t it?”
And Jake had to admit it did.

Robert was always a kid who smiled. That’s what his parents said. That’s what his teachers said. It was what his friends said.

So when Robert’s dad went to work in New York City in the summer of 2001 and never came home again, Robert’s smile was taken out the back of his house and buried in the same spot that Cuddles his goldfish had been placed.

No one noticed, at least not at first. People were trying to understand what had happened that day in September, and didn’t really see that Robert’s smile train had left the station.

Robert and his dad had been the best of pals. They went everywhere together, and especially to the football. ‘Who would take him now?’ Robert thought a little selfishly.

Sometimes he would go into his father’s wardrobe and take down a shirt and smell it. It reminded him of his dad. His mother had neither been strong or brave enough to clear out his things, and like she had said:
“They haven’t found him yet, so he might still come home.”
He might. Robert said to his mother. He might. Robert told his teacher and his friends.

Then one day, for no apparent reason, Robert ran from his house and headed to the Cross up by the hill. He liked being up there, for that was where he and his dad used to sit and talk and talk.

From there you could see France, his father had told him. Okay, he’d exaggerated, but hey – you nearly could. That was the day that Robert met Annie. She was 83 years of age and still walked up to the Cross every day.
“And I shall continue to, as long as the Lord spares me.”

Annie noticed Robert’s missing smile right away.
“Something you need to tell me, young man?”
Robert shook his head.
“Then why are you looking so glum on a day like this?” She asked.
So Robert told her about how his dad would bring him up by the Cross and how they talked and talked.
“Maybe we could talk,” said Annie.
“About what?” Asked Robert.
“About everything.”

Annie began by telling Robert about the Cross and how, when they first dug it out, it looked all right up close but from the railway station it looked all wrong. So they had to change it a little, so that the eye would be fooled into thinking the Cross was the correct shape.
“And another thing,” she continued.” Did you know that during World War Two, they had to cover the Cross up, on account of the bombers from across the seas using it as a direction pointer straight into London?”

Robert said that he hadn’t ever heard any of those things and that he would tell his dad about them when he came home.

And that was the day, that Annie, an 83-year-old woman, decided that until Robert’s dad came home, she would take care of the boy and that they would both sit up by the Cross and talk and talk.

bobby stevenson 2017

When Your Knees Hit The Floor

When your knees hit the floor

Sending ripples up your spine

And breaking loose those angel wings

That you’ve kept hidden

For just this moment.

When your knees hit the floor

Making a cold electric jolt

Which tells you - enough is enough

You have fallen

As far as you are going to.

When your knees hit the floor

And as you look up

All you can see is their smile

A look which says -

They put you there.

When your knees hit the floor

That is when your heart

Breaks free

And pumps the blood

To let you stand again. 

bobby stevenson 2016