Archie

Iwrote this about 4 years ago, as my response to a challenge/homework set in our Creative Writing class.  As I remember it, there were various constraints etc we had to abide by: The story had to start with the word "Archie", and finish with the word "closed", for example.  Various words, which I now forget, had also to be included. But the main  "challange" was what madwe life difficult - I won't reveal it till the end - see if you spot it!

                                                                     Archie

Archie sat on his bed and stuffed a T-shirt in his mouth so no one would hear him crying. Granted, the noise coming from downstairs made that unlikely.  Yet he couldn’t take the risk that his father, or even his mother, would hear him. Maybe then his father, or even his mother, would storm up and hit him for making such a fuss. So his mother might not hit him, but if he didn’t stop, she might, in her terror and her desire not to enrage his father any more. Every night, it seemed, his mother’s weakness and incompetence angered his father, especially if the two of them had been to the pub. But Archie felt safe here, as long as he didn’t remind them of his existence.  Eventually, the noise would die away, to be replaced by other, stranger, noises, as his parents wove their way upstairs, arms entwined, lips locked together.  Right now, he just had to absent himself, to be a nothing, a blank, until it was safe for him to exist again.

Not so easy as it seemed. Desperately, Archie focussed his eyes on the cracked mirror in the corner.  Reflected back he could see his own grubby face and dark eyes.  Sometimes, he thought there were other faces behind him in the indistinct dark that swirled there, blurred by his tears.  Stern but kindly faces, he thought, both men’s and women’s, regarding him with a calm interest, and perhaps, sympathy.  You could almost feel their kindness, he thought, and absentmindedly wiped the last of his tears away. Yearningly, he leant forward and reached his hand toward the surface of the mirror.

Ripples of shock raced through him as his fingers penetrated the surface, as if it were jelly-like material.  Long fingers grasped his wrist and he was pulled, half-eagerly, half-resisting, through the silver cloud and into a candle-lit room. Men and women stood there, in long strange garments, their hair dark and flowing.

“Greetings and welcome!” said the one who held his wrist.

“Thanks,” Archie said, trying not to sound as bewildered as he felt.

“Thanks are due to you, young man,” the man said, bowing from the waist.”

There are few with the sight to see us, and the bravery to act when they do.”

“Oh, I wasn’t being brave,” Archie said, trying to explain that he had only reached out in curiosity.

“You don’t think you’re brave, to sit there in the dark, night after night, with just the street lamp for company, keeping quiet?”

This was a woman speaking, with a low clear voice that soothed and brought comfort.

 “The fact is that by your actions, whether brave or not, you have made the link between your world and ours,” said the first man, who seemed to be taking the lead.

“Desiring as we do, to help you – and so many others – we can yet do nothing until you make the first move.”

Evidently, this was a dream and he had fallen asleep without realising it.  This meant it didn’t matter what he said, what secrets he revealed – it was all unreal.

“Look here, he said, “how do you know about what happens in my house – and why should it matter to you?”

“Undoubtedly, Archie,” the woman who had spoken earlier said “it matters to us greatly.  You see, we were appointed to look after you, but we had no way of breaking through. How often have we watched and shared your suffering and sorrow. We have others whom we guard, many with more success than you.  Unlikely as it may seem, in certain circumstances we can work in your world, but in your case, you were so isolated, we had to wait for you to reach out.”

“Thea, do not try to explain – he is only a young lad after all,” the man who seemed to be the leader interrupted.

“Do you wish to change the way you live?” he said to Archie, in a kindly interested way.

“You know I do, if you’ve been watching”, said Archie, half-annoyed.

“Don’t be angry – we have to confirm it, as your true desire: only then can we act.” The man’s voice seemed to be fading.

“Go to sleep now”. With that, the voice of the woman, Thea, echoed round in Archie’s head, and he found himself curling up under the thin duvet, as sleep took him.

…………………………………..

Morning. Getting up in good time to make his breakfast, and get himself off to school, Archie barely gave a thought to the strange visions of the night before. Every time they flicked through his mind, he shrugged, and muttered “Stupid dreams!”

So he was surprised to see his mother sitting at the breakfast bar, dressed, with her hair neatly tied back, and a cup of coffee clasped in her hand.

“Don’t look so surprised, love,” she said, pouring milk on a bowl of cereal, which she pushed toward him. “Mind you, I know it’s been a long time since you saw me around at this hour – I don’t usually get up till midday! You’ve been a good, uncomplaining lad, but I woke in the middle of last night, for some reason, and I realised we couldn’t go on like this.  So I’ve been doing some thinking.  Get those Coco-Pops down you quickly – I’d like us to be out of here before your dad wakes up.”

“Pardon?” Archie stuttered, not making any sense of it. This wasn’t the mother he knew.

“We’ll go to the Social, and see if they can help us.  So long as we can go where your dad doesn’t find us, I’ll make an effort to stop drinking – to dry out.  That’s the trouble you see – I drink too much. He – your dad – doesn’t help: either I drink to keep him company, or I don’t and get beaten up. Perhaps they’ll find someone for you to stay with, if I have to go away to do it…but quick, let’s go now! We’ll pick up the cases I’ve put in the hall and be off!”

Forty minutes later, they were sitting in a social worker’s office.  Every moment of that morning had been so surprising that Archie wasn’t too surprised to feel that he recognised the man across the desk. Keeping his impossible thoughts to himself, he shook the man’s hand, politely.

“You’re Archie, aren’t you? said the social worker.  “Relax – you’re in safe hands and life will be better from today on.  Now you’ve contacted us, we’ll be able to help. Pleased to meet you both – we’ve been waiting for something like this to happen!”

Now he was sure.  Every word the man said could be taken two ways, and what the words said to Archie were not what they said to his mother.  Realisation flooded through him. Mr Lawrenson, the social worker, was the man from the mirror, and somehow the Guardians in the mirror-world had got his mother to take action at last.  They had known that if she did, their man would somehow be here, in this office, able to help.

“Please fill in these forms”, he was saying, “and then I’ll find someone to take you to the Woman’s Refuge.”

“Excuse me,” said Archie, “what’s one of those things?”

“Somewhere where no men are allowed, where we’ll be safe from your dad, where you can be looked after, if I have to…go away,” his mother said.

Dreamily, Archie followed his mother up the path to the large, untidy house.  Everything was going to be better from now on. Nothing could surprise him, he thought.  Then the door opened, and, standing there, welcoming there, was the woman, Thea.

“Archie, I’m so glad to see you,” she said, bending to hug him, and then ushering them in.  Never again would he live a daily nightmare, he thought, as, behind him, like a solid defensive wall, the heavy door closed.

                                            .....................................................

 The Challenge?  To start every sentence with the letter that finished the one before?  Did you notice?  It certainly stops you being sloppy about starting every sentence with the!  But the difficulty is to make it read naturally!

Dragons and Me: Feb 2, 2011

As the front of The Edge of Doom might suggest, I'm interested in dragons, and, perhpas because I'm Welsh, my dragons are usually friendly ones. The one in the book is called Olwen, and definitely a friendly dragon.  But what of the one St George killed, you ask?  Well, as part of a homework set by our Creative Writing tutor (called Olwyn, but she isn't a dragon!), I wrote my version of this a few years ago.  Here it is: 

    

                                From the Dragon’s Mouth

You’ve all heard the stories – how George killed the dragon, or at the very least tamed it, and the Princess was able to lead it to the palace on a ribbon, or something: Well, what rubbish! Never believe anything you read in the chronicles, my old Mam used to say, and quite right she was. She also brought me up to be polite, and never eat maidens  - or any other human beings, come to think of it.  Anyway, the time has come to put the record straight.

To begin at the beginning (as another Welsh writer puts it), there were dragons all over the world in those days. Marvellous it was, to see us young ones flying in formation over hill and dale, lake and sea. Of course, there were always nations that were more welcoming than others – usually the older, wiser ones, especially the Chinese and Welsh. I often visited my fellows in China, but my home was Wales.  Kind to us, the people there were – bred huge herds of sheep for us to eat.

We never ate people: that’s a wicked lie spread about by those people who were scared of us – the English for example. I won’t say we didn’t do a bit of border raiding from time to time, and take the odd English cow. I’ll even admit to scaring a few Anglo-Saxons by belching fire in their general direction, but we never killed anyone, let alone ate them. Mam would have gone spare, and a Welsh Mam, especially a dragon, on the warpath, is something you do not want to see!

Well, to the incident in question: what it was, was that we had an English Princess staying at the court of our local Prince (no kings in Wales).  Some sort of hostage – she’d been swapped for one of our Prince’s daughters until the details of the Peace Treaty were sorted.  A lovely girl she was too, and good to look at. I mean all our Welsh girls – and the Chinese ones, come to think of it – are little and dark. The English one was tall and fair, as well as pretty, so she was a real novelty. She was friendly too, and was soon as close as close with the Welsh princesses and their friends. (Nothing snooty about us Welsh – all the girls in the district ran round together)

One day, at the beginning of May they were all playing round my cave, making May garlands and playing silly games, whilst I snoozed in the afternoon sun, half in and half out of my cave, full to the brim after a good lunch of Welsh Mutton. The girls were acting as if they were six or seven, not sixteen and seventeen, as most of them were: the spring sunshine had gone to their heads. “Let’s play hide-and- seek!” said one and soon they’d all scattered, some even hiding in the folds of my wings.

Well, they’d been playing for about half-an-hour, when up rode George.  Let me tell you about him.  Our English Princess had told us that when all this Peace Treaty was sorted out, and she went home, she was to marry a Syrian Prince “Very brave, and handsome and rich, and not so clever that I won’t be able to wind him round my little finger!” An arranged marriage, of course, but she was very happy about it, and very willing to love her George, whilst he

was bewitched by the lovely lass. George had arrived to take our Princess home, the Treaty having been sorted out. And he totally misread the situation.

The point is, that dragons aren’t well known in the Middle East. The Far East, yes, but the food supplies in the Middle East always presented a problem – not too many well-fleshed herds in those deserts! So when he was told that the girls were all up at the Dragon’s Den, he got it wrong. And being a brave, noble sort of chap, stuffed full of Chivalric ideas, (and not blessed with a great sense of humour), he rushed off to the rescue.

And what did he see?  His Beloved, standing quite near a large red dragon, with her hands over her eyes, shaking slightly (Well, it was her turn to be on, and she was trying to count, whilst still laughing at a remark one of our girls had made). No other girls to be seen, and quite a few gnawed bones lying around (I’d been too sleepy to tidy up after lunch).  The next thing I know, I feel something between a prod and a tickle, and as I open my eyes, I see George, poking at me with his little sword.  I’m not best pleased and I give a little warning puff of flame over his head. But his Princess shouts to me in Welsh (which she’d learnt, but George of course didn’t understand), telling me to humour him, and to “play dead”.

So I rolled onto my back with my legs in the air, and the Princess came rushing up, and told George how brave he was  - that was true, of course, if I’d been as fierce as he’d thought! Then all the others rushed up, eager to get their eyes on George, and he thought he’d rescued them as well: that they’d been hiding from me, or imprisoned by me or something. So they took the garlands they’d made earlier, and draped them all over George and me, as well as round their own necks, and we went back to the town for a feast.

When the Princess and George set off home, I went with them to the border, but I didn’t go further, as I wasn’t sure of my welcome – or if I’d be able to keep my claws off their cattle!

So that’s how the two versions of the story got going – firstly that George had tamed me, and the princess had led me home on some sort of lead, and secondly, because they no longer had me with them, that I’d been killed in the fight.

There’s stupid, as my Mam would say.  But that’s the way all sorts of legends get going – take them all with a pinch of salt, I say. There’s often some truth in it, but searching for it can be like looking for as needle in a haystack. When you come across something that seems a bit farfetched remember George, and me, the Dragon.