Magpie Tales#80

Thanks to Tess Kincaid whose photo by Christopher Shay suggested this week's Magpie, and many more. 

"Hale Watter" 

  I logged out and turned the monitor off, left the Computing Suite and went down to the atrium. And stopped.  Outside you could barely see through the rain. Inside, folk were gathered, waiting for it to stop, and it looked like any day now it would oblige.

  My Gran had an expression for rain like this. "It's dingin' doon hale watter, Lucy," she'd say, her Scottish roots peeping. Too right! Gusts of wind sent hale watter lashing against the atrium's block-glass walls and running down in curtains. The deluge bounced off the forecourt paving. Vehicles on the driveway leading to the Main Gate threw up bow-waves like boats.

  Problem. It was very sincerely and determinedly pissing down. I had my little umbrella, more a fashion accessory than a piece of wet weather kit. Forget it, Luce. It's no contest. This rain would kill my umbrella in seconds. Instead, I went to the cafeteria and threaded through the yellow "Caution. Wet floor" cones, joined the queue, sat down with a latté and a danish pastry and texted Zack at the flat to say I was marooned at the Uni until Mr. Sunshine put his hat on again.  "Where?" he replied. "Computing Suite snack bar. For the duration by the look of it." "Don't move, Luce. You could drown! I'll send help." "Bless you, Z."  The sort of texts that new lovers do when both have mobes and 200 free texts if we top-up before sometime-next-month.

  I'd finished the pastry and was wondering about another latté and what form his help would take. A teleport back to the flat would be nice, even though it was two streets, seven minutes walk max., but seven minutes in this would turn my umbrella inside out and soak me to the skin. A teleport and a bath and Zack.

  My phone pinged again. "Those guys in your Product Design and Development should work on this!"

  Zack gets to the point like water gets down the plughole - tangentially.

  I knew I was going to regret my . .  "Work on what, Z?" but this is the way young love humours itself, yes?

 I sent the text. I waited. My phone sounded again. It's one of those smartphones. Sends and receives pictures, videos, sound files. It will Twitter and Facebook and do searches, and if you want, you can squint your way through whole books on its little screen.  I selected "Show Message."

   Just "HOHOHO!" and a picture . . .

but before the first "Grrrr!" had died on my lips and my fingers begun "Very Funny" onto the keys, the tannoy ding-donged and announced "Taxi for Ms. Westenra.  Lucy Westenra to the atrium, please." - the way young love . . er . . loves, yes?

Magpie Tales#78

The Writing's on the Wall

   When I moved into Zack's rented flat Mum said "You mean you and Zack are engaged?"  "No, Mum, it doesn't work like that anymore." Seeing her doubtful look, I said "We'll probably get married eventually. But not straightaway or anything. We've our Ph.D theses to finish."  

   The flat wasn't too bad except for the bedroom, which was done out in a 1960's wallpaper with huge yellow, orange and white flowers, so loud you could almost hear them. Certainly loud enough to give us insomnia. I guessed the paper had been up for forty years, but Zack said no, he'd found five rolls of the stuff in a cupboard when he moved in. With his then girl friend he'd scraped off earlier layers, one of which was Victorian, dark green and varnished. "Hell of a job," he said, "took absolute ages." Then they pasted up the Garden of Delights. "Kind of retro. We liked it. At first."

   So we got busy. Day One, we bought stripping knives, scrapers and a stepladder. We hired a steam stripper, a magic piece of kit. On Day Two I was up the ladder peeling off flowery grot I'd previously steamed.  Sometimes a whole width just about fell off the wall, a satisfying feeling, denuding several square metres in no time leaving bare plaster ready for white emulsion.  The piece in the corner next to the door was coming away nicely when I stopped, glanced at Zack who, gallant as ever was attacking some remaining bits of the green varnished stuff at skirting board level. So he didn't see me roughly manhandle the falling flowers back onto the wall and hold them there one-handed.

  "Zack love, what happened to the friend who helped you strip?'

  He dropped his scraper.

  "The paper, Zack. Strip the old paper. When you stuck up this ghastly stuff."

  "For a minute I thought you meant - We didn't really get on. Didn't last long after we finished the room."

  "Why?" I wanted to know, looking down on him from my perch, pressing my lips together not to laugh.

  "We were, like, incompatible."

  "In what way?"

  "Truth to tell,"he said, "she was about as much fun as a dead sheep. Why the sudden interest?"

  "Just that I imagined her up here where I am, erm . . helping you." I said, then, "Right! Nearly finished this lot. Time for a coffee."

   I took one last look. Right at the top of the wall where I had just dislodged another bunch of the horrible flowers, someone had written in pencil, in very small caps that I scratched out with my scraper in case he should see  -

  'MOST WALLPAPERS ARE BETTER HUNG THAN YOU, ZACKO!'  

  Nice one from a dead sheep!


(This is just one of many responses to Tess Kincaid's wonderful picture prompt this week.  You can find the others HERE)