http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/ Friendly science fiction and fantasy forums, discussing science fiction and fantasy books, film, media, writing, conventions, and related subjects such as science and history. en Sat, 25 May 2013 18:08:58 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/ http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/410-fear.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:08:59 GMT Or: Emerging thoughts from an unconscious contemplation.

A friend of mine is having problems with his wife's ex-husband. Why are so many apparently evil acts, my friend asked rhetorically, committed by humans on other humans? Where does this kind of evil come from?

I'm afraid I answered his rhetoric. It isn't any help to the situation, perhaps, but it suddenly struck me that I was pointing out things that I clearly know all about but which I am just as guilty of ignoring.

This was (slightly edited) my response. And the comments they contain may be, perhaps, my next instructions - to myself.

Hateful actions are a defence response and defence is inspired by fear of attack. What makes this form of fear most horrendous is when others are drawn into the fear and forced to live through it with them by the frightened person's manipulations and disruptions. This is particularly malevolent when the original fear has nothing whatever to do with those being affected.

So, what generates fear?

In almost every case it is generated by dwelling on contemplations of the future, the potential of what is to come and the dangers that lurk in that particularly imponderable Undiscovered Country (Shakespeare - or possibly Kirk).

Most people have an unhealthy preoccupation with the future. When this is allied with a perception of an unfulfilled or distressed past, it impacts heavily on present actions.

Example: X has been unemployed and had to eat his dog once to stay alive. Now, X is in work at an abattoir and every day he turns up to work he is reminded of his dog. He ought to quit, but he fears finding himself unemployed again and a recurrence of tragic events. He fears staying in work because he can tell that his mind is coming loose at the hinges. What is the solution?

I've no idea. But consider this: if X can identify with all those actions that led to him eating his dog, and if he can reconcile with each of them, then there is a good chance that they will no longer impinge negatively on his present quite as forcefully. After all, he is not an evil person - certainly not in his own mind. He acted out of despair and fear. He must mourn his dog, of course, but he must also honour it. It kept him alive.

Even so, working in an abattoir isn't going to help his state of mind, however much he recovers from the original trauma. Yet he fears unemployment and the repeat-pattern of dog-slaughter. Now he must reconcile with his future and come to an appreciation, an utter understanding at a sub-atomic level, that the future is unwritten and patterns only repeat if you acknowledge and accept that they must repeat. And of course this is patently untrue. Nothing in the future must happen. You may, for example, take steps towards one future and arrive in another without knowing how or why.

The important thing, obviously, is the steps themselves and your response at any given moment to the stimuli they contain. If one of those steps seems comfortably familiar and if that is an echo of the steps that led to you eating your dog, you must be aware enough to recognise it and acknowledge it in order to avoid it, to step around it into the unfamiliar, unpatterned unknown. In this way, the past can be discouraged from impressing on your present repeats of those actions that may, indeed, lead you to the future you fear.

It is, ultimately, all about Now and how you deal with the moment you are experiencing Now. The future is what you allow it to become. It need never echo the past again without your willing participation. Provided you make the effort to accept the past as it has already unfolded - after all, what choice do you have? You can never change it.

In short sentences for the easily distracted :rolleyes: :

The Past is over and done, the Future will be whatever it will be, everything depends on how you behave in your Present.

You can wake up now. I've stopped. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/410-fear.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/385-in-fact-ill-go-further.html Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:53:28 GMT ... it's actually impossible to equate human, romantic love with spiritual love, even though they may both originate at the same, utterly pure source.

Romantic, human love will always end, either by dissipating or by converting into some other form. The most optimistic ending is that it becomes spiritual. Less optimistic is that it becomes background acceptance

Most pessimistic is that it will end painfully for either or both parties. In the latter two cases, the ending must result as a consequence of ego involvement. Facts and data become available over time which causes one or other party to review their situation and love ends accordingly, usually one-sidedly but not always. Remove the ego, the charged, emotional investment, and these data become immaterial. By the same token, the torrid emotions involved reduce to negligible as love exceeds the mundane, human, carnal world and emerges into the higher, spiritual plane.

Only in the first case does romantic love achieve spiritual fulfillment where romantic love ends and is replaced by a far more valuable spiritual love. Spiritual love between two or more humans is the aspiration of spiritual seekers, after all: an all-embracing love that excludes all egoic demands and, as a bi-product, also excludes all sentiment. We love one another because we are one other - we are star stuff, after all. This is, perhaps, the subject of several other diatribes :D

This all-embracing spiritual love is recognisable in the love for a child or a parent or sibling only because self interest and ego are removed from it. Love for family is unconditional, truly selfless. It may begin as a psychic bond between mother and child, a hypothesis which seems to have some veracity in anecdotal evidence.

It may also or instead be genetic. In a true sense whosoever shares my genes is more similar to me than anyone who doesn't. Our cells are closer to being the same cell because in a whole host of ways, they truly are one cell, having shared an origin more intimate than any strangers'. To hate my brother is to hate myself. To dislike my brother does not mean I have no love for him. Attack him and I will leap to his defence. Do we have an unconscious recognition of ourselves in our family relations which is more acute because we share this genetic, cellular connection? Someone else can investigate that, I think.

Spiritual love, of course, can never end. Spiritual love is the essence that binds the Universe, after all. It is the energy that pervades us, and when our bodies die it is what is left of us. It needs no emotional connection to sustain it. It never suffers. It never falters. It never asks for constant reaffirmation. It only gives, never takes.

If spiritual love is the positive, then romantic love is the polar opposite. It is needy, demanding, life-altering, confusing, debilitating; it affects eating habits, routines, how we present ourselves, how we admire ourselves through the eyes of another; it re-sets our limits and our goals; it is purely ego-driven and so, so temporary. The first bloom of romantic love soon gives way to the seven year itch. Ego-driven humans are constantly changing, forever fickle and one person's change is another's metamorphosis; one's growth is another's estrangement. People get bored of people and look elsewhere for fulfillment. The pattern is there throughout the history of humanity. Eternal loves only ever appear in fiction or the few, very rare cases in real life - and most of those are lies for the sake of appearances.

These aren't particularly new thoughts for me. I hadn't ever before contemplated the possibility of spiritual love, but I think I've always had the notion that all love dies without realising that I was really only talking about romantic love. There are some forms that will survive us after death of which I am only now becoming aware.

But they won't get me laid ...

If you disagree with what I've just said, the odds are you're either in love or feel that you need to be in order to complete yourself. If you agree ... we're an independent bunch, aren't we? :D




Maybe not :rolleyes:

xxx ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/385-in-fact-ill-go-further.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/337-normal.html Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:02:15 GMT I'm back ... Next time, it's recreational :D

(which really isn't normal for me at all :D :D)

Let's be fair, you go into very few things with your eyes wide open. So it was between the Architect and the Busker.

The Architect knew every angle, of course, and was able to juggle accounts from all around the world. Occasionally there'd be a glitch, but as long as none of the others was aware of the deals being struck across the time zones, the most fabulous Opera House in the World would be constructed. It was a matter of balancing cost against value in each case.

The Busker had a patch, a precinct that permitted observation and as little or as much involvement as was deemed necessary, according to the situation. Music was all that mattered to the Busker; music and appreciation. Every day, the Busker would play songs, sometimes witty songs, sometimes sad or melancholy songs, always melodious and delivered with, if not a perfect voice, then at least with heart and spirit.

The Architect heard the voice and thought it quaint. Some deals were put on hold for a few days while the Architect made a deliberate change in routine to pass through the Busker's patch, just to listen and to feel enriched.

One day, the Architect offered the Busker a deal.

"Play for me. Just for me. I'll pay you well, feed you well, and if there's anything else you need, I'll provide for you. And when my Opera House is opened, you can be the very first Artist to play there. What do you say?"

The Busker was tempted. There was a definite appeal in being thought wonderful and unique. And to be the first in a new and prestigious Opera House ...

"Will they still be my songs? Will the audiences come? Will anyone want to hear my paltry Art?"

"Of course they will," the Architect answered, "of course and again of course. You are special, unique and wonderful. Anyone can see that. The audiences will come, for you are truly special."

After some months of playing daily and being applauded wildly by the Architect alone in the quiet halls of Architectural Head Quarters, the Busker was feeling more and more comfortable, even though the Architect would disappear occasionally in mid-song to conduct another deal. Though the mood was broken, the Busker remained strong and played still more from the heart on the Architect's return.

"With whom are you speaking with - whom?" the Busker asked one day when, in the midst of one of the most emotive songs any repertoire could provide, the Architect had responded to the urgent beckoning of the Red Phone.

"I'm closing the most wonderful deal," the Architect replied.

"I shall compose a special song for you and for your wonderful deal," said the Busker, and so did.

However, the Architect was never available to hear it after that. One day, as the Busker entered the Architect's office, eager to play this latest, most glorious song, the distant, crackling sound of music wafted through the door from the phone on the Architect's desk.

"Are you listening to someone else's music?" the Busker asked, knowing it an unreasonable question. Surely anyone is entitled to listen to any music they wish.

"No," the Architect replied, "I am all and always for you," and the phone slammed swiftly to its cradle.

"May I play my song, now?" the Busker asked.

"Maybe tomorrow," answered the Architect. "Tonight, I am very tired."

And so it was for the next fourteen days and fourteen nights and the Architect never heard the Busker's song, for on the fifteenth day the Architect declared:

"I have found this Perfect, New Music, and though I will always love your songs, this Music is so Perfect that even you will love it," and the Architect asked the Busker to listen.

But the Busker could not listen, for, though this Perfect Music might have provided new insights and new inspirations, the pride that had given life to the songs was now damaged and hurt and, if the truth were told, a heart had been sundered.

The Architect created the most fabulous Opera House in the World. Cost had been weighed against value and the Perfect New Music was the first sound to be heard from its stage. The world was now perfect for the Architect and the purveyors of the New Perfect Music - until the Architect discovered a Newer, More Perfect Music from a far-distant land.

The Busker still had a patch, a precinct that permitted observation and as little or as much involvement as was deemed necessary, according to the situation. Music was still all that mattered to the Busker; music and appreciation.

Eventually, the New Perfect Music reached the Busker's ears, but the Busker wasn't touched by it as, by this time, music had moved on.

And the moral of the story is, Nothing stays perfect forever. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/337-normal.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/326-intruder-alert.html Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:26:43 GMT Every emotion is related to an alarm of some description. Some alarms are installed very early on in life, wired directly to the mains supply. These are the hardest to disconnect. Other alarms run on batteries and when the batteries run out, you can decide whether to renew them or let them... Every emotion is related to an alarm of some description.

Some alarms are installed very early on in life, wired directly to the mains supply. These are the hardest to disconnect.

Other alarms run on batteries and when the batteries run out, you can decide whether to renew them or let them be.

Any alarm that is ignored could lead to danger.

But some alarms malfunction.

The worst alarms are the ones you don't even hear. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/326-intruder-alert.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/197-at-last-everything.html Sun, 24 May 2009 13:46:08 GMT I refer to my model of the Universe, the one that informs my writing and my opinions about super-nature, and every once in a while I intimate that I might post something about it, but two things have held me back. One, that my mind-exercise has taken place over a couple of decades and the notes... I refer to my model of the Universe, the one that informs my writing and my opinions about super-nature, and every once in a while I intimate that I might post something about it, but two things have held me back. One, that my mind-exercise has taken place over a couple of decades and the notes are in far too higgledy-piggledy a condition for me to rationalise them all into a single comprehensive (even comprehensible) document. The other is that I'd no idea where to put it ... until now.

The “until now” actually relates to a third reason, which is that I'm not scientifically well-read and every single argument I am about to put forward will probably be either poorly stated or open to the widest criticism from those who “know more about these things”, so with the proviso that I'm putting these thoughts forward, not for correction or dissection, but for the sake of those who might take them to the next stage or see some validity in my suspicions (about how things work), here goes.

Infinity

I don't know about you, but concepts such as Infinity and Eternity have always been limited in my imagination. Until recently the idea of something beyond which it is impossible to conceive of anything but more of the same has been pretty tricky to get a grip on. But it's an extremely important concept and, really, it's a perspective-boggling idea altogether.

Infinity isn't just very, very big. It's Everything. Some have said that it's Anything. Some have hypothesised infinite decisions leading to infinite universes infinitely different. Smacks a bit of wish fulfilment, to me, but it doesn't affect my thesis much. I just personally dislike the idea that there's a Me in another Universe having a much better time of it than I am. So, we'll let that slide ;) and accept for now that the existence we know is the only one that matters. So where did it come from?

A Pretty Big Bang

It matters little whether it's a Big Bang or a Big Tickle, it could never have happened but for infinity and I have two workings for this, one poetic and one pseud.

Poetic: In the beginning there was nothing. Nothing was infinitely big, infinitely small, for it was Nothing. And it was forever and for no time for it was Nothing and it was All. As it was, so it remained and repeated until it was compounded with itself and became a Pulse. And the Pulse was All but it was Something and Time began. And as Time proceeded into the void it returned to its origin and became the Second Pulse. From Nothing, the emergence of Time caused Pulse and Pattern which became Energy and Matter and these coagulated into one mighty and infinite Oneness that compressed and contracted until --- Critical Mass ..... Birth of a Universe from A Big Bang.

As Mass sought companionship, worlds and stars were born, each in its logic, each to its rules, each with its well-defined and legal orbit, all connected to the Origin by these laws.

Perhaps the pattern and flow of the Universe brought it to Consciousness and It became Aware. It certainly behaves like this as our own consciousness reaches towards It and invites or directs It. This is not confirmed or contradicted by this model.

Pragmatic: In an Infinity or an Eternity, nothing happens only once – or in another sense Nothing happens over and over again. For each Creation, there is a variation, not separated and boxed elsewhere (there is no “elsewhere” beyond an Infinity), but co-extant. Creation may come about by reason of Time echoing on itself or by the convergence, even a light, brushing contact between two neighbouring dimensions, Universes or Localities. The result, which brought us to existence, is the same.

And through variation, dissimilarity, incompatibility, there can be (sorry, but it's the origin of the title) Interference.

Allowing the mystery of the Origin of The Big Bang to remain for a moment, let us envisage Infinity with several Localities (or Universes, depending on your comfort-zone), each created by similar and dissimilar means. Localities where Universal Laws are different, due to the differences in their origins. Anti-Matter Localities, Localities where the Speed of Light is faster or slower by large or small amounts, Localities which are impossible to perceive by use of the fundamental senses of which you and I are aware (we call these “Other Dimensions”), Localities where each separate Locality is perceptible to a greater or lesser extent, Localities where Life emerges as well as some where it is itself a form of Life.

To these, we may not necessarily be connected. To some we are, to others we aren't and can never be in our current state of reality. Others impact on us without our awareness or reflect us without our knowledge. But all are encapsulated within the dimension we have called Time.

Time and Space

We have a very, very localised conception of these. We know what we experience and we experience what we know. Cyclic again, as everything must be.

Time is probably, though not necessarily, the most important concept any creature can have an awareness of. Without it, nothing would change (obviously) and nothing could be experienced (equally obviously). If there's anything that's more important, I don't know what it is.

And that's my point.

No one, not one single human born in our reality, can have any but the vaguest concept of anything more important than Time and its inexorable rush towards Eternity because it's taking us, briefly, on that journey with it. But there is anecdotal evidence and some scientific thought that suggests that time is not immutable. If Time has beginning and ending, how can this be possible?

And this argument is to confuse the bread with the oven it's baked in.

Time we experience and recognise. But there may be other “things” that we get “feelings” about from occasionally. Where does consciousness come from, anyway? What is the origin of Love in our paradigm? Of hate, of fulfilment, of ambition? Are our strongest, least rational emotions the only response our consciousness can come up with to explain the brief intersection of inter-phasing dimensions? “Your inherent frequency response is similar to mine and we are connected through the 29th dimension, as a result, I love you – we are literally on the same wavelength – I get a good vibe off of you”.

Visualising Space-time is, in some ways, much harder than conceptualising Infinity or Eternity. The usual model is of a sphere with us as a dot somewhere on that sphere.

Wrong.

Space-time is a spherical mass with us as something less than a dot, less than an atom of a dot, less than a blemish on an atom of a dot somewhere inside the mass. If I go back and do the Grandfather Paradox Roundelay I'll end up in an endless, timeless loop.

So what? So, one minor fragment of something less than a blemish on an atom of a dot somewhere inside the mass of Space-time gets a little confused, the rest of the Orb isn't even going to notice it any more than you'd notice a molecule of oxygen hitting your eyeball. Seriously, don't even worry about it. If you want to go into an endless time-loop, help yourself. You want to help Hitler win the war? Go for it, my son, someone will almost certainly weigh the pros and cons later and put things back the way they were, or better. A bit messy, but less than the breath of a gnat on the Atlantic's oceanic surface.

Good Vibrations

You want to achieve Cosmic Consciousness, though, now that is something that deserves proper attention. What it requires is an understanding of the fact that you are a multi-dimensional creature whose tendrels extend beyond anything you can consciously perceive without some effort. Not that we live multi-dimensional lives, as such, but beyond the four or five that we know of without thinking, we touch and are touched in varying degrees by the infinity of others.

In my model, these connections are due to the pulse-origin of, essentially, everything, though locally it can as easily have been the friction origin that makes us who we are now.

Down to our fundamental parts, we are things of vibration. We are, each of us, a song and some of us can become a symphony.

To those of you who are still reading up to this point, my wholesome gratitude and heartiest congratulations. To anyone who can see in what I've said even a fragment of a blemish of a possibility of truth, let's exchange ideas. Anyone who agrees completely with every word, with just one or two little things they'd like to point out – I want you to have my children. I mean it. Take them ....

Wind it up, for Gawd's sake

At this point I'll conclude with a few open-ended questions which I intend exploring (and in some cases have already explored) in my books and other writings. If ghosts exist, why do they exist? Do aliens necessarily come from a planet and travel through space to meet us? Is folk-lore true and did fairies, werewolves and the Holy Ghost really exist?

Things such as Time Manipulation, Love and Romance, Faeries, Ghosts, Time/Dimensional Slips, Vampires, Exploration and Conflict, Recognition and Reality, Demons, Connections, Existence, Mortality and loads of other stuff are pretty much all covered in the volumes collectively titled - Interference.

References

My head. Some other people's heads. A couple of the more obvious text books. A couple of the extremely obvious TV shows. A few of the better comics. Some of the worse ones. Various fictional writings of other sorts.

Thank you. You can take the rest of the day off, now. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/197-at-last-everything.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/195-word-experiment.html Fri, 22 May 2009 23:56:56 GMT Blood there was, and plenty. She drank her drink and sat to think. Around her, revelry. Deviltry, she thought, and sought succour in her glass. Sucker, she thought. Foolish head, foolish heart. Sucker. A draft she took, a sip and more, her lip stinging, sore. A tooth loose, she thought and... Blood there was, and plenty.

She drank her drink and sat to think. Around her, revelry. Deviltry, she thought, and sought succour in her glass.

Sucker, she thought. Foolish head, foolish heart. Sucker.

A draft she took, a sip and more, her lip stinging, sore. A tooth loose, she thought and probed it lightly with a fingernail. Slightly loose.

She had fought like a demon, like a warrior in such a fight to put the mightiest foe to flight.

But so much blood was there. And not a little death. Brittle life to be so quickly quenched.

"Mummu," the child had said. "Mummu, don't kill, don't kill all."

The blood was warm as it splashed her face, she felt it now a living place on her cheek.

"Bestill yourself, I've havoc to wreak," she'd said and so it was.

"Mummu," the child had dashed to the door and flung it wide. "Leave us leave! Together, now. Forever, now."

The child had flung aside its pretense.

The dank surrounds and dancing buffoonery impaled her wearisome soul as she recalled the fight, appalled by what sooner she knew before she knew the thing she knew.

"Together, child? Forever, child?" she had said.

Beyond the door she had seen them come. Dream-demons in their hoardes approached. The child's dream-demons she had seen before and known. The child asleep presents them for his entertainment, for her task. Where was the child asleep?

The warmth of the blood as it touched her tongue, she spat it, spit! She heard it snore.

The child asleep and so much blood from it as she dispatched the demons in their prime, forever now. This time.

Blood there was, and plenty. And ale to wash it down .... ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/195-word-experiment.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/191-attitude.html Sat, 16 May 2009 01:29:05 GMT Angle of approach. There's a right way and a wrong way to land a plane. No. There is a right way and a million wrong ways. A million ways to crash, to be injured, to injure others, to die and to kill. To hurt or survive. Such a shallow ambition, such a shallow alternative. But there is a right way. Get the flaps right, the speed right, the attitude ...

Adopting a stance. Head up, back straight, that's fine for most occasions. Perhaps not when walking a tightrope. Perhaps not when dancing or playing or holding someone in your arms. But straight back, head up, shows something of your state of mind. Pride, perhaps. Or defiance ....

Presenting a face. You can only ever be you inside, but you can show a thousand subtle variations of the inside-you to any number of people. The face you show might invite warmth, respect, love. Or it could invoke disdain, aversion, hatred. Sometimes, it can be the same face you show, even the same person you show it to, and one day the reaction will vacillate from extreme to extreme. Friendships can be forged and broken with equal alacrity, equally mysteriously. You only truly see yourself in people's attitudes towards you. If they can laugh with you, love or enjoy your company, then you must be okay. If they can hate you, mistreat or deceive you .....

Your attitude depends on others. How they speak of you, to you, what they share with you, trust you with, speaks to your state of mind, your confidence and your ultimate happiness. Those who speak loudest to your vanity will, in the end, injure you most. Or share with you a heavenly future on Earth ....

Personally, I'm a pessimist. I hope you have better luck ...

On the other hand, I thought my dog had eaten my slippers and was laughing at me. But it was just my 'at 'e chewed. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/191-attitude.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/182-wipers.html Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:31:15 GMT There has to be more to life than how much pain you can give and how much pain you can take. There has to be more to love than how soon it can turn to hate. There must be. Or is indignation the base line. Everything above that line is an optional extra while everything below is included in... There has to be more to life than how much pain you can give and how much pain you can take. There has to be more to love than how soon it can turn to hate. There must be.

Or is indignation the base line.

Everything above that line is an optional extra while everything below is included in the deal.

My car's windscreen wipers come on when the windscreen gets wet. I don't have to switch them on. It made me smile the first time I saw it work. Now it's expected. And when it stops working I'll probably swear for a bit before consulting an expert to try to get it working again.

But it won't be the same. I'll keep waiting for it to fail again. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/182-wipers.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/141-dating.html Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:40:05 GMT I have trouble with remembering what date things happened on. The obvious ones - anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas - give me little bother, but the ones you don't know are going to become anniversaries put up a fight.

The second of July was the day the idea germinated.

It was her birthday, you see, so it coincided. It was the tail-end of our relationship, anyway, so the fight we'd had over her birthday dinner had probably come from tension. The fight in the car was anger over the fight in the restaurant. The fight over my stopping the car to try and rescue a cat was because we hadn't finished the other fights yet.

We called it Roadkill after it died. Maybe a vet would have put it down, anyway, but we couldn't get it to a vet on time. Much later, she comforted me by saying I'd made it's last moments happier. I allowed myself to believe her.

We buried Roadkill at sea. I got a basket, lined it with a soft blanket and laid the cat's body on the blanket. I put an open tin of tuna beside it for the after-life and she bought some toys and put them in. I doused the basked in petrol and we said some words over the basket as I lit the petrol and we floated the basket out into the estuary. She sang a beautiful hymn and I think we both cried a little.

We watched the flames as they floated out to sea with the current, then we returned home and made love for what was very nearly the last time.

Two weeks later, we had all-but separated. She still stayed with me occasionally, and during one of her visits we noticed an ad for two kittens looking for a new home. That weekend we had a look and brought our two cats home. We consider Roadkill to be their Godfather. It was, she said, her apology to me for complaining about trying to rescue him.

After that, her visits stopped including an overnight stay. Then her visits stopped.

And now I'm raising two cats on my own. Of course, I have come to love them very much and will defend their right to life until the end.

A few months ago, she confessed to me that she had only been keen on getting the cats because she thought it would bring us closer together. The break-up had already gone too far for that, though.

Her allergy to cats didn't help, either. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/141-dating.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/140-real-enough.html Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:33:04 GMT She isn't feeling quite herself. A fight. Her father and her mother this time, not us. She'd cried and you'd - I'd, let's keep this real enough - tried to comfort her some way. Some words worked, some didn't. The status quo remained and she kept right on crying.

She didn't exactly throw me out, she'd never be so abrupt, but she did make it clear that the next tears would have to be shed in private, so I left her on the bed and wondered if that was what she really wanted, what she really needed, but I'm not clever enough to know the answer to that one or insensitive enough to force my opinions on her grief.

She didn't exactly throw me out, so I came downstairs and waited.

I stopped hearing her after a while. I suppose she fell asleep. When I looked in - and I looked in often - she gave the appearance of being asleep.

Until the last time. Her breathing was shallower and her body unnaturally rigid on the bed. I spoke, but she didn't answer me. I stood staring for a long time. She didn't move or make a sound. I know she was listening. Waiting -- for me to go?

Suddenly I felt as though I'd been thrown out.

Exactly.

For once I felt she didn't want to share what was going on inside her. And there's a certain amount of guilt that goes along with a feeling like that. It goes with the sense of inadequacy, of impotence, mostly of loss.

Her breathing deepened and I knew she'd fallen into sleep again.

I left her to sleep alone. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/140-real-enough.html http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/137-paper-scissors-stone.html Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:05:51 GMT Paper, scissors, stone

Everything gets beaten by something. Stoicism isn't enough, propriety and righteousness fall to convention and peer pressure and tradition and history, what should be can't be because of what is ...

It's a tear-jerker.

I have a knack. I can locate the cause of every failure and flaw. I can point to it because it's out there somewhere. It's them or it's that or it's something someone decided before I was born that brought me to this pretty pass. It's one of a thousand natural shocks that are my inheritance as a human being.

I cut and thrust my through the day like scissors through paper, but there's someone with a stone waiting at the end of it.

I destroy the things that oppose me like a rock smashes a pebble - or a pair of scissors - and the written history of a thousand cultures lands on top of me and stays my progress.

I write my thoughts and they cut through someone's heart meaninglessly and senselessly so that they cut back and destroy what I have written because it must be destroyed.

And it all ends in tears.

It's tear-jerker, all right.

... water.

Water beats them all. ]]> Interference http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/blogs/interference/137-paper-scissors-stone.html