Everyone knows what a stick is, it’s a lump of wood that you throw out in front of you, and if your dog is inclined to, he will run out and fetch it back.
Of course, there’s the obstinate ones who just lie down on the ground and look at you like you’re foolishly throwing away something useful.
For instance, that stick, and a few others that would be very useful to light a campfire, or just a woodfire in the house, during winter.
Or it can be a stick of wood needed for something else, like a building project, of of those highly secret affairs that go on in the locked shed at the bottom of the garden.
I’m sure the dog who refuses to fetch sticks knows exactly what is going on there, but is disinclined to say.
But..
If you are looking at the gooey sense of the word, there is an old saying, if you throw enough mud, some of it sticks’.
Yes, you can stick stuff to stuff, such as words cut out of various newspapers to make up a ransom, or warning, note.
Too many mystery movies, I know.
Paint will stick to timber, or any surface really.
Mud sticks to the bottom of shoes or boots and then becomes analysable evidence.
I can stick to you like glue, which means, really, where you go I go, quite handy if you are trying to stop an opposition player from scoring in a game.
I can use a walking stick, beat someone with a stick, use a stick to fly a plane, or a gear stick to move a car.
I’m sure, if you think about it, you can come up with a dozen more ways to use it.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Chasing leads, maybe
She gave me a minute to think about the situation, and then said what I was thinking, “So he could be anywhere?”
“He was dead. I felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one.”
I could interpret that expression on her face, ‘you’re not a doctor’.
She turned another page, read a few lines, then made a note at the bottom.
It read, if my deciphering was up to scratch, ‘doesn’t know if subject dead or not’.
She looked up again. “It appears these documents are out there,” she waved her hand in the air, “somewhere. Fortunately, they have not turned up, not has someone tried to sell them back or to the newspapers, so we’re lucky. So far. That isn’t going to last for much longer. Every extra day out there is another chance for the government to be embarrassed.”
“You know what the contents are?”
“Don’t be silly. That’s above my pay grade, and besides, you and I are better off not knowing. So, what you need to do is find O’Connell and/or find the documents on this USB drive.”
She slid a card across the table. It had a name and a telephone number. Monica Sherive. A mobile number, a burner no doubt that couldn’t be traced back to her.
“You find either, you tell me first.”
“Nobbin?”
“Second, and when I tell you.”
“So you don’t trust him either?”
“At the moment, for both you and I have to be careful who we trust.”
I added her to the list of people I couldn’t trust, not that she had told me I could trust her. Yet.
“And if I get contacted by Severin again?”
“Have you?”
I had thought about not telling her about that brief meeting where he told me about the USB drive, but it couldn’t do any harm. At least she hadn’t asked me if I knew about the USB, which was something, I suppose.
“Yes. Once. Told me to keep my head down. And asked me if O’Connell had time to talk to me. It was the same answer I gave him back in the alley. No. I’d just managed to corner him when he was shot.”
“By Severin, or this other fellow,” she shuffled back several pages, then said, “Maury?”
“No. That was what was odd about it. The shot came from somewhere else. A sniper I would have thought.”
And, my brain suddenly moving into overdrive, piecing together what might be a coincidence, but in our business, they were rarely coincidences. A sniper shot him., say Nobbin or one of his people, he looks dead, waits for a call to the cleaners, intercepts it, and collects the so-called dead O’Connell. It was a good conspiracy theory.
And as far-fetched as one.
Severin had to have the body somewhere, trying to figure out how to bring O’Connell back to life so he could torture the USB location out of him.
Hell, that was as twisted as the conspiracy theory.
Time to change the subject. “Do you have any idea who Severin and Maury are?”
She went to the back of the file and pulled out some photographs, mug shots perhaps of staff members. She put five faces in front of me and asked me if the two were there.
They were. The first, with the name of David Westcott, and the fourth with the name of Bernie Salvin.
“Who are they?”
“They used to work in the training department for ten or so years ago. Westcott was also a handler for several years. They both requested a transfer to operations, and we give a mission. Six agents were assigned, and all six were killed, an investigation after the fact found that their identities had been leaked to the enemy before they reached the target.”
“They gave them up?”
“Nobody knows for sure. There were others in that group, but in the end, the department retired them all. All their years in training served them well. We found the place where you were trained.”
Another photograph of the main building. I nodded.
“It was an old training facility closed down five years ago. It was just sitting there waiting for an enterprising crew. It won’t happen again. Needless to say, we haven’t been able to find either of them, only the people they employed, who believed it was in good faith. A mess in other words. Now, go. Find me answers.”
We visited the falls in winter, just after Christmas when it was all but frozen.
The weather was freezing, it was snowing, and very icy to walk anywhere near the falls
Getting photos is a matter of how much you want to risk your safety.
I know I slipped and fell a number of times on the ice just below the snowy surface in pursuit of the perfect photograph. Alas, I don’t think I succeeded.
The mist was generated from both the waterfall and the low cloud. It was impossible not to get wet just watching the falls.
Of course, unlike the braver people, you could not get me into one of the boats that headed towards the falls. I suspect there might be icebergs and wasn’t going to tempt the fate of another Titanic, even on a lesser scale. The water would be freezing.
I’m back to writing, sitting at the desk, pad in front of me, pen in hand.
The only thing lacking is an idea.
It’s 9:03 am, too early to start on a six-pack.
I need a distraction.
Blogging, websites, Twitter, and Facebook, all of these social media problems are swirling around in my mind.
The more I read the more it bothers me that if I don’t have the right social media presence if I do not start to build an email list, all of my efforts in writing a book will come to naught.
Then I start trawling the internet for information on marketing and found a plethora of people offering any amount of advice for anything between a ‘small amount’ to a rather large amount that gives comprehensive coverage of most social media platforms for periods of a day, a week or a month. I don’t have a book so it’s a bit early to be worrying about that.
I move on to the people who offer advice for a cost on how to build a following, how to build a web presence, how to get a thousand Twitter followers, and how to get thousands of email followers before the launch.
The trouble is I’m writing a novel, not a nonfiction book, or have some marvellous 30 page ebook on how to do something, for free just to drive people to my site.
I’m a novelist, not a handyman so those ideas while good are not going to help me.
Yet another problem to wrestle with along with actually creating a product to sell in the first place.
Except I’m supposed to be writing for the love of it without the premeditated idea of writing for gain or getting rich quick.
What am I missing here?
So should l be writing short stories and offering them for free to drive people to my site? These would have to be genre-specific so it needs time and effort and fit into a convenient size story that will highlight or showcase my talent.
Or should I create a website for the novel and set up pages for the characters and get some interaction going that way?
It will be difficult without giving the whole plot away so if I do it will have to be carefully managed.
I don’t think I will have a good night’s sleep again with all of these social media problems I’m going to have.
Oh well, back to the book. It’s time to have a nightmare of a different sort!
I didn’t have the luxury of taking a moment to consider what I was going to do, other than to draw the inevitable conclusion that whatever I did, there would be consequences.
One thought did cross my mind, in relation to the alien ship and her Captain, why hadn’t they exercised their superior capability, stopped the Russian ship, and taken the offenders away themselves. And, given the captain was prepared to destroy my ship, why had he let the Russians go?
“The Russian ship is hailing us, sir.”
“Very good, I’ll be there in a moment.”
They had waited a long time before asking our intentions, so what had they been waiting for? The fact they appeared to be immobilized was, to me, a little too convenient. Also, they had to know the alien ship was nearby, but even that raised the question of why they were standing off, and not alongside us.
Something was not right about this whole scenario.
I came on to the bridge, Number One standing in front of the Captain’s chair, the bridge crew waiting expectantly.
“Get the Russian ship’s Captain on screen.”
A moment later he appeared, with a depleted bridge crew, different from the last time we spoke.
“What can I do for you?”
“Why is the alien vessel here?”
“I think you know the answer to that question.”
“What did he tell you?”
“How about you tell me why you think he’s here?”
Why was his concern more about the alien vessel than the state of their propulsion unit? Unless there was nothing wrong with it.
Silence.
I motioned to the comms officer to cut our side of the conversation.
“General?”
He had taken up a position behind the defense team.
“Sir?”
“If they try to move or power weapons, stop them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Russian ship powering up propulsion, sir.”
“General?”
“Just say the word.”
“Comms.”
A gesture told me the artesian ship was back online.
“Do not try to leave or we will disable your ship.”
A tense few seconds before the navigator said, “powering down.”
“Good choice. Now, prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be met with force. Am I understood, Captain?”
A measured reluctance in his tone when he said, “Yes.”
“Number one, boarding team assembled?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Any resistance is to be dealt with severely. If the Captain or a representative of the ship wants to come with their crew members, let them. Bring those on the list back here.”
“Understood. Sir.”
The Russian captain was still on the screen.
“You have no right or jurisdiction to do what you are doing, and I will be recording this as an act of piracy.”
“Will that be with the international space agency?”
“My superiors, we have already alerted them to the situation.”
“As far as I am aware, your superiors did not register your flight plan as per the treaty that they are signatories to. Also, you are on a ship that no one knows about. All of that could be forgiven though, but you had to cause what can I call it, an Intergalactic incident which may yet setback relations with an alien race for a long time. You would be well advised to tell me now what the hell happened so I can at least try and save you from very severe consequences.”
On a secondary channel that number one had switched to after arriving at the Russian vessel, I heard, “what do you mean you cannot dock?”
The pilot replied, “They haven’t initiated the docking sequence.”
“Is it an incompatible system?”
“No, it’s exactly the same as ours. It’s like they’ve ripped everything off. They’re stalling.”
To the captain of the Russian ship, I said, “I get it. No Captain likes to have his ship boarded. But this is not the time.” To the General, “Target their propulsion unit. On my mark…”
“You are making a mistake,” the Russian captain said.
“Docking initiated. It is exactly like our system, right down to the override authorization code.” Number one had the same thought that just come to mind. Then, “Lieutenant, don’t hesitate to use force if you have to. We have to assume anyone on the other side of the door is a potential hostile. Counting down, three, two, one…”
I heard the whoosh of the door, and then utter silence, broken only by Number One, “What the hell…”
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
The aftermath and goodbye
…
No one in the room, of those who had been forced to remain, could quite comprehend what just happened.
You could read about it in a newspaper, or hear about it on television during the news hour, and think, well, I wasn’t there but it must have been traumatic for those who were, but traumatic didn’t even begin to describe what I just witnessed.
It took everyone more than a few minutes to process those last few seconds before they could move, let alone think about what they were going to do. With the threat incapacitated, there was no reason to, at least, not straight away.
I was surprised then, that after however long it had been since those events, I heard Charlene’s voice cutting through the fog.
“Are you alright?”
She was shaking me by the shoulder, sitting on the floor next to me, and she looked, and sounded, visibly upset. I was surprised she was still in town much less anywhere near here.
“I wasn’t the target,” I said, and then realized that was hardly relevant to anything; it was just the first response that popped into my head.
I could then suddenly hear everything as if someone had turned up the volume, and the first background sound was Benderby’s daughter crying.
“You were almost in the line of fire for one of the marksmen. I thought he’d misaimed. For a moment there, when I saw you fall…
She still cared, which was something I should appreciate. I took a moment before lifting myself off the floor to sit beside her.
“This was a disaster. Your father should have realizeda woman with a gun would be hell-bent on revenge and wasn’t going to be talked down. She probably used the time it took to get me to mentally prepare so she could kill the pair of them. And I’m surprised you didn’t see it coming.”
“It might not have come to this if she hadn’t known Alex and Vince were suspected of killing her son. Did you tell her about Alex and Vince?”
It was a meaningful look, one that conveyed disapproval because she was right, it had to come from me because I was only one of a very few who knew the actual facts of the matter.”
Better then, to admit it. “No. But I told my mother, while I was in hospital before I had time to consider the ramifications. That was some deal Benderby pulled off, to have Vince strung up and a signing a confession to get Alex off the hook.”
“He didn’t exactly get away scot-free. He still has a string of minor charges to face, and there will be jail time, one way or another.”
I glanced over at Mrs. Boggs spread out on the floor where she had collapsed after being shot at least twice.
Almost before she hit the floor, two deputies were beside her, removing the gun, and checking if she was still alive. I imagine the sheriff, by the door, phone to his ear, had called for medical assistance, perhaps out of deference to a woman who was a friend, or because he had to show all care and respect for her so a good defense attorney didn’t find a reason to have the case dismissed for lack of respect. There had been problems handling perpetrators in the past, perpetrators who got off on technicalities.
But all that was moot if she was dead. She seemed to be alive when she hit the floor, and then hadn’t moved in the last few minutes. My first thought was that they had killed her, but I saw her hand move, which meant she was still alive, incredibly good shooting on the part of the marksmen considering the obstacles, and the inclination to stop the perpetrator permanently.
Around us, several other deputies were escorting the remainder of the patrons out of the room, now officially a crime scene designated by the ‘do not cross’ tape lines going up.
The sheriff had made it his job to escort Mrs. Benderby, and her daughter, out of the room, and, no doubt get a statement after being checked out by a paramedic.
I could hear sirens in the distance, so they would be arriving imminently.
A. Minute or so later, I was the last civilian in the room.
I turned to Charlene, “You do realize that both Boggs senior and Ormiston were in that cave, before Alex and Vince cleaned up.”
She smiled. “Actually, as a matter of fact, I do. I took a forensic team back to see if we could find either of Alex’s or Vince’s DNA, and not only did we fund it, but the skeletal remains of what appears to be four individuals.”
“Boggs, Ormiston, and two pirates. One had a sword through the rib cage so I suspect there was a little dissent when the treasure was being divvied up.”
“I’m sure that will be confirmed soon. I wanted to nail Alex’s ass to the wall, now it appears we might have enough evidence to put old man Cossatino away too. He was picked up at the airport trying to leave the country. An all-around good day for team justice.”
“Except for Mrs. Boggs”
“I’m sure she’ll plead temporary insanity, overcome by the grief of losing her son.”
Flippant, perhaps, or just cynical? It was a bit early in her career to be like that, so perhaps that might be a little of her father rubbing off.
“Perhaps she was hoping the police would kill her. After all, she has very little left to live for. I doubt pleading insanity was her first thought when she walked into this room. You might want to study up on the human condition a little before you start labeling people, and especially if you are thinking of continuing on this detective thing.”
That came out wrong, more a rebuke than an observation, and judging by her expression, she took it as the former.
“There will always be a lot of things we could do better. You might consider next time to dissuade your friends from doing stupid things, like Nadia kidnapping Alex and Vince in the first place.”
“If you had done your job…”
Neither of us had seen the sheriffcome over, and he was there long enough to be privy to the last comments. “I’m sure at the end of the day, justice will prevail despite the convoluted route it took us to get there. But for argument’s sake, neither Alex nor Vince would press charges against Nadia, so it was not kidnapping, and since the mall belongs to the Benderbys, neither wanted to press for trespass, so, all in all, no harm done.”
He glared at his daughter. “I asked you to get his statement, not debate the legalities of the situation. Get it done and get back to the station.”
With that said, he left.
Charlene stood up, glared at me, then said, “no good deed goes unpunished. Do you want to give it here, or at the station?”
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
It’s time to go back to working on Bill’s backstory now that we’ve filled in some of the gaps.
Like some TV shows and books, some of the action sometimes takes the form of flashbacks.
In Starburst, Bill has a complete backstory, of a time that he had mainly forced into the deep dark part of his memory, waiting for something or someone to trigger it.
This whole back story, from the moment he entered the war zone, to the moment his war ended, and those that participated throughout that time, will be in the form of flashbacks, the first of which is triggered by the painkiller Bill is given after being shot in the Aitcheson incident.
These flashbacks will not necessarily be in any sort of order, but I have been thinking about this part of the story and produced an outline of the sequences I will require, give or take. There may be more, or less, depending on how the story progresses.
Part 1 – From arrival in the war zone to being assigned to Davenport’s squad
Being sent to, and the first patrol in Vietnam
Death and mayhem some months after sent to Vietnam
First meeting Barry in army mobile hospital
R and R in Saigon, with the first of the Vietnamese girls
Psychiatric help, time in the stockade
No soldier who trains for war, nor can they have a real idea what war is like, and certainly a war in the jungle, on the enemy’s terms. Bill is like any other soldier, happy to go into service, but soon the reality, and death becomes apparent.
Endless rain, endless heat, endless and sometimes needless death, and a deep mistrust of those whom you are supposed to protect, start to work on the mind of a person young enough not to understand what is going on.
Then, when trying to blot out the memories of death, enemy and friend alike, something has to give. Of course, the last place you want to end up in the stockade.
Part 2 – A lifeline, and a pass into the so-called Davenport Operation
Training as a spy?
Colonel, calling Bill into a briefing on the Davenport operation
Talking to the Commanding officer in Stockade, as a preliminary to Davenport service
Was Bill sent to the stockade because he committed an act of folly, or his incarceration a part of a much larger plan, a plan to have an inside man to report on Davenport?
It’s not the first time someone higher up the chain of command has had ideas of trying to find out what Davenport is doing, and where only rumors abound of his ‘interests’. Agents had been sent in before, and those agents had disappeared.
Was Bill about to be the next, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
It’s something that I have never been able to get a handle on, and I seem to stagger from one day to the next without getting anything done.
Over the years many people tried, some with limited success, others completely failing. I had a boss who once sent my to time management classes, and then expected me to manage my time better. Alas, I can still see her shrugging at the impossibility of it.
THe thing is, I’m one of those freeform sorts of people and I guess it goes with the star sign, Gemini.
Yes, I’ve been to quite a few of those time management courses over time, with the books and diaries to seem to want you to time manage your life. I considered it a bit like micromanagement where your supervisor had access to the diary and put in the work, the estimated time and when it was expected to be finished. Their idea of managing their expectations in your space.
I didn’t work well with deadlines.
But oddly enough most of the jobs I’ve had over the years have involved time management of one sort or another and I have survived, mostly due to the fact most of my managers had given up. Stuff got done, more or less on time, so all was well.
Now, in semi-retirement, I really need something to organize my days so something gets done. As a writer allocating 12 midnight to 2am for writing doesn’t seem to be a good idea.
Unfortunately it is the best time for me to write.
Anyone else out there with the same problem, and if so what was your answer to the time management problem?
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 