Yes, it’s that little or big furry thing that’s also known as man’s best friend, a dog.
But the word has a number of other meanings, like a lot of three-letter words.
It can also mean to follow someone closely.
If you are going to the greyhound racing, you could say you’re going to the dogs, or it could mean something entirely different, like deteriorating in manner and ethics.
Then there are those employers who make their workers work very hard, and therefore could be described as making them work like a dog.
Some might even say that it is a dog of a thing, i.e. of poor quality.
There’s a dogleg, which could aptly name some of those monstrous golf course holes that sometimes present the challenge of going through the wood rather than around it.
Tried that and failed many times!
A dog man used to ride the crane load from the ground to the top, an occupation that would not stand the test of occupational health and safety anymore.
And of course, in a battle to the death, it’s really dog eat dog, isn’t it?
There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?
A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.
But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.
And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.
Susan is exactly the sort of woman that piqued his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.
Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!
A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.
When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.
Our hero has survived the crash, now he’s stuck in enemy territory.
…
This was supposed to be a milk run. There had been no reported activity in our zone and the pilot had decided to go up just the log some more air time.
He was hoping after reaching a 1,000 hours so he might be able to move to fixed wing aircraft and then move on to becoming an airline pilot. Unfortunately, he was not going become anything now.
That didn’t explain why we encountered a convoy out in the desert, especially one with a rocket launcher and English speaking soldier types.
Did we stumble across another outfit running a secret operation and mistook us for the enemy? It didn’t seem the case, our helicopter was distinctively marked just so we wouldn’t be mistaken, and then there was the fact the man knew my name.
How could that happen? It would need someone back at the base to tell someone of the fact the helicopter was going up and who was in it, and there weren’t too many people who knew that information.
And only one who knew exactly when and where we would be. Unless, of course, the pilot had strayed into a no-fly zone. There was only one that I knew of and it was nowhere near our flight path. Of course, it wouldn’t take much to bamboozle me in the air because I had no sense of direction.
Unless the pilot had another agenda. I could hardly tell where we were because desert all looked the same to me, and navigation wasn’t my strongest point.
After the first few miles of very bumpy road, I managed to get into a sitting position and look in the direction we were heading.
More desert.
Ten minutes later I could see an encampment in the distance, literally an oasis in the middle of nowhere. A secret base camp or something else?
As we got closer I could see it was mostly covered by camouflage so it couldn’t be seen from above. Clever. Chances were we had no idea this place was in the desert.
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.
I have reworked the first part of the story with a few new elements about the characters and changed a few of the details of how the characters finish up in the shop before the policewoman makes her entrance.
This is part of the new first section is the one that involves the shopkeeper`:
This wasn’t the shopkeeper’s first hold up. In fact, over the years there had been a dozen. But only one got reported to the police, and that was only because the robber was shot and killed.
He’d taken a bullet that night, too, which, from the police point of view, made him a concerned citizen simply defending himself.
The rest had been scared off by the double-barrel shotgun he kept under the counter for just such emergencies.
The young punk who came into the shop with his girlfriend had pulled out the pistol and told him if he reached for the shotgun he’d shoot him. The kid looked unstable and he’d backed away.
When the kid collapsed, he should have gone for the shotgun, but instead, he thought he could get to the gun before the girl realized what was happened. She wasn’t an addict and clearly looked like she was only along for the ride. Her expression, when the kid pulled out the gun told him she’d known nothing about her partner’s true intentions.
But, he wasn’t fast enough, and she had the gun pointing at him before he’d got past the counter.
From one pair of unpredictable hands to another.
Like the girl, he was just as surprised when the customer burst in the door, just before closing time.
The situation might have been salvageable before the customer came in the door, getting the girl to go along with the robbery being about money, but there was no denying what the kid on the floor’s problem was.
Damn.
He had to try and salvage the situation simply because there was a lot of money involved, and other people depending on him. He looked at the boy, on the floor, then the girl.
“Listen to me, young lady, you would be well advised to let this man go as he suggests. And, please put the gun down before someone gets hurt. Your friend needs medical help and I can call an ambulance.”
The girl switched her attention back to him. “No one’s going anywhere, so just shut the hell up and let me think.”
The storekeeper glanced over at the customer.
He’d seen him come into the shop once or twice, probably lived in the neighborhood, the sort who’d make a reliable witness, either a lawyer or an accountant. Not like most of the residents just beyond the fringe of respectability.
If only he hadn’t burst into the shop when he did.
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.
Of course the first action I took was to call on security to disperse people across all decks and departments to make sure no one boarded our ship unnoticed.
We needed to find a way of detecting such boardings without having to deploy people, a matter I’d bring up at the first departmental heads meeting.
If there was ever going to be a time for it.
“Mallory to the Captain, can we meet urgently?”
Mallory was one of the three men in the shuttle that brought me to the ship, and he was, if I remember rightly, one of the scientists, his field being scanners. Just the man to ask about detecting alien presences.
“Come up the the bridge. We’ll talk in the day room.”
I handed over the bridge to number one, and met Mallory at the elevator. He took a few moments to take in the bridge, the screen, now showing both Uranus, and several of its moons.
“Great view “
“Sometimes it’s better not knowing what’s out there,” I said.
His expression told me that comment might have been a little too flippant in the circumstances.
“Come this way.” I led him to the day room, opened the door and followed him in.
“I assume,” I said after waiting till the door was closed, “that it’s not a matter you wanted to share with the rest of the bridge.”
“That’s for you to determine. But it’s about the ship that was just here.”
“We believe it’s alien.”
“It’s not.”
OK. That was a revelation, but how could he tell the difference? My immediate guess, they had no previous alien profile to run it against.
“How so?”
“We have scanners, and we have scanners.”
Confusing to say the least, but I think I knew what he was trying to say. We had a military presence, but until I became captain, I didn’t realise we also had military hardware.
What else did we have?
“We have the ability to scan other vessels, and in certain circumstances, check for lifesigns inside. But we only had earth created ships to use as a subject for testing, simply because we know the compounds used in our vessel’s structure, including this one.”
“So anything made by us can be scanned?”
“Yes, and that ship just standing off us, we could scan it and what and who was inside, which means it’s not an alien vessel.”
That was perfectly good reasoning, except as far as I was aware, this ship was not completely earth technology.
“There might be only one way to create the outer skins and superstructure, in any ship.”
“That’s possible, yes. But we anticipated that we might eventually run into something we couldn’t penetrate until we could work out what the ship was made of and then work out how to penetrate it. That so called alien ship, we could see inside.”
“It could still be an alien ship. After all, I assume you adjusted the scanners to work through the material this ship is made of, and I doubt you’re going to argue the metal used was the result of an accidental discovery.”
He looked uncomfortable, and for a moment I thought he was going to try, but just sighed. “It’s possible, but unlikely.”
“OK then, does it fit the profile of any earth vessels?”
I knew of about 200 different types of ship out here in space, not all as well as some, and the computer recognition system had hundreds more variations, so if we ran into another ship, we could identify it.
“One or two, but it’s been modified. Also, there’s only six people on board, and from our scan, it seems all were recently in custody at a Mars penitentiary outpost. They were given a so called vaccination which put nanites in their system so they could be recognised if or when they decided to rebel.”
“Are they escaped prisoners?”
“Given the discussion I just had with security, that seems to be the case. But to verify those assumptions I got onto the Mars station, and it seems they are unaware of any missing prisoners or ships, but have sent someone over to check “
“Don’t they guard prisoners anymore?”
“They do, but with robots, and due to the remoteness, infrequent fly bys. They were coming up for one.”
“How infrequent?”
“I was told a few months, but I suspect it’s been longer. As for getting a ship, a well organised gang could have rescued some space junk and brought it back to life. It’s possible. And space still is a bit like the wild west.”
A recent problem, now that there was an ever increasing demand for travel and freight across our particular galaxy. Venus, Mars had galactic hotels, Saturn a space station and fly bys, and mining on various of the planets.
It was disappointing to realise our first contact wasn’t a first contact with a new world, just criminals expanding their horizons.
“Do they have weapons?”
“If we do, they do. We think the two smaller ships are modified troop carriers, the larger vessel, a freighter, but they have tinkered with the exterior to make people think they’re something or someone else.”
“They move pretty fast, much faster that anything we’ve got.”
“Except for this ship which may have surprised them, as well as some of us.”
“Anything else I need to know about?”
“About the other ships no. The military boys will want to join in the discussion of our next move. Something else you might want to know is that we were checking the logs and indemnified where those so called aliens came aboard, and to safely transport from one point to another, you need markers at each end.”
“And you found them?”
“In two places, and immediately removed so there will be no more unwanted boardings.”
“It raises the question…”
“A traitor on board? I don’t believe so, because they looked like they’d been installed as part of the decking. The traitors are back at the space station where the vessel was built.”
“OK. We’d better get everyone in the conference room and work out what we’re going to do next. Don’t go too far.”
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, s place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.
Like leg, arm is a word that is mostly associated with a body part.
Like being legless, another description for being drunk, being rendered ‘armless’ means you are no threat, in a rather awful but funny way by saying it.
I guess we all have a dash of ‘sick’ humour in all of us.
However, arm can also be used to describe a part of a structure too.
It could also describe the arm of an ‘armchair’.
But…
Arm also means to give people weapons like guns, usually from an armoury.
I’m guessing that a whole lot of people with arms is an army!
You can also say that taking those weapons away would be to disarm them.
It might take the long arm of the law to do it, too.
And to disarm someone doesn’t necessarily mean to take away their arms, but to ‘charm’ them with your wit and humour.
An arm can also be a river or streams tributary, so I could say instead of staying on the main river, I’ll take the ‘named’ arm, but just remember, sometimes this can be dangerous, getting off the main route.
On a boat, there is a yardarm, and this was once used to hang seamen who committed serious crimes such as mutiny.
A call to arms was to declare war,
And lastly, an arm of the defence services could be any one of Army, Navy, Marines or Airforce.
Just steer clear of the Navy for the aforementioned reasons.
When you venture out from the city, particularly, this city, you find yourself among the blocks that run to several acres, allotments that are ideal for keeping a horse or two.
Inner suburban living often runs to high-rise apartment blocks, with no gardens, except perhaps on the roof.
Outer suburban living runs to individual houses on allotments that are from 600 to 2,000 square meters. We have not yet gone into mass building of duplexes or terrace housing because, for the time being, we don’t have the population.
And, this is why you only have to go about 35 kilometres from the centre of the city to be able to buy acreage.
So, we are visiting, and on such a glorious day, it’s a pleasure to sit on the back verandah, spending some time soaking up the sunshine, breathing the country’s fresh air, and letting the inspiration flow into the writing.
It works.
I’ve managed to write another photograph-inspired story, number 151, which will be published on my writing blog in the next day or so.
Also being tackled will be the next episode of PI Walthensen’s second case – nearing 60.
Unfortunately, though, the inspirational location didn’t afford me a title for this new case but it will have the opening three words “A Case Of…’
The rest, I’m sure, will come as the story unfolds.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 