Category: Blog

In a word: Park

We mostly understand that a park is an area set aside for recreation, and can have trees, flowers, a lake, and vast lawns.  These parks are also sometimes called ‘gardens’.

A great example of a park is Central Park in New York.

Nearly every city has a park of some sort, some have more than one.

But the word park has a number of other uses.  For instance,

You can park a car, or bike, or yourself; in other words, it’s a place where you stop for a while.  For cars, it is a carpark.

You could say ‘it’s just a walk in the park’, which means that the job is going to be easy.  I never understood that analogy because quite a lot of parks have walks that are difficult, and not so much ‘a walk in the park’.

It is also used to describe a place where animals are kept, other than calling it a zoo, it can go by the name of a wildlife park.  Zoos though are more for cities.  Wildlife parks can be quite huge and many are found in Africa.

A park can also be used to describe a sporting arena or field.

You can park a bag in a locker.

You can park an idea in the back of your mind and come back to it later, or if you are like me, it disappears into the ether.

It can be an area of land around a manor house, but there are very few of those left now.  The most notable of these are in England, and were designed by a man called Capability Brown.

‘The Devil You Don’t’ – A beta reader’s view

It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.

John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.

So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?

That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.

What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.

The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.

All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.

…

Available on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 66

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some years ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

This is Chester. He’s feeling very smug.

Our focus has mainly centred on getting the NaNoWriMo project done each day, but in between all of this, a number of issues have arisen.

The first, the Maple Leads, and what Chester calls my obsession with ice hockey.

He doesn’t get it. No one plays ice hockey in this country at the same level, and you can never find it mentioned anywhere, so why bother.

Besides he adds in his most cutting tone, they’re a bunch of losers.

So they’ve lost six games in a row and sacked the 50 million dollar coach, but…

To him it’s but nothing. Chester now refuses to watch the ice hockey with me, not until they win again. That 6-1 drubbing two games back was the start of the slide.

I tell him that we’re missing key players and with the newish lineup it takes time to work as a team.

Right.

So we move to God Friended Me.

What the hell is going on there. Miles and Cara are stumbling, with doubts seeded, Rakesh has just had his heart torn to shreds and the incoming Bishop is at a crossroads.

So, for a little early advice…

What’s going to happen to Miles and Cara?

Chester: I’m cynical, their the heart of the show, they won’t be forced apart. It’s all about the ratings.

What’s going to happen to Rakesh?

Chester: Draw out the angst for another 14 episodes, we’ll have to keep tuning on to see what happens.

And the bishop and his girlfriend?

Chester: Send them to another parish, they’re just a distraction we don’t need.

I’m inclined to agree with him.

Except about the Maple Leafs. They’re in Pheonix tomorrow, maybe with a new head coach they might pull off a miracle.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 15

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 prioritising.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Was I working for a ghost?

 

The question that was foremost in my mind was whether I should call Nobbin, and let him know that I’d met Severin and that his ‘information’ was on a USB.

When I’d mentioned the fact O’Connor said the evidence was somewhere, I knew this evidence was on a USB and could be in one of the hiding places O’Connor had set up with Nobbin.  If not, then it had to be somewhere else, somewhere only O’Connor would know about.

Somehow, I got the impression O’Connor had not trusted either side.  Yes, he was about to tell me where the evidence was, but if that was the case, it meant it was not anywhere where anyone else would know about.

Severin should have curbed his desire for execution a little, and taken O’Connor into custody, and then interrogated him.  It made me wonder, briefly, why Severin would want him dead.  In cases like that, it was because Severin didn’t want O’Connor to talk to me, or anyone else.

Still, he could have tranquilized O’Connor.  I would not have known the difference.

That meant I had to find out more information on O’Connor.

Of course, in just saying that out loud, over a half-full glass of scotch, just to steady the nerves after seeing Severin again, made it sound almost like a running joke.

As if I would be able to find someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost.  That was how we were supposed to be, ghosts, to everyone we knew, including family.  We could no longer talk to anyone because they might become a target used as leverage against us.

That part of my training had been the scariest.  I didn’t have any friends, not real friends anyway, and no family, other than a half-brother who hated me.  I had toyed with the idea of meeting him, after I’d completed the training, just to see if anyone would try to use him as leverage, and then tell them he meant nothing to me.

It was an idea, I doubt if I could do it in reality.  But the thought of it gave me some measure of revenge for all the bullying he had inflicted on me when I was young.  Perhaps that was why I took this job, to prove I was nothing like the person he considered me to be.

Enough of the delving into the shadowy past.

I had a problem that needed solving.  How to find O’Connor.

After a long night of fitful sleep, I woke the next morning with the shreds of a plan.  I’d go into the office and use their computer system to look for him.  Of course, I didn’t expect that there would be any information available to an agent with my security clearance, which was basically to get in and out of the front door and log on to the computer to fill out reports and a timesheet.

It was a surprise, after what Nobbin had said about my employment, that my pass got me in the door.  It did, but I had no doubt somewhere it had register my name in a log somewhere.  I figured I had about half an hour before someone came checking up on me.

The same went for the computer system.  There was a bank of about a dozen computers in a room where the agents could do information searches, and private work, such as reports.  Three others were occupied, and none of those using them looked up when I entered the room.

Not a surprise.  We were taught to keep to ourselves and say nothing about the missions we were attached to anyone else.  In our line of work, secrets were paramount.  We were to become consummate liars because we could never tell anyone the truth about what we did.  If we wanted a cover story, we were to say we were international confidential couriers of documents for legal institutions.

It sounded interesting, but it was quite boring, or at least that was how I described it if anyone asked.

So, ignoring the others, I logged in and found I was still on the employee list.  And, I still had the same level of access I had before.

I ran a search on the name O’Connor.

It came back with five documents, the first of which was his personnel record.  First name, Donald.  A date of birth that made him 27 years old, and an address, in Putney.  I wrote it down.  Marital status, single.  Status, deceased.  Section worked for:  Eight.

There were supposedly eight sections, and the one I worked for was Seven.  Out of interest, I brought up my records.  It was how Severin had found me because my address was on file.  But more interesting was my status, transferred, and my section, three.  Was Nobbin’s section three?

I would ask if I got an opportunity to.

The other four documents were reports, most of which were redacted, or marked restricted.  Or above my pay grade, whatever that was.

But, at least one thing was clear, I had not been fired, just transferred.  I guess I would have to call Nobbin after all.  After I visited O’Connor’s last known residence.

I wasn’t holding my breath expecting to find anything.

 

© Charles Heath 2019

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 10

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

John is in Vienna, Austria.

It’s been quite some years since we were in Vienna, and I remember it was a very pleasant experience, and the copious notes and photographs I took have aided in the writing of this chapter.

There is no doubting the zeal Worthington will put into the capture or assassination of Zoe, if and when she is discovered, and John would be horrified if he knew he was being used in such a manner.

At times it is going to be a bit like reading an Eric Ambler thriller, going to the hotel, getting information from concierges, and then tracking her movements. Money, as always, speaks one language, pay enough and you will find out what you want to know.

We know Zoe is languishing in a basement somewhere in Bratislava.

John is about to find out that is where she went, but searching for someone in Bratislava is going to be completely different from searching for someone in Austria.

The same rules don’t apply in Hungary.

…

As for our visit, we stayed in the Hilton Vienna Park, though the park had a different name then. It wax also when we have our first authentic Vienna Schnitzel and sampled Austrian cherries.

From there we took the train to Schonbrunn Palace, with its extensive gardens and maze, and the impressive architecture, old rooms and paintings, and at the end, so many sets of crockery.

There was also a kitchen nearby that made Apple Strudel, where we watched it being made and then had a slice to taste afterward.

We also went to a Wiener Palace which served a large and varied number of sausages.

Unfortunately, there were no music recitals or orchestral events at the time of our visit.

…

Today’s writing, sampling the best Vienna had to offer, 2,731 words, for a total of 28,973.

Searching for locations: West Lake, Hangzhou, China

West Lake is a freshwater lake in Hangzhou, China. It is divided into five sections by three causeways. There are numerous temples, pagodas, gardens, and artificial islands within the lake.

Measuring 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) in length, 2.8 kilometers (1.7 miles) in width, and 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) in average depth, the lake spreads itself in an area totaling 6.5 square kilometers (2.5 square miles).

The earliest recorded name for West Lake was the “Wu Forest River”, but over time it changed to two distinct names.  One is “Qiantang Lake”, due to the fact that Hangzhou was called “Qiantang” in ancient times.  The other, “West Lake”, due to the lake being west of the city

It’s about to get busy, with a number of activities planned, and the warmth of the day is starting to make an impact.

The tour starts in the car park about a kilometer away, but the moment we left the car park we were getting a taste of the park walking along a tree-lined avenue.

When we cross the road, once again dicing with death with the silent assassins on motor scooters.

We are in the park proper, and it is magnificent, with flowers, mostly at the start hydrangeas and then any number of other trees and shrubs, some carved into other flower shapes like a lotus.

Then there was the lake and the backdrop of bridges and walkways.

.

And if you can tune out the background white noise the place would be great for serenity and relaxation.

That, in fact, was how the boat ride panned out, about half an hour or more gliding across the lake in an almost silent boat, by an open window, with the air and the majestic scenery.

No, not that boat, which would be great to have lunch on while cruising, but the boat below:

Not quite in the same class, but all the same, very easy to tune out and soak it in.

It was peaceful, amazingly quiet, on a summery day

A pagoda in the hazy distance, an island we were about to circumnavigate.

Of all the legends, the most touching one is the love story between Bai Suzhen and Xu Xi’an. Bai Suzhen was a white snake spirit and Xu Xi’an was a mortal man.

They fell in love when they first met on a boat on the West Lake, and got married very soon after.

However, the evil monk Fa Hai attempted to separate the couple by imprisoning Xu Xi’an. Bai Suzhen fought against Fa Hai and tried her best to rescue her husband, but she failed and was imprisoned under the Leifeng Pagoda by the lake.

Years later the couple was rescued by Xiao Qing, the sister of Baisuzhen, and from then on, Bai Suzhen and Xu Xi’an lived together happily.

The retelling of the story varied between tour guides, and on the cruise boat, we had two.  Our guide kept to the legend, the other tour guide had a different ending.

Suffice to say it had relevance to the two pagodas on the far side of the lake.

There was a cafe or restaurant on the island, but that was not our lunch destination.

Nor were the buildings further along from where we disembarked.

All in all the whole cruise took about 45 minutes and was an interesting break from the hectic nature of the tour.

Oh yes, and the boat captain had postcards for sale.  We didn’t buy any.

Lunch

At the disembarkation point there was a mall that sold souvenirs and had a few ‘fast food’ shops, and a KFC, not exactly what we came to China for, but it seemed like the only place in town a food cautious Australian could eat at.

And when tried to get in the door, that’s where at least 3 busloads were, if they were not in the local Starbucks.  Apparently, these were the places of first choice wherever we went.

The chicken supply by the time we got to the head of the line amounted to pieces at 22.5 RMB a piece and nuggets.  Everything else had run out, and for me, there were only 5 pieces left.  Good thing there were chips.

And Starbucks with coffee and cheesecake.

At least the setting for what could have been a picnic lunch was idyllic.

Do you ever think about…

And probably it is a matter of being better off not thinking

But…

I’m sitting here and writing a piece for a novel about one of my characters, and all of a sudden I stop, right in the middle of where he’s about to get violently murdered if he lets his guard down.

Why have I stopped right there?

A strange thought goes through my mind.

Did he remember to have breakfast, did he make the bed and tidy up after he got up?  Did he have to arrange to have his clothes cleaned, or were they cleaned for him?

Does he have a maid and a butler and a cook to do all those things?

The problem is, we don’t know what happened before he finished up in that precarious position.

We may know that he was taught to fight by a zen master, a swordsman, though I’m not sure if there is a requirement for fencing, to drive defensively, to kill people in more ways than you’ve had hot dinners.

We may know that he was in a similar fight the day before, and his energy has been depleted and may be running on painkilling drugs.  Of course, if that’s the case, and knowing the side effect of some of those drugs, he may be impaired, and slower in reaction time, which might mean premature death.

But we don’t know if he ate anything, whether he slept well, or not at all (though sometimes it rates a mention more often than not as an afterthought or an excuse), whether he has any distracting thoughts, like what the hell am I doing here?

Everyday things which all of us, and I’m sure even the most successful of spies, have to deal with.

Just a thought.

Back to the fight, yes he wins, got a couple of slashes and there’s a copious amount of blood on his shirt.

Let’s not worry about who’s going to clean up the mess, or do the washing.

A few running repairs with needle and thread, including the requisite grimaces in pain, someone else will clean the shirt, and yes, there’s always a cupboard full of clean clothes to change into.

Moving on…

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

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.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

Searching for locations: The canals of Suzhou, China

This morning is a boat ride that will take us along a small portion of the main canal, and we head through a number of back streets, to a landing where there are a number of boats all vying with each other to get us passengers on boats.

But…

These boats don’t have a wharf to tie up to and then put out a stable gangplank.  No.  They just more into a concrete step and you take your life in your hands getting on.  One wrong step and you’re in the canal.  And not a very clean one at that.

That’s if another boat doesn’t come along and bumps you, knocking you off balance.  We managed not to lose anyone in boarding the vessel.

This is where we get on the boat

We go along what appears to be downstream towards another larger canal, past tree-lined streets until the canal narrows and we’re looking at the backs of houses, which look very dilapidated.

And the canals?  Well, it’s not quite like it is in Venice

Though some parts of the canal look better than others

What doesn’t bear thinking about is the electrical wiring which is a nightmarish spider web of cables going off in all directions.  How anyone could troubleshoot problems is beyond me.

We pass under a number of bridges, and then, about 30 minutes after leaving, we reach a larger canal and do a 180-degree turn, and head back to a drop off point the will enable us to walk through a typical everyday Chinese market for food and the other items.

This drop off point is much the same as the starting point, a concrete step which is as hazardous as the first.  At least we don’t have to compete with other boats for the landing spot.

We take a leisurely stroll down a small section of Pingjiang Road with small shops on either side, selling all manner of goods

but my interest is in the food and the prices, which at times seem quite expensive for so-called local people, so maybe because the tourists go down this street every day, the prices have been inflated accordingly.

I find it rather disappointing.

We walk to the bridge, go under to the other side crossing the canal and find the coffee shop which is also the meeting place.

So…

When is a coffee shop not a coffee shop, when it takes an eternity to make a cup of coffee, we waited 25 minutes?

We also ordered beef black pepper rice and it took 20 minutes before it arrived, but it was well worth the wait.  Strands of perfectly cooked beef with onion, carrot, and capsicum, with a very peppery and spicy sauce, with a side of boiled rice.

A pizza was ordered too but it did not arrive at all before we left.

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1