unrecognisable truths

I always enjoy spending time browsing through the posts at One Million Footnotes, not least because the most interesting text recognition scrambles appear when I comment there. And perhaps influenced by the mood of the place, sometimes I can’t help but make up sentences to nest these unexpected words.

A recent dubious flock hatched the following -

• He said he admired my fulogo and I admitted I had waited years for it to bloom that profusely.

• As they lifted the deadverd stones from their mahogany chest and laid them into a perfect circle they knew that tonight was the night it would happen.

• How ever much her grandmother combed or wetted them with spittle, she could never calm those unruly efrai that danced around her ears.

• The seeds of the pandea were bitter between his teeth. But they made his dreams taste sweet.

• The odabil was lost overboard, just as they rounded the lighthouse. It sunk slowly to the seabed and sometime later was appropriated by a shy hermit crab.

• It wasn’t the first case of outterea they had recorded, but it was the worst. It didn’t quite kill the villagers, but they were left distinctly altered, unaware that they’d made it into the record books.

a 3-ply valentine

This is the tissue that carried two drops of oil of eucalyptus. That lay folded beneath your pillow. That let you sleep and dream away the fever. That helped you be a hummingbird.

This is the tissue that you fashioned into a soft envelope. To treasure the eyelash. That you found between the pages of a second hand paperback. The day you fell in love with a stranger.

This is the tissue you clutched. That midnight we shared secrets. The ones you’d stood on for years. The ones that started to eat you from the feet up.

This is the tissue that caught your hayfever tears. Walking through the fields. Swigging cherry wine from the bottle. Looking down at the village we’d outgrown.

This is the tissue that blew overboard. Out on deck. Cross Channel ferry. Smiling and watching the others look seasick.

This is the tissue you found stuffed down the back of the sofa. As you sat with your coffee cooling. On the first Valentine’s day without a card.

suburban myths

I don’t believe in these snowflakes. The sky is laughing and running with scissors. It’s breaking the rules and snipping the corners off clouds, and dropping the litter in my garden. The trees and the shrubs are dancing with agitation. The wind is getting on their nerves as they try to make plans for spring.

shower the people with love

If I had the time I’d tell you a story about the girl who could speak to the rain.

I’d tell you how she would sit in a quiet room and let it patter at her window. Few people know that raindrops speak a language distantly related to Morse code. She would listen to their hopes, their everyday worries and their weekend heartaches. She was usually content to listen, a well mannered eavesdropper, and they didn’t seem to mind. But occasionally she’d reply, tapping on the glass with her fingernails. And then the raindrops would gather on the other side, in eager clumps and clusters. She’d share little matters of little interest – what she’d had for lunch or a snippet from a magazine. And they’d be thrilled. Few people care enough to learn fluent raindrop. Sometimes she’d wish a raindrop ‘Happy Birthday’ and tonnes of others would arrive in a flurry to cheer and toss the birthday drop around. Passersby would frown and pull their collar tighter to their neck. Sometimes she’d go to other houses and overhear other people’s raindrops. They were never as friendly as hers. To long ignored they’d hurl themselves cursing against the window pane – threatening to break in and drown the householders. Other houses had sad raindrops sliding slowly towards the sill, crying and muttering how no-one loved them.

I’d like to learn to speak raindrop. If I could I think we might forge a better relationship. We could learn not to mess with each others plans.