Flower of Scotland

  Flower of Scotland

  A Collection of Short Shorts

  by

  William Meikle

  ~-oO0Oo-~

  Turn Again *

  The Yule Log *

  Twitterspace *

  Supply and Demand *

  At the Beach *

  Flower of Scotland *

  Habit *

  Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral *

  The Last Day of Summer *

  The Strange Case of Dr McIntyre *

  Rickman’s Plasma *

  Can You Hear Them? *

  #dreaming *

  The Young Lochinvar *

  ~-oO0Oo-~

  Turn Again

  She walked down to the Promenade most days to check on progress. The wind-farm was going up fast, despite all the protests and hot air in the local press. After an initial flurry of excitement at the start of construction the townspeople harrumphed and went back to their more mundane concerns, leaving Patty as one of the few still interested in the new forest rising offshore.

  In recent days she had noticed the older man. He was always on the same bench and never spoke, just nodded as she passed.

  It was on the day that the fifth propeller was lifted into place that he did more than nod. He touched the brim of a battered hat, lifted it several inches, and bid her a good morning. That was enough to get them started.

  Over the coming weeks she found Mr. Tullis to be an excellent conversationalist and a keen student of local history. Indeed, he had an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of so many subjects that she thought him to be a retired academic.

  They never spoke of their own situations, for which Patty was grateful, but they did become friends, of a sort, and Patty found herself hurrying to the promenade each morning for her newest flash of enlightenment.

  On the fiftieth day their talk finally turned to Mr. Tullis’ personal history. Patty knew that this was a turning point. Soon she would have to speak of herself, and at that point, their relationship would be changed forever. But for now, she was content to sit and listen to the old man.

  He started in his usual round about way, by drawing attention to the wind farm.

  "The last one goes up today," he said. "Bringing our little meetings to a conclusion. I have grown fond of you, lass. And I owe you an explanation."

  She did not ask the obvious question, afraid to break his flow.

  "I have been sitting here these past weeks, watching the farm grow, and considering the metaphors. As I have watched these shores all these years, so shall these wonders of science watch, drawing their circles in the sky in much the same way that I began, with my circles on paper."

  He turned and took her right hand in his. After all these days of polite distance there was something faintly erotic in the act and Patty felt her cheeks flush.

  "I am not what I seem," Mr. Tullis said. "Then again, what is?"

  He smiled sadly, then took a small leather bound book from his pocket. He opened it and showed her an illuminated diagram done in red, black and gold in a precision worthy of Durer.

  It was titled MALAGMA, and showed a fiery red serpent eating the world which was depicted as a shining golden disc.

  "Strictly speaking," Mr. Tullis said. "This isn’t part of the process at all, rather, this is a symbolic representation of the whole. Malagma is Latin, meaning Amalgamation. The whole process, the quest if you like, is to amalgamate the soul, the microcosm, with the universe, the macrocosm."

  "Sorry," Patty said, trying a smile. "You’ve lost me already."

  Mr. Tullis laughed.

  "I thought I might. Fourteenth century symbolism was obscure even then."

  He thought about it for a short while.

  "Do you know anything about Zen?"

  It was her turn to laugh.

  "Only from re-runs of Kung Fu."

  "Well, Grasshopper," Mr Tullis said. "Everything is one, and one is everything."

  "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together?" Patty said.

  "Yes," he replied. "We are the egg men. All together in one huge womb that is the Universe, the macrocosm. Alchemists were convinced that mercury transcended both states, both above and below, both life and death. It came to symbolize the transformation required to reach illumination and eternal life."

  "Illumination?"

  "Let’s not get ahead of ourselves," Mr. Tullis said, smiling. "I just wanted you to get some idea what we’re getting into."

  He stared out at the windmills.

  "You know, I haven’t been happy for a long time. When I began, I truly thought that this was what I wanted. But I have seen everything I love wither and die. No matter how many platitudes I use to console myself, no matter how cosmic the thought that my molecules might see the death of the sun, I am lonely. I have been lonely for so long.

  "But seeing these circles being drawn in the sky gives me hope."

  He turned the page.

  CALX was the heading. The pictures showed a young man, bound to a burning wheel by hands and feet in a figure X. He was smiling.

  "You see? More circles. Calx is latin for Lime," Mr. Tullis said. "In this case, it means, calcination, or the process of purifying by heating. If you burn a body hot enough, it goes black, then, if you burn it even hotter, the ash turns white. Similarly, if you heat limestone, you’ll produce a white powder that the Romans called Calx Vita or quicklime. This was considered a magical material, for, if you poured water on it, it gave out heat. Effectively, giving the heat back to the giver."

  "And now I’m lost again," Patty said.

  "This one’s easy," Mr. Tullis replied. "Look at the picture. Fire purifies. It’s also a code that says, in effect, make quicklime. It will give heat back to the giver. And, beyond that, it symbolizes the fact that the adept must purify his soul before continuing. Wheels within wheels yet again."

  He tapped at the picture.

  "This is from Greek mythology. Ixion was punished by Zeus. He tried to seduce Hera, and for his presumption was bound to a perpetual wheel of fire. But Ixion had seen the face of the Goddess, and although in eternal pain, was also eternally happy. Everything can be seen from two angles. Everything has at least two meanings."

  He closed the book.

  "I burned on a wheel… centuries ago now. You are the first in many years that has even paused to listen. And I know why. You know all about wheels and death…. don’t you Patty?"

  Oh Jenny. I should never have let you play on that bike.

  She started to cry, softly at first, then great heaving sobs that racked her whole body. The man merely sat and watched with eyes full of compassion.

  "I could tell that you will see her again, in a better place," he said when Patty calmed. "But I am by no means sure that is true. What I do know is that nothing is ever wasted. There are wheels within wheels. My own have finished turning in this meat suit I wear. I have been a ghost inside it for too long.

  "I will leave you, as I myself was left, with two words, and this book."

  Turn again.

  Patty looked down at the book as he put it on her hands. When she looked up again he was gone.

  Far out on the water the last of the turbines started to turn.

  ~-oO0Oo-~

  The Yule Log

  John took the best part of a week in choosing the right tree and another day deciding which branch would be sacrificed. After a further day he had the sawn-off log cleared of particularly resistant lichen that had taken hold in the crook of a branch. Only then was he ready. He clamped the log tight to his workbench, made sure the chisel was sharp, and began.

  He cried as he carved; the memory of her singing always brought tears, her pure soprano climbing above his ponderous chord chan
ges on the wheezing harmonium.

  Jacqueline.

  It took a longish time to get her name engraved in the log. The cold didn’t help, biting deep into old bones despite the furnace in the corner of the workshop. After the name was done he had to work fast, for it was already dusk and the log needed to be in the grate before midnight, otherwise it would all have been for naught.

  He quickly chiselled out the second line; words long since etched on his memory.

  Ae fond kiss.

  He carried the log through to the main cottage and took care preparing a fire, using just the right mixture of paper and coal to ensure that the log would not burn too quickly when placed in the front of the grate. That done he went to the dresser and carefully retrieved a charred piece of wood from where it had been wrapped in a handkerchief. He thrust it deep into the bowels of the coal and lit the dry paper with a match.

  Once he was satisfied the fire wouldn’t go out, he prepared the next part of the ritual -- three fingers of single malt in a glass by his chair, and enough tobacco to see him through the night. The log cracked and spat as he filled his first pipe. Almost immediately he was lost in reverie.

  It will take time.

  She has gone to a better place.

  For most of the year he managed to believe, helped by mindless toil in the fields, hard liquor at night, and the crumbs of comfort that came from faith. But on this, the anniversary of the day she was taken from him, faith proved harder to come by. Everywhere he looked he saw her traces; from the mirror above the mantel they’d got as a wedding present from her father to the walnut pipe in his hand that the same old man had smoked all his adult life.

  John did not notice the tears that ran down his cheeks until he was brought back to the present by the church bells calling the faithful to midnight mass.

  There was a time when he would have walked the snowy lane to the church, arm in arm with Jackie, stars twinkling in her eyes. Those walks had stopped all too suddenly, the end coming as they got ready for Mass that fateful night. First came a headache, then a fit, and then she was gone. A doctor, a policeman and the vicar, three wise men, ushered her off to the great beyond.

  Now John sat, with the log burning, waiting for a sign that another year was worth the effort. Carols whispered in the night across the cold air between his cottage and the church. Snow pattered on the window in an accompanying beat. Fresh tears came, and suddenly John was weeping uncontrollably. The old harmonium in the corner moaned in sympathy.

  He looked up from the fire to where a quick movement in the mirror caught his eye.

  Jackie?

  Cold lips brushed at his cheek, tears freezing in his whiskers.

  A high, soprano voice carried through the room, just audible above the moan of the instrument.

  Ae fond kiss.

  John sat upright in his chair, and in the process knocked the whisky glass over. It clattered on the floorboards. The harmonium stilled. Outside the snow died to a mere rustle. Over at the church the congregation was between carols. Silence fell.

  Did I imagine it?

  The next thought came immediately.

  Does it matter?

  He sat in the chair all night. In the morning he took a charred portion of the log from the cooling grate. He wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it away in the dresser. He felt refreshed. As he closed the drawer he sang the words that would see him through another year.

  Ae fond kiss.

  And then we sever.

  ~-oO0Oo-~

  Twitterspace

  @Voyager2 - I am currently 13 hrs 11 mins 26 secs of light-travel time from Earth

  Dave was initially excited to find that he could follow the Voyager spacecraft on his Twitter feed as he’d been obsessed with outer space, aliens and ufo stories for as long as he could remember. He wanted to believe so bad, and being in touch with the Voyager probe made him feel like he was reaching out into the vastness. In a small way it felt like he was attempting first contact. His excitement soon turned to disappointment. He found that the messages weren’t coming from the craft itself but were being typed in by a nerd at a keyboard in a NASA building. It did however set him to thinking.

  What if they’re already here? What if they’re watching us?

  He did a search on Twitter through hash-tags for #aliens, #ufo and #invasion. The results were illuminating, to say the least. There was a definite pattern to the conversations on those Twitter threads. The topics were being watched, and watched closely.

  The users @weegreenmen and @saucerzrus in particular shared many links between each other, and many of them had little or nothing to do with aliens. What they did have a lot to do with was military infrastructure and economics for all the major powers on the planet. That was enough to make Dave think some more.

  @weegreenmen Check out Reuters. Big fluctuations in sterling today #invasion

  He followed them and watched their tweets for several weeks. During that time he found out more than he needed to know about troop movements in Afghanistan, the North Korean nuclear programme, the perilous state of the Eurozone economies, and, strangely, the long range weather forecasts for the northern hemisphere taken from a very large number of sources.

  @saucerzrus #ufo #aliens Major weather bomb in the Maritimes. Whoo-Hoo!

  By now Dave was convinced he was on to something big. He just wasn’t sure what. The only way he would be able to find out what was really going on was to join in on the conversation. But he’d need to be sneaky if he wasn’t going to give away what he already knew.

  He created a user on Twitter for the purpose. He spent a while looking for just the right name, and finally went with @littlegreybuddies. Then he needed a hook, something that would get their attention without him having to force himself into their conversations. The thing they were currently most interested in was the weather patterns, so he started with that. He began by posting links to the North Atlantic storm watch sites, and actually found himself getting interested in the real-time tracking systems he found monitoring the oceans. That led him into ever more esoteric areas of research involving analyses of the movements of the jet stream, theories as to why it was slowly moving further south every year, and apocalyptic warnings of serious trouble ahead for the world’s climate.

  @littlegreybuddies Looks like the UK is in for a severe chill. So much for Global Warming #jetstream

  That got their attention. He started to see their Twitter handles re-tweeting his messages to the #aliens, #ufo and #invasion hash-tags.

  I’ve got a way in.

  Slowly at first, then more often, he began re-tweeting messages posted by @weegreenmen and @saucerzrus, then started replying to their messages. In turn they started including him in their conversations, and seemed especially interested in his ongoing weather research.

  @saucerzrus #ufo #aliens Not long now till LUTZ #countdown

  Buoyed by his acceptance into the circle Dave now felt that he had to do something to make sure he stayed there long enough to find out what was going on. He delved deep into climatology databases and university server systems, and crept as close as he could to worldwide military information. From that he cobbled together a model of the coming month of where troops would be gathered, what the weather would be, and forecasted three weeks to come. He uploaded it all to a local ftp server and posted the link. Then he sat back and waited.

  @saucerzrus #ufo #aliens Hey @littlegreybuddies, THX man. #countdown brought forward.

  Dave was ecstatic. He was in deep, and he’d made contact. He was now sure to the point of bursting with excitement that he was talking to actual alien entities here on Earth. He was on the verge of finding out their plan.

  And it never hurts to ask.

  @littlegreybuddies #countdown So when’s D-Day? More to the point… what’s D-Day?

  The reply was almost immediate.

  @saucerzrus #countdown Watch the skies @littlegreybuddies Keep watching the skies LOL

  Much to Dave’s di
smay things went quiet. Nobody posted to the hash-tags for a week, and the accounts for @saucerzrus and @weegreenmen came back as discontinued when he tried to send them a personal message. He tried to force the issue by making his own posts to the hash-tags, but he was a lone voice in the wilderness, tumbleweed blowing through his posts. No one replied.

  Dave got desperate. He hacked his way into some secure military installations, searching for a secret that would unlock his contacts’ silence. He didn’t find it.

  What he did find was a growing disquiet in the military with the state of the upper atmosphere. Something was going on up there, something on a planetary scale that had the top brass very worried. Dave was about to send a general tweet to see if anything was trending when he got a personal message. There was no sender identified, but he guessed who had sent it.

  Times up. Switch on the news.

  He did as he was told.

  "An unusual phenomena is being reported all along the East Coast tonight. It is snowing in a zone stretching from New England all the way up to Labrador – nothing unusual for this time of the year. But what has the scientists baffled is the color. Across wide swathes of the storm-hit area the snow is falling green. As you can see from our pictures, this is no joke."

  The screen indeed showed what appeared to be green snow falling heavily on city streets.

  "Reports are also coming in that this snowfall is having strange effects on plant life in some areas. Scientists have taken samples of the substance for analysis, but as yet there is no official confirmation as to the cause of these events. All we can say for certain is that this is a deadly attack, from a source as yet unknown. FEMA has issued a preliminary statement asking people to remain indoors with doors and windows locked until the storm has passed, and we can only reiterate the importance of that advice. From what we have seen here, this country may never be the same again."

  His laptop beeped.

  A new tweet had just been posted to the hash-tags.

  @saucerzrus ROFLMAO Takes us to your leader! PLS RT. #ufo #aliens #invasion #countdown = 0