The Little People in the Rocks

They’re a community of tiny little people. They live under the rocks near the harbour. You’ll never see them, they’re shy of people, generally rather scared. They are there though. When they come out they work in teams, scavenging what they can from the rocks, prying off shellfish to feed their little rock village. There’ll usually be a lookout, most times two. One will look out for crabs, their biggest predator and the threat that they all fear the most. Other things will attack them, the smaller predators they can fight off and the bigger ones, well if they attack there’s nothing a look out could do. Crabs though, crabs are danger. Most of them are the same size as the people, give or take. They’re stronger than the people and better armoured. Their pincers are the things of nightmares, not easily combated.

The other lookout will watch for the tide. The tide dictates their life, much more than the sun ever could. Their days are determined by when they can find food, not when they can see best, although they have developed very good eyesight in low light conditions. Generally they find the dark tides easiest anyway, there are fewer prey and hardly ever big people about. The big people are possibly the only thing more terrifying than the crabs.

When the water starts to lap up over the rocks again the lookout on the tide will give a signal. Whatever they’ve managed to gather that tide will have to do, sometimes it’s feast, a group might manage to get a few whole oysters, or muscles. Other times it’s famine, all they can do is hope they find something and hope like hell that they can get it back to their homes before the tide ends.

On a rare “bright tide” when the sun was up and the water was down. This tribe of little people came across something that they didn’t have words to describe. It was a plastic piece of rubbish, they’d noticed more and more rubbish in the last few years. But this rubbish was different, it had something on the top of it, frothy and brown. One of the braver men thought it looked edible, perhaps just hopefully, the bright tides were always the hardest. Whatever his motivations he scooped a little bit up with his finger and tasted it. It was bitter, surely, but it had an appeal, was definitely edible, the others rushed to try it. It almost had an immediate effect, their tiny eyes opened wider, they talked more and more loudly, the tired search of the bright tide had quickly turned to energy and movement. They didn’t have a word for coffee, had no idea what it was going to do when they tried it, but they sure liked it now that they had.

It probably didn’t matter that the lookouts had come down from the high rock. They’d tried the coffee froth as well, but it wasn’t their fault what happened. There’s no way that a lookout could stop a gull, or even warn the others in enough time. Gulls are just too fast, you don’t see them coming. They’re a natural disaster that arrives out of nowhere and shakes the entire earth. Once one of them arrives they all flock in. It was like a battle scene with dive-bombers destroying an unprepared target. The screeching of the birds was like the whining of a bomb falling. It was all finished very quickly, the little people didn’t have a chance, their moment of distraction was their last moment. 

Little Shop

There’s a modest little shop front on the corner. Big glass frontage that shows a tiny café inside, it’s mostly unremarkable. The walls are painted a plain white and adorned with only a few black and white photos in bleached wooden frames. The tables are, again, plain and a bench runs the length of the front window, which is to say that there’s a short bench. The man behind the counter makes coffees all morning, drinking some, tipping others out that aren’t quite right. But mostly fuelling the loose but interconnected community who drift through on a daily basis.

It’s a standard kind of scene on the fringe of the city, there must be countless other cafes just like this one. But it has its special moment. The thing that’s special about this place isn’t the patrons, and it isn’t the cabinet of treats, or even the coffee, although the coffee is very good. What is special about this place is where it is, its little corner spot. Across from the café there’s a side street, a gap in the buildings that line the ridge where the main road runs. Through that gap is a view to the centre of the city. Tall office buildings and chicken coop apartment blocks, and maybe a glimpse of the harbour that the city sits over. A lovely view, but this isn’t what provides the magic for the café. The gap in the buildings across the street, it allows the view, which certainly helps, but it also allows the light. Facing towards the east it has the perfect outlook towards the rising sun. Every day, even when it seems to be wet and cloudy and dim, the sun somehow manages to force its way through that crack in the urban curtain and get itself trapped in the tiny café on the corner.

Over the morning, when the sun pushes in, the café lights up. It warms even in winter and traps the brightness with its white walls and big glass front. Life, the sun gives it life and it breathes as the door opens and closes, coughs as the used coffee is knocked into the bin. The people bump into each other and chat and leave a little bit friendlier as they go towards their lives in the city. The man behind the counter is content in his busyness, the production line is smooth and life just flows on.

People tend to mostly drink their coffee in the morning. The man has a few customers later in the day. He goes through the motions for them, he sweeps up after the rush and he starts to prepare the food for tomorrow. The sun is shining on some other café now, his time has passed, the performance is over. Now he can breathe out. Standing by the window he looks over the street and towards the city, it is still a nice view, a nice place to stand in the afternoon and maybe have a drink as the skyline starts to flicker and the sky darkens. But he knows it would never work as a bar, or a little restaurant serving red wine and pasta. The magic in his place is in the light, and the light comes in the morning. 

Dying Artform

I don’t often get calls. It isn’t because of a lack of advertising, I leave my business card with everyone I speak to. I try to meet with everyone who has ever used me in the past, and I print out fliers and call people cold. It isn’t a lack of trying I can assure you. It’s just that there isn’t the demand anymore for my kind of work. I don’t blame the legislation, or the architects, or even the people themselves who, individually and as a group made their choices. It’s just one of those things that change in life.

It’s been several decades since the fireplace was common in people’s homes. I’m one of the few who still have one, not just in my street, but in the whole city. I understand why people made their choices, other options are “better”, they’re quicker and more efficient, and they’re cleaner and require a lot less work. But I still maintain that nothing beats the feeling of the warmth that radiates from a roaring fireplace in the corner of your living room.

That’s what I told people when I went into the chimney sweeping game, all of those years ago. They laughed at me, nodded and agreed with my sentiment, but still laughed. It has always been hard for me to explain that I never expected to be rich doing this. It’s just what I feel I should be doing.

Obviously I do more than just sweep chimneys. If that were all I did with my days I’d be a very idle old man. No, as I said earlier, I work hard. I’ve expanded the business somewhat, there isn’t a fireplace need you could have that I don’t cater for in some way. I sell the fireplace’s themselves, that was the first and most obvious extension of my business. But after that came the firewood business, this part was probably the hardest. It isn’t easy to find burnable wood, it hasn’t been for some time. The new breeds of tree don’t work in my antiquated devices. They’re designed not to burn.

Luckily I’ve come across an organic farmer who refuses to move to the new stuff. He sells me what he has, which is usually not very much. Then I sell it off to my clients, all of them very wealthy, and I try to maybe encourage them to buy a new poker, or a brass brush and shovel to clean the hearth. They seldom go for it though. Much of their fire lighting is just for show, they wont be the ones cleaning up, they only want that yellow glow for an hour or two while their guests sip cocktails.

But those soirees are fewer and farther between these days, and my margins seem to be getting slimmer with every sale. It won’t get me down, I accept it. Like I’ve already said, I don’t do this for money, I do this because I love the fire that burns in the corner of my living room.

I’ll have the spicy squid casserole please

It’s difficult being a dog in a restaurant in this city, no one wants to know about you. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve been shooed away from an eatery just because of who I am.

Look, I know what you’re thinking but I’m not a scavenger. I have money to pay for my dinner, I don’t want anything for free I just want to enjoy food like everyone else. The thing that gets in the way though is communication. If I could just explain that I wanted to order from the menu and pay with the note that’s tucked under my collar. But they don’t know what I mean.

I don’t think it helps that the pronunciation of spicy squid casserole requires me to growl a little more deeply than usual. They mostly take it as a threat I think, but it’s not a threat. I’m not trying to scare anyone, I just like hot food.

I suppose it’s my owner who’s to blame really. He has always cooked for the two of us, no separate meals like the other dogs, nothing out of the can. He’d sit down to his dinner at the table and give me a plate over by my corner of the floor. Whatever he ate I ate and well, I’ve become accustomed to the human style of food now.

The problem though, is that he’s not in any state to cook for me anymore. He’s old you see, maybe twenty five in dog years, I’m not sure exactly about the maths. But he’s old even for a human, they’ve taken him off to a home where they keep the old people. I know where it is, but they wont let me anywhere near him. Apparently I’m unhygienic.

So lonely and lost I just wander around the streets trying to explain to waiter and maître Dee’s that I’m a paying customer who wants to appreciate the food on offer. It hasn’t worked even once so far and I end up trotting back to my owner’s house where his daughter will have left me a cold can of that rubbish other dogs eat.

Hero

When she gets home she usually takes her cape off first. It goes on the coat stand, right next to my boring black coat. Usually she’ll head to the shower first. She likes her outfit, but tells me often that it’s good to get out of it at the end of the day, put on some track pants and stop being a superhero for a little while.

It doesn’t always work out that way though. She’ll often get call outs in the middle of the night. Sometimes she’ll get a bit testy at me if I’ve forgotten to pick up her dry-cleaning. Apparently it doesn’t do for a superhero to be fighting crime and saving innocents in a dirty pair of tights. But honestly, I can’t be doing everything for her can I.

Tonight feels like it’s going to be a quiet night though. It tends to come in ebbs and flows, and she tells me things seem to be on a down swing. So track pants it is, and a little bit of red wine, it’s Friday after all.

I don’t usually enquire as to how her day was. It puts your own day in a pretty stark perspective when your girlfriend has been saving people and arresting criminals. Spreadsheets, by comparison don’t make too much difference, in the grander scheme of things. So we talk about the news as it rolls away on the TV. She’s a pretty handy cook, but I prefer things cooked the old fashioned way with a flame rather than zapped hot by lasers from her eyes. So I do the cooking tonight.

I often wonder what it must be like to be a superhero, and I must have muttered that out loud. Or maybe mind reading is a power of hers that she hasn’t disclosed to me, I’ve had my suspicions. Either way, she begins to respond to my wonderings, whether they were internal monologue or external dialogue.

I wouldn’t like it apparently, it’s mostly boring she says. A large part of the day is spent flying from one situation to the next. Most of the time it turns out to be a false alarm. Or something that isn’t very serious, cats up trees, that sort of thing. So when there is a superhero moment it almost comes as a shock, the mundane nature of the day lulls her into a false sense of security. So then she worries that she can’t deal with the real work when it comes up.

Of course, then she remembers that she has super powers and of course she can deal with it. But her point, she tells me is that most of the time it’s boring, mundane, it’s just another day like the day that came before it. What she’s really interested in she says, is what normal people do all day. She wants to go to a proper business meeting, she wants to prepare some monthly accounts, or repair people’s fillings. That, she reckons would be just super.