I was going to call this one The Island of Clappers, but then I thought who's there...
Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay
The reporter picked up the phone that was ringing most insistently.
“Hello, who’s there?” he said into the mouthpiece and was immediately bitten on the leg by a sea-down sailor and so dropped the phone and ordered a coffee.
Abbreviation for a spell and costing more than a quart of old whisky was a number making the rounds full of funny ideas when the phone rang again:
“Hello who’s there?” said the reporter.
This went on for five minutes with no-one the wiser until can I borrow a shilling for the electric said something inaudible. So a greased monkey was called for to make the wheels turn and so began the hugs and kisses, which was a French thing and not to be confused with the intellectual credence that will be back at two thirty with gas for the car.
We are more than the sounds of our name came across a Rolex watch buried in the sand of this that repeated: take the rest of the day off in Latin for want of a better description and a donkey to cart off the excess.
Now take this and may it serve you well was the shout that went up to break the sound barrier once more in elation and the sea-down sailor cried pink into the wind that was calling his name from the island of clappers.
Gratitude peacefully ran her finger along the lines that spread out from the sound of that and so was accepted into the fold and never again forgot to second the motion that all was well unless it wasn’t.
And so, between the upshot and the down-layer where nothing can be taken for a second-hand explanation, the guru on the island of clappers had an insurgency that made him most popular until he flew away into the clouds to go somewhere else and left everyone behind him to be entertained by another distraction.
“So never let it be said for a moment that we can be anything else but who we are in the love-down and between the sheets of this or any other thing of what’s important,” said the cow chewing cud in a field.
“Urm, what’s that then?” said the cotton candy corn dog.
“If I give you a clue can we be friends?” said the breeze that never left Canada before any heartbeat Tuesday but was now well on its way.
“And now without further ado the curtain will come down and we can all go for coffee,” I said, hoping to end all this.
“I refuse to dream your dream, no matter what. I have my own dream,” said the other ending of all this going for broke.
“What sayest thou my good fellow?” I asked, thinking that perhaps he would go away if I humoured him.
“What is it that I think I don’t have? Or to put it another way, what am I denying myself by my continued thinking of not having it?” said the other ending implanted into the bones of this story with hardly a by your leave.
I could see it was going to be a long day.
“I don’t know, what are you denying yourself by thinking you are?” I said thinking hard on the meaning of that.
“More than I can say,” said the other ending fading away.
The island of clappers made a resounding roar that fell flat without any walls to bounce off of and so dug a sand-pit and pulled the sound of the waves over it and went to sleep.
And then the ocean’s edge said: “That’s sad.”
“Don’t be sad,” said the child building sand castles there that the ocean kept knocking over.
A second cup of coffee came to re-fuel the brainwaves of the reporter who was not a great fan of Clapper Island where all the clappers gathered, but had to be there nevertheless because that’s where the action was.
“I cannot think straight with all this noise going on,” said the reporter sipping his coffee and listening to Edith Piaf on the radio.
He was being a touch melodramatic, but then, who could blame him, the air waves were full of the thoughts of everything and everyone around him.
“Coffee is supposed to be a solitary affair where one wakes up to the new day and gathers their energies,” thought the reporter in a sudden lull at the end of the day.
The phone rang again:
“Hello, who’s there?” said the reporter.
But there was no reply again and so the ending of this story began to beat its drum of endings to finish it off and round up any stray narrative hiding in the bushes on the island of clappers where people went to applaud the guru most loudly and then go back to their homes full of peace and bliss and love and stuff like that that you get after seeing the guru.
The phone rang one last time and almost desperately the reporter picked it up and put it to his ear.
“Hello, who’s there?” he said.
“The number of the ending is now here; goodbye,” said the mechanical voice that turned into static.
The reporter put the phone down, finished his coffee and went back to his room to finish preparing for the long trip home.
Image from Pixabay