LANDSLIDE (TEXT VERSION 01)

A long(ish) “poem” for three voices

VOICE 1 – He wears a shirt and trousers as if they’ve been thrown on in a hurry

VOICE 2 – She wears a dressing gown

VOICE 3 – He wears the work clothes of an office worker

FADE UP:

VOICE 1:

When does a landslide begin?

Is it when the mountain cracks?

Or when the boulders crumble?

VOICE 2:

Is it when the pebbles fall?

Or the gravel shifts?

VOICE 3:

Is it when the bird shifts a speck of dust?

Or that butterfly flaps its wings?

VOICE 1:

A bird…

VOICE 2:

Takes a peck…

VOICE 3:

And a mountain

Lands on your house…

VOICE 2:

And the world

VOICES 2 & 3:           

Lies broken…           

VOICES 1 & 2           

When does a landslide begin?

VOICE 1:

You could argue that

The landslide began when the earth moved…

VOICE 2:

It did for us…!

VOICE 1:

And the continents crashed

And the mountains rippled up

From out of the sea…

Or…

VOICE 2:

Maybe…

VOICE 1:

Even earlier than that…

When the rocks orbiting the sun

Coalesced and cooled

To form a world…

VOICE 3:

Or…

VOICE 2:

Maybe…

VOICE 1:

Even earlier than that…

VOICE 2:

All the way back

To the big bang…

VOICE 1:

Ah yes! The big bang…!

VOICE 2:

It gets blamed for a lot…

VOICE 3:

It ought to be…!

VOICE 1:

People do think that it all

Comes down to that great…

VOICE 2:

Big…

VOICES 1 & 2:           

Bang…            !

VOICE 1:

People blame it for everything…

VOICE 2:

Everything…!

VOICE 3:

I know I do…!

VOICE 1:

So…

I ask you again…

When does a landslide begin?

VOICE 2:

When does a landslide begin?

VOICE 3:

When does a landslide begin?

VOICE 2:

It all began so innocently

After all…

We’d been together for years…

VOICE 3:

Years!

VOICE 2:

And, you know…

It was…

Fine…

VOICE 3:

Fine…?

VOICE 2:

Well, you know…

We rattled along

In our own quiet way…

Harmlessly…

VOICE 3:

Harmlessly?

VOICE 2:

But never really…

GOING anywhere…

So I did this thing…

VOICE 3:

Didn’t you just…!

VOICE 2:

WENT to this thing…

And I met this guy…

Nigel…

VOICE 1:

Hello!

VOICE 2:

And at first it was…

Fine, you know…?

VOICE 3:

Not really, no…

VOICE 2:

We just chatted and…

VOICE 3:

And…?

VOICE 2:

Became friends…

VOICE 1:

GOOD friends…

VOICE 3:

More than just friends…

VOICE 2:

Not yet…

Not then…

Later on, maybe,

But not yet…

VOICE 1:

But meeting her…

It hit me like a landslide…

I knew that I wanted her…

Wanted to be with her…

Forever…

VOICE 2:

Forever…

VOICE 1:

She was the one…

VOICE 2:

The one…!

VOICE 1:

And whatever it took

I was going to take her…

VOICE 3:

From me…!

VOICE 2:

From you…

VOICE 1:

Well why not?

You weren’t offering her anything.

I offered her everything…

A future…

A life together…

Everything…

VOICE 2:

But not yet…

I wasn’t ready…

Yet…

VOICE 3:

But…

We had a life…

VOICE 2:

Not that sort of life…

VOICE 1:

No!

VOICE 2:

And anyway…

For the moment…

VOICE 3:

The moment…?

VOICE 2:

I wanted…

Both…

VOICE 3:

Your cake and eating it?

VOICE 2:

Maybe…

Perhaps…

I don’t know…

It just…

Started…

And you made it easy…

“I’m just visiting my friend” I’d say…

“He’s having some problems”

VOICE 3:

And like the idiot I am

I believed you…

VOICE 2:

You always did…

VOICE 3:

So many times…

Too many times…!

VOICE 2:

I sometimes wished…

That you would cheat on us too…

 VOICE 3:

I never did!

VOICE 2:

But I wished you had…

VOICE 3:

To ease your conscience?

VOICE 2:

It would have made things…

Easier…

VOICE 1:

Easier…

VOICE 3:

Too easy…

VOICE 2:

You think this was easy?

VOICE 3:

I think YOU were…

Frequently…

VOICE 1:

Well, she never cheated on me!

VOICE 2:

No…?

VOICE 3:

But deep down I already knew.

I remember one long

Late winter evening

When you were so long overdue

Round at his place…

VOICE 1:

Time for a quick one before you go?

VOICE 2:

Go on then…

VOICE 3:

Judging by the time you

Finally got home

It must have been a very slow quickie…

VOICE 1:

Oh yes!

VOICE 3:

I was alone for hours

Without a word

Watching for your car coming back

And trying to watch

But not watching

This bloody film

“Trains…”

VOICE 1:

“Planes…”

VOICE 2:

“and Automobiles”

VOICE 1:

Great film!

VOICE 3:

Is it?

I’ve never been able to watch it…

Since…

VOICE 2:

But I did come back…

VOICE 3:

For a while…

You know, your best friend

Our best friend,

The married one…

VOICE 2:

The dead one…!

VOICE 3:

Once told me that she knew all about you…

Two…

VOICE 1:

Well, she would…

VOICE 2:

Wouldn’t she…?

VOICE 3:

And she thought it was really unfair…

VOICE 2:

Was this when you were shagging her?

VOICE 3:

That was much later!

VOICE 1:

Way to go!

VOICES 2 & 3:           

Shut up!

VOICE 3:

Unfair on me…

Unfair on her…

She wanted to tell me

But she couldn’t -

Not without…

VOICE 2:

Betraying a confidence…

VOICE 3:

Betrayal…

VOICE 1:

Might have saved a lot of trouble if she had…

VOICE 2:

Might have prevented…

VOICE 1:

That Friday…

VOICE 3:

The landslide…!

VOICES 1 & 2:           

The landslide!

VOICE 3:

You know…

I was having a great day…!

VOICE 1:

So was I!

VOICE 2:

Weren’t we all?

VOICE 3:

A lovely, warm spring day.

The sun was shining

And

It felt like the first

Day of summer.

The boss,

In a rare moment of goodwill,

Decided to let us all

Go home early…

VOICE 1:

The idiot!

VOICE 3:

I knew, you know

VOICES 1 & 2:           

Really?

VOICE 3:

The moment I got home

Your White Capri outside

VOICE 1:

Ah…

VOICE 3:

The bedroom window

Open wide…

Like…

VOICE 2:

I heard you come in!

I’ve never been so frightened…

Never moved so fast

In all my life…!

VOICE 3:

I whistled…

Madly

Loudly

As I approached the front door

Hoping you’d hear

VOICE 2:

I did

VOICE 1:

WE did!

VOICE 3:

Rattling the keys

All but bellowing

“Hi Honey, I’m home”

Or something like that

VOICE 2:

Something like that…

I grabbed a dressing gown

VOICE 3:

My dressing gown!

VOICE 2:

And just got to the door

In time to hold it closed

And stop you opening it…

VOICE 3:

“Don’t come in!” you shouted

VOICE 2:

Please don’t come in…

VOICE 1:

Whilst I’m in the bedroom

Frantically grabbing my clothes

And wondering whether

I’d get thumped

And how I’d got into

This sit-com farce

VOICE 3:

And I gave you time

I waited in the kitchen

And let you leave

And didn’t thump anyone

VOICE 1:

Result!

VOICE 3:

Though for years I wished I had

VOICE 2:

I’m glad you didn’t

VOICE 3:

I’m better than that

I deserved better than that!

You left a week later

Got your own place

But the sex we had that week

VOICE 1:

Eh…?

VOICE 3:

Was probably the best we ever had…

VOICE 1:

I think that we need to have

A conversation…

VOICE 2:

Really, we don’t…

VOICE 1:

But…

VOICE 2:

It was all so long ago now…

VOICE 3:

Then you both went away

For a weekend

And the twist in my gut

When I found out you’d gone

Told me you weren’t ever coming back

VOICE 2:

I tried to stay in touch

We tried to remain friends…

VOICE 3:

But that was never going to work…

VOICE 1:

Never…

VOICE 3:

But even now

After all these years have passed

I still find I resent

The happiness you’ve had

The successes that you’ve had

The family that you’ve had

With the life you stole

From me

And even though

I accept that you did

What you had to do…

For you…

The question

I now realise

Is not

When does a landslide begin

But will it ever end?

FADEOUT

Martin A W Holmes, August 2015

LANDSLIDE (JPEG VERSION 01)

This is a piece that was once an unfinished poem that I'm now "developing" into a "performance piece" (for no other reason than I thought I might try it) and which - like so many of my other "little projects" have a knack of doing - will now quietly stagnate on the vine when my lack of confidence in anything I produce utterly stifles it at birth.

However, here it sits, for posterity's sake if for no other.

BAD DAY

On Friday night, I was, quite simply not having a good evening.

The spirits fell, the mood crashed and I found myself feeling simply bereft for quite while, sleepwalking around the house and finding it very hard to engage with anything very much, show any interest in anything, or convince myself that anything I have ever achieved in my life had any merit or worth.

Everything, basically, just felt utterly and totally pointless, and I was beginning to think that absolutely anything I had ever tried to do ever had any actual value at all.

The timing was lousy.

After all, it's not just about my writing, but this mood crash coincided with the day's announcement of the Bruntwood prize winners amongst whose number I was never going to feature, and, in the spirit of the times, we finally got around to watching the "National Theatre 50" programme which we'd recorded at the start of the month and two-and-a-half hours of watching actors actually looking as if they were acting (it's not their fault - dashing on and doing a "bit" can't really help with getting to the reality of the moment) whilst performing some of the very best writing ever written for the stage is never going to help me to feel any better about my own humble and pathetic efforts.

In the midst of all this, I was suddenly reminded of having my mum missing from my life.

And I felt just so very, very tired...

I can't... I can't... I just can't...

It's the kind of fatigue which feels not dissimilar to screaming depression followed by a total inability to function and that sense that you can't even be bothered to walk around because it takes far too much effort, which happens alongside everything else which also feels like far too much effort. Enthusiasm feels miles away, and beyond a mountain range which looks far too difficult to attempt to traverse.

So you simply decide not to bother.

What happened last month has, perhaps not surprisingly, made me think about my own life a lot, especially as I'm still rapidly skydiving towards fifty...

By this point in my life I feel that I ought to have added up to so much more, to be something that I've never managed to become, but so many opportunities have slipped away and I've got to a point where I'm no longer sure where the me in all of this is any more...

I do sometimes think that those long, wasted years of the decade of the 1990s did more damage than I realised.

So what are the solutions?

I wonder sometimes whether I ought to rejoin the theatre group which I once used to involve myself in the peripheries of...? After all, I had some little purpose for a time when I was there, but then, like most things I've ever involved myself with, it also conspired to annoy me so regularly that it still might not be a good idea. I suspect that I'd only be rejoining at all because I couldn't think of any better options, but then I've seldom been the sort of person who wants to join things, no matter how many Book Groups or Creative Writing Groups I feel that I might have missed out on over the years.

The fear of not being good enough is almost as crippling as the mind-shattering shyness has been.

I know that there are so many lapsed friendships to be worked on even though I also know that I've let things slide for far too long, although I need to accept that it wasn't all one-sided, because their priorities changed too...

Perhaps I'm just not very good at this living mularkey...?

Of course, I know that all of this recent excitement over the recent telly and shopping stuff which I've been blathering about in my recent posts is just a classic substitution for whatever the void I perceive as being in my life is... If you want to believe in that sort of homespun simplistic self-analytical psychology anyway.

And yet...

You see...

There's a thing about not wanting to anticipate stuff too much in case it turns out to be absolutely awful... and despite the fact that I can be trying my very best to remain non-committal and as pragmatic as possible about whatever the something of the moment happens to be, at the same time I so-o-o-o much don't want to actively dislike the thing which leads to an almost bipolar need to protect myself from disappointment.

I'm in a delicate place emotionally.

I'm really not very good at the moment at dealing with disappointments...

Or even potential disappointments...

And that's symptomatic of my relationship with the wider world.

Better to hide under a rock and not engage rather than finding out how disappointing the world, the people in it, and your own self can actually be.

After all, if the world was all that bothered by my continuing absence, surely it would have come looking for me by now, wouldn't it...?

Thought not.

CAN'T WRITE FOR TOFFEE

Well, after ten years of trying, it appears, with the latest Bruntwood Prize announcement once more confirming my failure, that I actually can't write for toffee (given today's date, presumably treacle toffee) and I'm being given a big enough hint that it's time to pack it in and go and find something else to do with my free time, especially when it comes to the laughable idea that I could actually write plays that someone might think worthy of performing...

The strange thing about this year's Bruntwood competition is that I really hadn't been all that bothered. I'd dusted off a play about the First World War which I wrote a couple of years ago and, because I really couldn't find any time to actually write the "other" play I'd sort of had in mind, I decided that it was better to send "something" rather than "nothing" and, because, for various reasons, this particular play had never got the read-through with a group of actors that I had once planned for it, I decided to just bundle it up and send it off and see whether anyone thought anything all that much of it...

It appears not...

So I am, at least, rather glad that I never embarrassed myself by sending it off to an actor I once had in mind to perform in it, nor by doing that reckless thing that I once thought about of sending it off to the Imperial War Museum so that they could mock me mercilessly in my absence.

The problem is that, for once, I actually was stupid enough to believe that I thought that this play was really quite good and, perhaps, the best thing I had ever written and, I'd decided in the great tradition of the playwright Arthur Miller whose boots I am not even worthy to lick the mud from, if this one was unsuccessful, I really would have to give up play-writing and find something else to do with my need to pour out ill-conceived words for no very good reason.

This is obviously delusional. I haven't actually written a new play in quite some time now, instead pouring my limited talents and energies into creating new and slightly tedious bloggery each morning, but I digress...

Interestingly enough, after I'd sent that off, way, eway back in March, I discovered that another theatre company, albeit an amateur one, were holding a writing competition specifically for plays about the topic I'd written about, and that this particular play might be the very thing that suited their competition entry requirements...

But there was a catch.

The entries could not, under any circumstances, be plays that were currently under consideration in any other competitions at the same time, so, I believed that was that one totally stuffed then.

Ah well... You make your choices in this life, don't you...?

Obviously, it would be most arrogant to assume that it was going to be successful in the first, so you might as well send it to the second, you might think, but I'm nothing if not a stickler for the rules because there's always a "just supposing..." to think about.

The closing date for the second was before the "long-list" release date for the first so that was that, it seemed.

Until a few weeks ago when I was idly checking the progress of both competitions online and I happened to notice that, for various reasons perhaps not unrelated to the other contest in question, the closing date for the second had slipped back beyond that "long-list" date of the first, and that there was now a short "window" where I might be able to squeeze the entry in at the last minute...

Of course, I tried talking myself out of it.

After all, if it hadn't been good enough for the first, then...

In the end, with what happened at the crucial period of time in my personal life, fate intervened to try and stop me from embarrassing myself twice, but I'm nothing if not resilient and, perhaps because I am the kind of an idiot who can't let go of a stupid thing like hope, I spent half an hour, and ten whole pounds of my own money as an entry fee, bundling the whole thing up again and sending it off to them anyway to face another abject failure and further proof that I am indeed no kind of writer and simply cannot write for toffee...

HERON AID

Today I’ve got nothing I can think of to write about.

Either that, or I’m so crippled by jealousy, or rage, or frustration, or fatigue, that I can no longer think at all.

Granted, I could probably have written that sentence on any morning in the past six months, asking you to “delete as applicable” the choices that you think might not apply, and you would probably have believed me every single time.

However, today feels different… Today I really do feel hog-tied by jealousy, rage, frustration, or fatigue (at least one of them anyway) to know that I can’t think of anything for a very good reason, even if I’m not quite certain yet as to which of them the reason is going to turn out to be.

It’s difficult to tell…

I know that I’m angry with myself for not making more effort to promote myself, and that certain deadlines have now passed, and the fact that successes and plaudits are going to now be going to others instead of me is somehow not giving me any joy…

Other people are about to be finding well-deserved success and meanwhile, I’m not, and, it seems, am never likely to, and that’s grinding away at me and throwing me into a selfish pit of despair so deep that I believe that I’m unlikely to ever emerge from it…

Well, not for a while, anyway…

Perhaps it’s not been helped by the fact that some days recently have been “difficult” for me, and the fallout from the fallout has turned out to have its own kind of fallout…

So this morning, instead of writing, I found myself drawn to the “Springwatch” Red Button coverage of the bird sanctuary webcams and became fascinated by the images of a heron preening itself in the early morning light… (Followers of @MAW_H on Twitter will now be able to work out almost precisely when this post was being composed… and so our deepest, innermost secrets are ultimately revealed…) 

The Red Button “Springwatch” stuff is actually very therapeutic and relaxing, and I can’t recommend it highly enough for getting rid of the stresses and strains of the early morning angst, and it is, essentially, bird-watching from the comfort of your own sofa. Sometimes if feels a little like the old overnight “Big Brother” images (not that I watched those…) only with birds. In the early morning hours, it’s still far better entertainment than BBC Breakfast, though, even if there is the occasional “fecal sack moment” to put me right off my Fruit & Fibre...

Just what I needed... but still preferable to watching Bill and Susannah... No that’s not really fair. I used to like Bill. He is, after all, a bee-keeper and therefore can’t be all bad, although the “It’s all about me, really…” smugness of his various colleagues has never really appealed.

Anyway, back to the heron…

Uh-oh... I think he’s spotted us...

COMPETITION QUANDARY

There are some people who spend their entire lives entering competitions… The heady “sixteen words or less” opportunity to “complete the well known phrase or saying” or fill in the answers in order to get an opportunity to get a little something for nothing, knowing full well that all around the country, hundreds if not thousands of people are taking a similar opportunity to respond to some marketing executive’s dream.

I can actually understand this; The thrill of the hunt, a victory snatched from the near-certainty of disappointment, or the sheer astonishment that comes when the postman knocks unexpectedly, and that nice sense of surprise when something unexpected actually turns up. Whether, in the end, it’s something you actually need or want is, of course, another matter when you can look yourself in the mirror and, however momentarily it might be, call yourself “a winner…”

I had some little success at this myself about ten years ago when my monthly magazine of choice found my particular ending to their “sentence of the month” prize-worthy and a box set of some old TV show was delivered to my house on one cheery morning, and, for about six months afterwards, I obviously had managed to tune in to that editor’s particular funny-bone wavelength, as the shiny discs and videos just kept on coming.

Right up, in fact, until they changed their entry system to a text-message based one which required far less skill and far more randomness and, having no mobile phone, I had to retire from that particular fray, and I have never won anything since, and I do seem to have lost my desire to be competitive, or, indeed, to have much in the way of ambition ever since then.

The other thing about competitions is that, sometimes, they are also a way for an amateur to get a momentary glimpse into a professional world without coming away from the experience with too many scars. Over the past decade I have entered one particular bi-annual script-writing competition three times without having any success, so when the latest one was announced I had a momentary rush of excitement, before wondering more practically whether it was really worth the effort, and whether I should actually bother going through it all over again at all....? It is, after all, a bit of a trial to get your hopes - however lowly they might be - up, only to have them dashed a few months later, despite knowing that you really never, ever stood a chance in the first place...

Because, as another odd-numbered year has turned, that very same contest has come around again, but, unfortunately, I have nothing new in my head, nor any time to write it if I had, and the sheer amount of effort that you need to pour into these things only to face not even being short-listed again is probably more than I can bear to go through again.

Maybe I should just take the hint, decide that I’m really no good at it, or don’t have my finger on the modern pulse of cutting edge theatre, and retire from the game…

And this is where the quandary begins.

I do still have one full-length play that I’ve never sent anywhere, one I wrote for a project which has since kind of faded away to nothingness, and which I’ve always believed - in that self-deceptive way I have - was actually rather good, although I haven’t yet read it through recently to find out how godawful it might actually be.

So, it’s an “old” play and I’m wondering whether or not I should just send it in…? That way I won’t miss out on a competition I’m already feeling twitchy about not entering, but it won’t need me to find vast chunks of time to create something only to end up being disappointed at its lack of success again…

However, having convinced myself that this is what I would do, and resolving to dig out the old document and reformat it to the current requirements, another theatre company announced another competition which actually requests scripts about the very themes my old play was about, and with a closing date about two-and-a-half months later than the first one, but for which the entries need to be “exclusive…”

Now I know that in all reality, I haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance with either, and that my play might not be all that good, but could I really justify the risk of entering both, even though I could give the first one a full two months to reject it before entering the second at the very last minute…? Is that a morally acceptable thing to do?

You see, yet another quandary that I’m ill-equipped to deal with.

You can tell, can’t you, that I’m really not built for the cut and thrust of the dog-eat-dog world of professional writing, so it would be better if I just slunk away, licked my wounds and faded away into a embittered old age, but that’s the trouble with competitions…

They always offer that faint glimmer of hope…