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Fiction

I can see you

Chapter One

Peace

Fiction by David Free

Trees are the most important things in the world.

They give air, therefore providing life to the 6 billion creatures that drink, eat and breathe on planet earth.

Without trees, we would be nothing.

A pile of dust each, settled onto a random piece of floor, slowly disintegrating away.

Who would want that?

A dull, lifeless existence worth nothing, a pointless futile life, only enlightened with the knowledge that someday you will finally die, after all of the waiting, to finally rot completely away will have been the greatest pleasure you have ever experienced.

Trees are strange things.

They come in all different shapes and sizes, colours and vibrancy.

Some hang over the car on dark country lanes, like evil stalkers, that intimidate and laugh and point and humiliate you until the point of no return.

Others, in contrast, are bright and welcoming, lively and fun.

But not too rowdy.

There are many varying types of trees everywhere you go, wherever you look there are trees, and they are always welcome.

I often think of a small 10-year-old child, kicking about an old scruffy football, in his dirty and dishevelled west ham football kit that his step mum bought him on his birthday.

He lives in the revolting backstreets of Whitechapel, east London.

The homeless, druggies, smokers, gangs, rapes, filthy H.I.V. filled used syringes that lay outside the pathetic excuse from the money drained councils `children’s playground’ are all second nature to this young boy.

Never will he breathe in fresh air, or wade through the peaceful grassy fields outside my home.

When he is kicking his football in the playground, he can see a tree.

Probably one of the only purely natural thing of gods creation he has a glimpse of in his current situation.

He regularly sits under it with an apple and crunches into it after playing and thinks of sitting in a nice little moor in the countryside being happy.

But he never gets it.

In my mind, the imaginary boy is so happy when he sits beneath the trees wings, it gives him some meaning.

Subsequently, I have come to the conclusion that trees are just like humans.

Some are evil, others are weak, some people are as fake as the talking tree in mother care.

But trees need each other to survive.

Elisha is my tree.

She keeps me alive.

She is the roots that fetch me water, she keeps my leaves growing and I keep the bark around her inner body strong and firm for the future, the future when we will morph together and be together as one.

That becoming is approaching.

The time is nearly here.

Elisha Stevens gave the postman her obligatory morning smile as she walked up the road from her house again to catch the 10.00 A M bus.

She looked at the church at the beginning of church way and arrived at the top.

She had been doing this for 3 years, ever since her move to little Wivvenhoe with Mike, her husband of 9 years and 7-year-old child Jake.

Wivvenhoe was 2 villages, Great and Little, neighbouring each other, tucked up nicely in the rural area of East Anglia.

There were 5 separate areas of little Wivvenhoe, Church Way, her road, a small quaint road where the church stood triumphant at the beginning of the walk down it, which linked directly onto the next set of houses-a small cul-de-sac, Primrose Gardens, the snobby part of the village, where owners took to the lawn every Saturday morning with furious mowers that roared their blades as they sliced and diced the perfectly continental grass, determined to accomplish those tidy green pristine strips.

Opposite, a row of 6 elegant and beautiful Victorian houses were perched over the main road, they belonged to the money people, the folks with real cash.

Most of the owners of Clements Way were rich men or business people from London, who used the properties as a weekend retreat from the big smoke, their was only one permanent fixture; Mrs Kempson, a small posh lady in her mid fifties lived all alone on the final house on the left hand side.

Mrs Kempson had mixed reviews from the villagers, some people she talked to said she was an interfering old witch, with only one main aim in life: to cause unhappiness to other people, backing this fact up with some story about her having a major bust up with her son, the night before his wedding day to a bride that didn’t quite take to Mrs Kempson, and, apparently, mother and son had never spoke since that fateful argument on his stag night. Another rumour was that she was bitter because her late husband, Albert, contracted outsimers in his later years, and the marriage broke down, leading to Albert’s mistreatment in a home, where, one day, he was left on his own in his room with a pair of scissors, and came out a few hours later in a black and foiled body bag.

Needless to say, she bled the home dry, sued for neglect and snatched every penny the home didn’t have.

Despite her bad press, Mrs Kempson always seemed very pleasant and nice when Elisha encountered her, maybe she wasn’t that bad, everyone who loses someone has the right to be bitter.

Down the way a few yards from Clements, there was Springs Avenue, perhaps the most overlooked place in Little Wivvenhoe.

Fat, square bungalows sat crouched together in a small space, a slab of concrete at the front of the house their front garden.

Virginia West lived here, a traditional nosy neighbour, who conducted weekly meetings at the `Sunday Luncheon Club’- basically an excuse for herself and a few batty old ladies to sit down over a cup of tea and biscuits to bitch about their fellow villagers.

When Elisha had first moved here, Virginia had invited her to one of these meetings, which is how she discovered Mrs Kempson’s life story as told by gossips.

She politely declined the offer the next time Virginia asked.

Following down from springs, was Reed Way.

Reed Way was the place where Elisha went least, she didn’t know why, but she didn’t go there that often, most probably because she didn’t really know anybody there particularly well.

She knew Troy and Eileen, a caravanning couple constantly in their caravan at some destination.

Occasionally when they went away, Eileen would pop round to ask if Elisha could feed their 2 cats, Dragon and Mop.

Mike saw Eileen every morning at Romer primary school, which Jake attended, and Eileen and Troy’s daughter, Katie attended too.

Jake and Katie shared the same teacher, the firm but fair Mrs Grind rod.

Apart from Troy and Eileen, the only other people she knew to talk to in Reed way were Angela and Fred Nickelstone, the small and shy owners of the village’s post office.

Well, that was Wivvenhoe, it was so very peaceful.

Quiet, their was not usually many people you usually saw out and about, so Elisha tried to take strolls in the public footpaths beside the long wavy fields to have passing chats to the dog walkers of the village.

There was miles and miles of lustrous cornfields, small little side streams, cosy cottages with ivy crawling up the wall and windows. It was a paradise of some sorts, a safe haven for her family where she could feel contented, an area where she could nearly hear the silence in the afternoons, Thursday and Friday afternoons, her 2 days off excluding the weekend.

At the weekend it was much livelier and fun, as the children had their break from school and travelled to the park on miniscule scooters as well as buying their 1p sweets from Barners, the tiny post office in Wivvenhoe, owned by the nickelstones, which many old people in the village relied on for their regular supply of groceries and Yorkshire teabags.

She had never took a driving test in all her 34 years of life, deciding that the bus was an effectively cheaper and easier way of travelling to work.

Mike had a car, a ford sierra for by four, which he used every morning and afternoon for the school run, and Elisha couldn’t travel with them to work, because times clashed. Mike was very proud of the car, which he washed every Sunday afternoon with little Jake’s help.

Mike was an insurance broker, very well paid, the reason why Elisha only had to complete 3 days work on her part time job, at the controversial Friendly Foods company, dubbed Frankenstein foods, because it produced genetically modified fruit and salad to specialist supermarkets.

When the building first opened there was a huge protest outside its doors by anti GMF protesters, and Green peace officials. KEEP FOOD REAL! They had screamed and threw tomatoes at her as she tried to get in.

“Bloody Bitch!” one make up free woman with dried up dandruff-covered dreadlocks had shouted at her.

“How would you like it if we came up and modified your tits?!” she yelled.

Police had to be called eventually to drag them away, and when he saw the situation was under control, The boss of Friendly Foods, Larry Lomax, stood on his soapbox, and roared at them in no uncertain terms to bugger off to sizewell.

This angered them even more, and cops had had to use restraining methods to keep them down, as they wailed and screeched at Larry like a group of hungry lions demanding to be fed.

Elisha herself thought it was unfair that the protestors were abusing her, as all she did at the factory was a receptionist job and running errands for Larry, she was his, well, personal assistant was the job description but she really wouldn’t like to do anything personal with the slime ball. Once, her American friend and co-worker Lucy, who did her job on Thursday to Sunday, described him best when she said one day

“He grabs at you like a freshman pulling at a panty girdle”

Larry Lomax was a notoriously lonely man.

A regular client to the girls of the red light district, Larry had a chest carpet so huge that Elisha wondered if he had to tape it down during intercourse, so not to end up on a manslaughter charge for accidental suffocation.

He was fat, had thick, repulsive forearms and short fat legs.

Usually to work he wore a smart suit or tie, rolling his sleeves up at the end of the day to give the Casual manager impression.

Sometimes, he would even undo his top button; a sorry sight to see as his hairy stomach sprinted up to the lower part of his neck like crawling ivy, and appeared as straw like spikes protruding from his shirt.

He has a smug, vile, ugly face that could shatter glass in an instance.

Long black hair scraped back in a greasy ponytail, which curled and coiled round the back of his head, and breath that could knock out a racehorse.

She didn’t see him most days, to her relief, so she liked her job.

It wasn’t the most exciting job she had ever had, but a job was a job and it brought good money home, and that’s what she thought of every morning when she got on that bus.

It secured Jake’s future, a nice house and never a shortage of the things he needed.

Of course, she still had unfulfilled ambitions, but she thought that she could have a go at those when Jake left home or went to university.

It was a sunny summer day, and as she waited for her mode of transport she breathed in the warm air through her nose, soothing her nostril hairs and calming her.

The bus came into view. It pulled up, and her, the only regular customer from Wivvenhoe to HedgeHam buses, stepped on it.

“Hi Bernie” she said to the dear old fella driving the bus. He really should be retired by now, she thought.

Still, he was nice and did the job good enough, so that’s all that matters really, she thought.

Entering the bus, which was greasy, and quite dirty, the backs of the seats were torn and the general smell of the bus was fag ends, She plumped for the seat 4 from the back, turned her head and looked out of the half open window, then closed it because the branches of the roadside trees had begun their usual scraping at the window routine again.

The bus pulled off.

At 10.25 A M Elisha arrived at friendly foods, and stared up at the building, facing another day at work.

The building itself was quite large, the colours dark and gloomy greys, surrounded by scraped and roughened pavement. The building was most part accountant, receptionist, the more formal type of the business, the other the specialist scientist part where the modifying actually took place.

That area was always on high security form because of protestors.

Strong guards and sniffer dogs were always strolling up and down, patrolling 24 7.

Once, Elisha had gone over there following orders from Larry to deliver something to one of the labs and been very freaked out by the amount of guards walking up and down, pacing constantly up and down.

It was like the Bronx, or Alcatraz sometimes.

Elisha took out her personalised key card; a small plastic credit card shaped object, which she swiped every morning to gain entry to the building.

She swiped it in the rather grotesque looking device mounted to the wall and a beep whimpered quietly, then 2 automatic moving plastic doors opened, and a posh woman’s voice sounded from a small, rounded speaker box above the entrance.

“Welcome to friendly foods” it said.

As Elisha walked inside, fellow worker, Yvonne Leaves, met her, and she gave a quick smile.

Yvonne was her work pal; she did her job in the I T department of the building, close to Elisha.

Yvonne had a husband, Bill, and two children from a former husband, they were sweet little kids in Elisha’s opinion, named Sally and Halle, aged 6 and 9 respectively. Yvonne stopped her, and asked her how she was.

“I am fine Yvonne, how are you?” she said.

“I am ok I just stopped you to warn you- Larry is fuming up there” Yvonne pointed up to Larry’s office. He was fumbling about amongst screwed up paperwork, holding his head in his hands.

“What happened?” Elisha inquired

“Sean messed up some important fax info that was meant for Larry. He is in a stinking mood”

“Oh god” Elisha winced for Sean.

“I tell you, that man puts on a front most of the time, but when he gets going he erupts like an uncorked volcano!” Yvonne told her.

“I am knocking off now- do you want to come to Inchleys Café downtown at lunch?

I have to get some new clothes for Halle and if you fancy a shop-“

Elisha broke her off.

“Sorry, Yvonne I cant. Mike is going out for a meeting tonight and I can’t get anyone at such short notice for Jake” she answered bluntly.

“Oh, ok” said Yvonne, sounding a bit hurt.

“I’m sorry but-“

“Its ok, don’t worry”

Yvonne walked away and left Elisha with a tiny pang of guilt for turning her down like that.

She headed for her workstation and sat down at her computer.

She turned on her computer, and she faced a blue screen for the PC had not been turned off properly from her last shift so it was scanning the c drive for errors.

Bending over, she called out to Sean, whose workstation was in front of her.

“What happened?” she asked him.

He turned round and gave a half smile, his face sullen and unconcerned.

“I messed up some fax papers from London, they were important apparently” he sighed.

“Larry called me up into his office, had a go. Went on about how this was not the first time I had let him and the company down, he started bringing up all that shit from Christmas when I accidentally crashed the computer system, remember?”

Elisha nodded her head knowingly.

“He has collected a whole file of every single thing that I have EVER pissed up, put it all together and after a shouting match at me handed me my P45”

Elisha gasped.

“Oh my god”

“He can’t just do that to you!”

“He already has”

“Well, that is unfair, totally out of order” Elisha enthused taking on a rebellious pose.

“ I am going up there NOW” she said, in a taking the lead sort of voice.

“There’s no point” Sean had already given up.

“There is a point.” Elishas voice grew louder.

“Now Sean” she spoke in a reassuring voice.

“I am going to go up there and I am going to make that thick pigheaded excuse for a man get you your job back.”

And with that, much to a distressed Sean’s protests, (he was concerned that Larry would give her the push as well if she stood up for him), Elisha stormed up to the office, and you could almost see the smoke arising and frothing wildly from her ears.

She pushed open the office door and looked inside.

Larry sat hunched on his black leather chair, over a small wooden table twiddling his thumbs amongst an old laptop and dirty FHM calendars.

“Employees are supposed to knock before you come in, Elisha, you should know that by now.”

He moved his head to look up at her.

“And you should know by now that you have an estimated figure of 476 employees in this very building, and you should know that those employees have a union” she shot back at him.

“What’s got your back then up, Elisha?” he droned discontentedly.

“What’s got my back up Larry is that you have just gone and fired Sean.”

“You cannot go throwing your weight around and lose people their jobs just because you’re having a bad day”

“May I remind you that you work for me Elisha and I do not take that kind of cheek very lightly anymore. If you are prepared to lose you’re job for Sean, to be honest I couldn’t give a damn.

If you’re not, I suggest you cut all this crap and get back to work.”

Elisha was taken aback, but it brought her back to earth and off her soapbox and made her think.

Where else could she get such an easy job with flexible hours to bend around her family life and also get paid a reasonable lump sum every week for it?

After one of those moments of silence that seemed like much, much more than just a moment, she finally spoke

“Please-Larry reconsider about Sean”

Larry reclined back and spread out his arms.

“Nope.” He answered simply.

Elisha looked down at her feet, biting her tongue.

Resist the urge to punch, Resist the urge to punch she thought.

“Now, go down there, keep you’re head down and continue doing the job I love you so much for doing”

He gave a smug smile as she walked from the office.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Sean.

Elisha left at 4.30 pm and Sean left an hour later, without his job.

David Free, age 16, contact: STEPHEN@FREE3648.FREESERVE.CO.UK
Copyright 2004 David Free
Reviews and Comments requested
Posted 2/14/2004