Tag: husband

Teabag Mystery

I found a teabag (old and dried) in my Busy Lizzies this week. No idea how it got there. The husband doesn’t know anything about it. Bit of a mystery, I thought, and it kept me going for a few days. But I love and hate mysteries with equal measure. So I thought, I’m going to work this one out if it kills me. Unless, I have a poltergeist that likes drinking tea, I have to think of another alternative, a logical solution.

Maybe I had a cup with a herbal teabag in it, from a recent previous beverage, which I filled with water, watered the plant, emptied both water and teabag into soil and voila, end of mystery. I do like solving mysteries. Sorry, poltergeist. Your days are numbered. It was fun while it lasted though.

Evil Twin

I had known my evil twin had been around for a while. Strangers had been staring at me and whispering for years, looking terrified and disgusted at the same time, as if I’d done some unspeakable act.

Then one day, while buying some milk at my local store, I ran into the bitch. I was trembling and sweating as I hurried home. She was already sitting there, with her hand on my husbands knee. He looked happier than I’d ever seen him and somehow younger than usual. She was smiling in that confident, self assured way, that I’d never known when I looked into the mirror.

My husband stood up quickly.He was suddenly in a panic to see the two of us. If I’d have been gone any longer, maybe the unthinkable would have happened. It wasn’t a long haul to the bedroom. After he had calmed down a little and was up to speed on the situation, he went into the kitchen. “I’m going to make a cup of tea. (He’s British) We’ll sort this out when I get back.”

My twin approached me. Even though we were wearing the same clothes, hers somehow looked better.She walked like a model, shoulders back, head held high.

She read my mind. “I’m surprised he hasn’t seen the differences already. I love my life but you’re afraid of it. You’re weighed down with the cares of the world and closed off from the joys of it. You are always trying to squeeze into the smallest darkest space, like a mouse, in a hole.”

I ran to my defence, with a shrug. “I always thought I was okay.”

She chuckled. “Okay, yes. Nice, yes. If you had more balls like me, you’d be a Cinderella that actually went to the ball, instead of sitting at home, poking the coals.”

“Poking the coals is underrated.” I said. My husband returned from the kitchen. He downed his steaming hot tea in one go. (I don’t know how he does that).”Okay, which one of you is my wife?”

There was a silence. She looked at me as if to say, ‘He’ll never believe you. I’ve already done the ground work.” The only sound at that moment was my heart breaking as I looked at his kind and beautiful face.

If, by some supernatural event, I’d been forced to swap places and was now the evil twin, anything was possible. I did not have the confines of my other moral self to worry about. So now, I had only one decision to make. What unspeakable act should I commit first?

It was time to kill myself.

I moved towards her, staring at her lily white neck and flexing my bare hands. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. My husband jumped up and ran into my arms. I saw my evil twin visibly wither, until, with a contorted, twisted and bitter look on her face, she disappeared into thin air.

“She won’t be bothering us again.” he said.

I looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

“It was just one thing, one physical difference to show the true nature, the true condition of the soul, something that couldn’t be disguised, one thing she was unable to hide or deceive me by. It was the eyes.”

 

© Sue Young

 

 

 

 

I Wish I Was A Vampire

There’s a story behind this, that I feel is more important than the thing I wrote, so I’ll explain the inspiration behind it first.

When I was about 32, (yes, a long time ago) I remember thinking quite strongly that although I loved my husband, and he, me, I couldn’t control him, in any way.

I know, I know, why should I want to? I’m not meant to. How dare I ! So maybe control is the wrong word. Okay, how can I put this…I believe many people, rightly or wrongly, are subtly manipulating everyone else, and some people are doing it blatantly. It’s become a social skill. Maybe it was always a social skill, a way of communicating, or perhaps getting what one wants. How sad. Why can’t we all be honest?

What you see is what you get. No walls. No façade. No mask. No games.

So…I couldn’t control him. I couldn’t manipulate him. It seemed every other f***** around him could. It was at that time that I felt the sin of envy come upon me.

I felt…impotent. Useless. Weak. The Pixies might sing, ‘Where Is My Mind?’ but I was singing, ‘Where Is My Guile?’

I thought I should have some power, some feminine wiles and then I thought about how nice it would be, for me, to be a vampire, full of hypnotic mind games and occultist tricks. I guess at the time, I was watching how certain people could get him to do certain things,  but if I said the same thing, it didn’t work. So it was a case of, why can’t I be more like such and such?

I went up to a person (his younger brother) who seemed to be having some influence over my husband and I said, ‘How come you can get Ste, (my husband) to do this, that, or whatever, but if I was to say the same thing, it wouldn’t have any impact?’ The poor guy just smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. He was obviously embarrassed and a little bit baffled. So I approach the husband and ask the same question and he says. ‘It’s HOW something is said, and not WHAT is said,’

But to me, that just smacked of vampire. I felt that I’d missed out on some very special things simply because I refused to make a political move. So I wrote this and it helped a little  and I never tried to control things again.

To my chagrin, I discovered that it was just brotherly love and I couldn’t compete with that. The relationship dynamics were different. So I’m very happy to say that I relaxed and stopped trying to control things. After that, I found they got better by themselves very naturally. What I also discovered is that it is better to be patient, to be open, to learn wisdom, then it is to have guile.

Wish I was a vampire

To charm the charmless

To manipulate who I chose

To not have qualms

To lack integrity

To have duplicity

How do I make you bend to my will.

To want to.

Making friends

And influencing people

To have you eating out of my hand

Hypnotism- fast food style

On the bus

In the home

During the news

Quick, clean, undetectable

But I am mortal

Without spells

Magic is not within me

I can’t make anything happen

No powers of persuasion

No way to make you change direction

Or chose a different milk shake from your usual

It’s all beyond me

This charm lark

You don’t have to be a vampire to make it work

But it helps.

Of course, none of this applies now, but it’s good to look back on issues we have struggled with and are now resolved. It’s comforting when we see where we’ve been and how much we’ve learned. As soon as you stop fighting something, it seems to go away. It’s good to be reminded of the past, especially when it leads to learning, evolving as a human being and ultimate education, which results in a more peaceful and happier life.

If you dig out your old poems/verses/things you have written, you can see how important it was for you to feel those things at the time, how far you’ve come and how much you’ve evolved and grown. An old poem/piece of writing is like a snapshot from the past, which may have counselled us at the time, and may still even help us in the future.

 

© Sue Young