THE EMPTY.

[Stanley]

THE EMPTY.

Written 11 November 2003. My grand children had asked me to write them a story after their daddy had been killed in a plane crash while working in August of the same year.

Once upon a time, three small people lived in a house on the hill. It was a nice house and was surrounded by trees. A lot of it was new because it had been built again a year ago and one of the best things that had been added was the swimming pool. Their mother Janet was a wonderful gardener and she and their dad Harry had laid it out and put a retic system in so that it was well watered and grew flowers all the year round. There was nothing that Holly, Yiota and Harry liked more than playing in the pool and the garden in the hot Australian sun.

Everyone was so happy but one day a terrible thing happened. Daddy never came home from work. At first HY&H thought he was just late but they soon realised that something worse than this had happened because their mum was so upset. She told them that there had been an accident and Daddy was dead. He would never come home again.

Nothing worse than this could have happened. They were all so sad and spent a lot of time crying as they tried to imagine what life would be without Big Harry. Lots of people came round to the house and in a funny way this helped, it was as though Daddy’s love had been spread amongst all these friends and they were trying to return it to the house. Even so, when the house was quiet the Empty crept back in again.

As the months went by the hurt grew less but never went away. It was as if there was a hole in their lives and quite often HY&H had to give Mummy a hug because she got sad as well. It wasn’t nice but none of them knew what to do about it.

One day, HY&H were sat on the edge of the pool quietly paddling their feet in the water and wondering what mischief they could get up to next. It was hot, peaceful and somehow a little bit sad. The Empty was creeping back in again.

Harry heard a small scuffling noise and when he looked up into the tree near the pool he saw a magpie perched on the branch. The sun was in Harry’s eyes but as he squinted in the glare he fancied he could see…… That was silly, it couldn’t be, whoever heard of a magpie smoking a pipe! But even as this thought crossed his mind, a puff of sweet smelling smoke drifted out of the tree and down past him.

Harry turned and tugged Yiota’s arm, “Look up there! There’s a magpie in that tree smoking a pipe!” Yiota dragged her arm out of Harry’s grasp, “Don’t be silly Harry, magpies don’t smoke. Be quiet a minute while Holly and I decide what we can play next.” Harry wasn’t giving up, “Look in the tree! There’s a magpie there and he’s smoking a pipe, can’t you smell the smoke?”

Yiota’s nose wrinkled, Harry was right, there was a strange smell. She looked up to where Harry was pointing and nearly fell in the pool! Harry was right! There, in the tree, was a very old fat magpie with a little pipe in his mouth and blowing puffs of smoke out into the evening air. She shook Holly who was in a daydream. “Holly, look up in the tree, there’s a magpie smoking a pipe!” Holly turned and was just starting to say how silly they were both being when she looked up and saw the same bird they were watching. They were right, this was very unusual, she had never heard of magpies smoking before, not even in Mummy’s bird book that Grandad had given her.

Just then a funny thing happened. The magpie took the pipe out of his mouth, cleared his throat, cocked one eye towards them, and spoke……

“Haven’t you ever seen a bloke enjoying an evening smoke before?”

It took a while for this to sink in and then they all said together, “You can talk!” “Very good” said the bird, “full marks for observation. What’s so funny about that? Everyone knows that magpies do two human things very well, they steal bright things and they talk.” Holly said “How many words do you know?” The bird seemed to laugh but it was difficult to tell because beaks don’t bend, but its eyes wrinkled so it looked amused. “More than you lot, I’ve had more practice ‘cause I’m older.” “How old are you?” said Holly. “Well, I don’t know really, I haven’t had a birthday for a long time.” said the bird, “but I’m older than this tree, I can remember its father and its mother as well. When I was a chick there were no people here, just kangaroos, wallabies and my family. All this (he waved his pipe) has been built since I became old. Not like it was before at all but even so, quite interesting.”

“What do you mean, interesting?” “Well, there’s a lot more going on, more to talk about, more to set you thinking.”

Harry said “Can you think? What do you talk about?” “Of course I can think” said the bird, “how do you think I get things to talk about? Do you think I just make them up?” Harry said “I don’t know. I don’t know the sort of things you talk about.”

The bird considered this for a moment and said “Well, you’re quite right. How could you know. Tell you what, you ask me a question and I’ll see if I can tell you the answer.” Yiota spoke up right away, there was something that she’d been puzzling about for weeks. “Where has my Daddy gone?” The bird squinted at them for a minute, puffed a couple of times on his pipe and said “Where do you think he’s gone?”

Holly chipped in, “We don’t know, some people say he’s gone to heaven but we don’t know where that is. All we know is that he isn’t here any more and the Empty has taken his place.” “Ah,” said the bird, “that’s a good one, what do you mean by the Empty?” Holly said “It’s that nasty empty feeling that creeps in as soon as we sit still and start thinking.” The bird said “Are you sure that’s when it happens? Or does it happen when you stop thinking and leave a hole for it to creep in?”

“That’s it!” said Yiota, “That’s exactly when it happens. Just when you’ve finished a book or just going off to sleep or when you wake up in the night.” Holly said “That’s when Mummy gets the Empty as well. When she’s finished her jobs and got us in bed. I hear her crying sometimes and then it makes me feel sad and the Empty comes in with me as well.”

The bird shook himself and then preened a few feathers before speaking. “Well, it seems to me that you’ve learned quite a bit about this Empty already and this means that you know the answer to your question.” “What do you mean?” they chorused. “What I mean is that your Daddy hasn’t gone anywhere as long as you are thinking, that’s why the Empty can’t creep in then. He may be dead but you haven’t forgotten him, trouble is that you can’t remember him all the time. As long as you remember Big Harry he’ll be here and the Empty can’t creep in. It’s only when you forget that it finds a way back. I have an Empty myself, I miss my mum and dad, they were good birds and looked after me but I’ve practiced a lot and now I’m very good at remembering and the Empty has given up bothering me. You’ll find that in time you’ll do the same, you’ll get so good at remembering that the Empty won’t be able to get in and in the end it’ll stop bothering you.

Holly said “It can’t be as easy as that.” The bird said “I know, that’s what I thought at first, I thought the Empty would never go away but it did in the end. Hugging helps, I used to go and have a cuddle with my brothers and sisters and when we did it went away. After a while though I found that I could hug myself and it worked. Saved a lot of flying about I can tell you!”

“How long will it take?” said Harry. “Oh, I can’t tell you that. It all depends how much practicing you do. Anyway, that’s enough questions for one day. I know where there’s a nice bit of dead fish and I fancy a bit of supper.” With that, the magpie tucked his pipe somewhere under his wing, whistled at the children and flapped lazily away across the valley.

Well, HY&H looked at each other open-mouthed. They couldn’t believe that they had had a conversation with a bird in the tree. “Did that really happen? Said Harry. I think so said the other two. “Let’s go in and tell Mummy!!

The funny thing was that when they went in the house, tea was ready and somehow they forgot to tell Mummy about the wise old bird. They didn’t forget him but when they were with someone else all thoughts of him went out of their heads. It was only when they were on their own that the memory came back. The funny thing was that when it did, the Empty vanished just like a puff of smoke……….


SCG/11 November 2003

[Cathy]

Oh my, that story was good Stanley. Haven’t read it before.
Did your story comfort the children?

[Stanley]

We didn't talk about it much Cathy..... We were all grieving.
Thanks for commenting.....