Sunday

The Second Coming

For breakfast this morning we arose late and languidly consumed a light feast of melon, honey and fresh eggs as we perused the Sunday papers. After our meal we splashed each other with the dew that decorated the branches as we made our way like teenagers towards an exciting new adventure beyond the wooded skyline. We held hands as we walked together across the fields and stood by the lower road hoping to catch a final glimpse of the huge metal beast that had recently visited with us. I caught myself humming a forgotten tune as her perfume delicately wafted on the autumn breeze about me. Below us, the hillside still shrouded in a fine mist, cast an even backdrop on what had been a perfect beginning to the day. To our right, the distant smoke from a neighbours chimney seemed to wave at us as if beckoning on the cheeriness of which we possessed inside. The beast was no longer to be seen. Our weekend was very happily complete.

The last time it had arrived was on the back of a medium sized yellow truck. I remember it well, the air brakes hissing as they carefully manoeuvred the upward climb, the height of the exhaust stack glinting conically in the mid-summer sun above the hedgerows as it wound its way through the hillside. A week prior to the arrival the delivery company decided to do a dummy run unladen, just to ensure it would survive the journey through the winding road that leads to the property. The tall wrought iron gates gave only a hairs breadth as the driver eased the vehicle in reverse to the edge of the carefully coiffured lawns. It took three strong men half a morning just to lower it to the ground where it sat gleaming on the mustard hogging stone of the driveway before it was sadly rejected and reloaded as the sun had begun to set on such a truly magnificent object. This time it had to be right.

Once again, the man in over-all charge was a woman. Siobhan herself, dressed in her faded blue Sunday jeans, designer plaid press button shirt atop a white T-shirt and brown worky boots, her beautiful hair pulled back in an almost casual knot. If she wasn't already my wife I would have made a move based just on the magnificent way in which she looked before me. It was moments like this that made me realise just why she ate so carefully, like that of a very beautiful dove. My eyes travelled between my wife and the new arrival on the back of the truck. I watched as she stood, hands on extremely slender hips, her pale pink lips set firmly in the same way in which she does when I am in her bad books. The steel grey of her Irish eyes flashed authority as she emanated power just from her presence alone. I felt a hunger stir inside of me as she paced slowly up and down the cobbled slate of the pathway. Her anticipation matched an entirely different hunger to mine.

The mechanical arm moved steel hawsers majestically until they reached the perfect pivotal point of counter balance. The driver, a nonchalant man nearly as wide as the crate itself, was barely vocal in his directions to the guys assisting the cable winch. Slowly the mechanical boom took up the strain and the crate rose above the shingle of the lower roof tier as it began its ascent high enough to clear the leafy lushness of the neatly trimmed topiary. The rough pine of the timber planking gave off a faint essence of Scandinavian wood, a mere rivers crossing from the origin and birth place of the item inside its secure timber housing. My eye caught the green and bronzed hew of the twisted metal banding that gave the packaging its strength. The earthy elements of metal, wood and nature was not lost on me. It gave me an inner satisfaction that only a working man can recognise and appreciate.

The meal on Saturday evening had consisted mainly of hearty foods, comforting and wholesome for our invited friends. The conversation was taken up considerately by the arrival of the new addition to the large open plan room that had once housed those who insisted upon doing good deeds in exchange for a god fixing the subsequent emptiness that demented their insides. It had been nearly five years in the planning, the searching, the travelling, the resurrection and refurbishment, not to mention the added expense of the second shipping. It was as natural to its new environment as the day it had first been nurtured to such an original magnificent design. I had spent many an hour savouring it in my minds eye, admiring the craftsmanship many a night as I lay down in my bed. The intricacy of its design, the way in which it would never chime, beep or trill. A stoic masterpiece of Mother Natures engineering stood before us.

It was with no little sadness that an anti-climatic feeling was upon me after our guests had departed happily in spirit and in wine. The enticing crackle of the thick fire log merely enhanced the beauty of the room that evening. Our own wine glasses stood untouched as we headed hand in hand towards the focus of so much conversation in the curvature of the room. I sighed deeply as I realised that as good as it had looked hidden beneath those dusty oul barn sheets during our long weekend so many years since, it did not hold quite the allure that I felt for my wife. As the shadows of the open fire played devilishly upon the high ceilings of our once christian home, nothing could ever come close to being quite as perfect as the woman who stood before me. Happiness is not always at the expense of a gift secured for its long journey aboard many a foreign truck. Sometimes the object of a mans desire is right before his very eyes the whole time.

We retired as lovers by the fireside as we consumed the best part of our midnight dessert. A recipe of  such intimate and special ingredients, of which I am unable on this occasion to record.


35 comments:

  1. You are SO annoying chef What was on the truck!

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    1. My apologies, did I not make that clear? A crate was on the truck. Careless of me, eh?

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  2. Atheists are arseholes, they reject stridently the faith they do not understand, without the basis of understanding to reach a decision as to whether it should be rejected. As noted in the Psalm, they thus doom themselves to foolishness; to incompletely based decisions, shutting out essential parts of human understanding and nature.

    That is their tragedy, but insofar as they are determined to spread their tragedy to the rest of us, that is also their danger.

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    1. Again, apologies if I insulted you, your exceptionally low IQ and of course the omnipotent sky-fairy beside you. Does he know you called me a bad word by the way? Heavens, I see a firey lake with your name blazed upon it.

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    2. thank you, tina! i had to read the passage twice because i was sure i'd missed the content of the crate! LOL but, perhaps, that wasn't the point of your lovely homage to herself, was it, sugar? ;) xoxox

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    3. Ahh Savvy, I can always rely on you hen. Southern brains and beauty win the day.

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    4. Just popped by to see where some referrals to my blog (pewfodder.wordpress.com) had come from.

      I should say that I'm not the "pewfodder" who commented above; I'm not myself keen an atheists, but I try to be polite and reasoned about it.

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    5. You may be right. I.P addresses are close, but no cigar. Your clone writes often... one of you can be amusing.

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  3. There are times when I could cheerfully strangle you but that was a beautiful homage to Siobhan so I'll forgive you.
    I keep thinking of a mill wheel. Will you tell us what was in the crate? Please?

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    1. Ahh well now, the thing is Pat, the threat of violence when you are a shrinking violet just like masel, means all the difference between being feart or no. Is it a good looking stone mill wheel you have in your head now? Holy Jaysus himself, that wouldn't do at all. Was it no another British genteel-man who had a thing about the mill wheel and corn maize? Charlie Trevelyan was a funny man so...

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  4. True love. Good times.

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    1. Indeed... if true love good times is also an anagram of "for the love of god is that you coming home drunk again". Tis always been the touble with being in drink, there is no stopping off point along the way. No guard waving a flag to remind yis that we all have to go home. Afore a man knows his hat fae his feet tis the banging on the door as the key has jumped fae his pocket and all hell is let loose right at the time when all yis want is sleep. Flowers cost a man money and have to be collected or sent, always too late. Ahhh now, words... they flow like the great blackness itself, smooth and satisfying. They will suffice this time, but the drink it calls to me as I lay here with one hell of a heid about me this very day.

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    2. Hope the heid is a bit better, ye'll need it again tomorrow night eh?

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    3. Celtic only need to draw and Spartak to lose against Barca to reach the last 16. I shall be there in spirit as well as you. I might manage a small dry sherry at half time.

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    4. Bollix! All down to 5th Dec now! Hope I win the Lotto between now & then!

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    5. I shall be back in the sunshine hopefully by then.

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    6. Tá tú ciúin mo chara, tá súil agam gach rud go maith i do domhan. Mo náire mar gheall ar an toradh is déanaí ó ár buachaillí. :(

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  5. Anonymous4:47 pm GMT+5

    Such moments. Time seems to stand still... or we only wish it to.

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    1. Tick follows tock as the heart of a beast belies the mind of a gracious woman. Time waits for no man.

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    2. Anonymous5:50 am GMT+5

      and it seems someone got his chimes rung!

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    3. The title was very appropriate, say no more.

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  6. Midnight desserts are the best kind!;D
    Herself is very lucky to have the man who turned her head so taken with her.

    True love indeed ....

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    1. Herself is indeed very lucky, not all of her sisters are ugly! I saw Siobhan first, but they are all indeed roses.

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  7. "A crate was on the truck." Indeed! Typed by the grandmaster of obfuscation. Alright, sir, I will scroll back to the top and reread in the event I missed a morsel of hint you might have planted. If no hint, then for another helping of the lexicon feast you serve to us.

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    1. Garrulous, grandiloquence, prolixus monologue, aye, so much better to be described as 'just a crate on a truck'.

      Time can easily be wasted reading words that are there. Tis easier on the soul to look for what is not written to be able to understand the grand scheme of what lies between the lines.

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  8. Duh what was on the truck though?!?

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  9. A big oul thing so it was. About the same size as the crate it came in.

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  10. Days ago, about 4 comments in, I added my two cents worth. Evidently, two cents doesn't buy much at work, as the work computer ate that post...and the next three. Sigh.

    So in a nutshell, I commended you for lovely words for your equally lovely lady which made my curiosity shut up and for once, not want to know what was in the crate. The words and fireplace image was enough.

    Baked miniature pecan pies, as well as mini versions of chocolate pie with merangue topping for today's Thanksgiving with the in-laws. Have a wonderful weekend! And may blogger not be so hungry that it eats this one too!

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    1. Miniature paecan pies.... right about now I could munch my way through at least 50 of the little beggars.

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  11. I was interested, up until the point at which you didn't tell us what it actually was. At which point it felt I'd failed at solving a riddle.

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    1. Aye, failed indeed... The riddle began with a crate and ended with a bang. Did I mention the silver lining and the need for helium?

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  12. Unique and vastly talented style of writing you have. Just spent an imteresting hour back reading your thoughts. Can't quite make out if you are lapsed or just lost. Interested to see that another pewfodder is cloning my name here and on other blogs I also visit reguarly. Oh well, live and let live, practice as I preach so to speak. You have skill with certain passages and are flimsy in your non belief in the one person who follows you in life. God. I see a man who has sinned and is in pain. Have you thought of confession at all?

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    1. Brilliant... just what I need, praise fae a black crow devotee, an enthusiast, an advocate of a higher being. Pray tell why you think I would need praise about putting pen to paper? Would flimsiness and flim-flam be better suited to those who wail in the kirk? I write for me, not for praise, for criticism or a friendly pat on the back. Some of the comments you (or your clone as alleged) are articulate and funny, however I choose not to publish due to a certain arrogance that stems fae religion. Lose the dog collar and comment more often.

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  13. A garden sculptur right!?!

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    1. Not even close doll. Think more along the lines of retro je ne sais quoi, then double it.

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Thank you, the chef is currently preparing an answer for you in the kitchen. Do help yourself to more bread.