Please Come Home

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For Dorothy and Drea.

The letter arrived this morning. I used a nail to slit open the envelope.

'Please come home', she'd written.

Nothing else.

I watched a single teardrop smudge that exquisite script. Even at a time like this she still couldn’t bring herself to address me by my name.

My name. Not the one on that worthless piece of paper I kept in the drawer.

I hated her.

But she needed me. The love of her life was dying. She wanted to scream at someone.

Fifty years they’d been together.

Fifty years.

And I had never known that kind of loss. How could I judge her?

I walked into the study and turned on my laptop. I sent the necessary e-mails. I booked a First Class rail ticket.

And a hotel room.

Some things can never be forgiven.

Music: 'Please Come Home'. Performed by Camel. From the 1981 album 'Nude'.
http://youtu.be/JIM4htxAyvc

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Comments

I only wish I could oblige.

I only wish I could oblige. But I'm still trying to resuscitate 'Oblivion's Curtain'.
A year's supply of cornettos and I might be tempted to change my mind.

Ban nothing. Question everything.

I'm still deciding...

Andrea Lena's picture

...all of what this brings out in me. Suffice to say that what I do know is that I've felt exactly like this all too many times for too many years both loving and hating my mom at the same time. I can't say if that's what you meant, but that's what I felt.

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

Don't read too much into it.

Don't read too much into it. I just thought it was high time I weighed in with something.

Ban nothing. Question everything.

Kudos just for the song.

I was listening to 'Snow Goose' by Camel driving home yesterday.

Brilliant!

Some of the lyrics from the prog rock days are brilliant if you care to take the time to read them.
I'm listening to 'A Candle for Judith' by Tractor at the moment. The late great John Peel signed them to his record company, Dandelion Records.

Loved the tale as well.

I'll Have To Give Tractor A Listen

Thanks. The song came up on You Tube while I was catching up on Bill Maher clips. Once I'd seen the title, the piece wrote itself.

Best lyrics from the prog rock days? Peter Gabriel's take some beating:

The porcelain mannequin with his shattered skin fears attack
And the eager pack lift up their pitchers, they carry all they lack
The liquid has congealed that has seeped out through the crack
And the tickler takes his stickleback

That last line is the cleverest I've ever heard

Ban nothing. Question everything.

Home

Home is where the heart is,
So there's nowhere else to go,
For though the journey's inwards,
It's still the longest trip I know.

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