Sitting on a Bench

Sitting on a Bench ©

By

Michael Casey

We had a few April showers so I sneaked out to the shops and I thought I’d take a look at my new route too. This will be longer, so I will have to stop for a rest in future, or even use the bus. I noticed there was a new bench in the churchyard. We have 5 churches where I live, plus the obnoxious who bang on doors, and you wish you had a chamber pot to throw over them. But that’s too much information, we also have a Spiritualist church, or does that not count as it’s for the dead, and not the living.

So I parked myself on the bench and tried to work out how many minutes it’d take to get home via this new route. I did read the plaque on the new bench. In Loving Memory of John Thomas Beddall, so as I sat I told him I’d be a regular on his bench in the Future, but I would say a prayer for him every time I used his bench. I assume he lived to a ripe old age, so I hope I can emulate him. And even if I don’t maybe  in the Future when I get to the Pearly Gates or even to the Other Place, and no I don’t mean the House of Lords, he can save me. Just before I’m tossed into the Pit a voice will ring out, he used my bench and he prayed for me, so I chose to save him. And my Eternity will be spent sitting on a wooden bench with my Heavenly sponsor.  

See as random as that is, my soul is saved. Or I get an idea for a story just because I needed to rest my weary ash, which reminds me of a toilet shaped novelty ash tray we once saw in a sea-side trinket shop. Continuing, as you sit on a bench in the churchyard the world stops and you can admire the flowers in the shade of a tree. Though a lady once told me they once thought of taking the tree away in order to may more space for car parking. This is progress, but who knows what King may have been discovered if such a thing happened. Though in my area, it would have been a Burger King, not a King of Royal blood.

As I sit and contemplate I think I’ll enjoy my new life, my new route, so long as the weight of the shopping does not overcome me, you never gave it a thought when your own mum did the shopping with leather shopping bags, 50 years and more ago. Before Plastic Bags were even invented. Then I think of the advice my lawyer, my sister in law lawyer once gave. Get yourself one of those trolleys on wheels.

But having a trolley is like having a red jump suit, like a criminal, though in this case just a trolley which would indicate I’m old and knackered with one foot in the grave. Even if that is the case on some days, my pain days I don’t want to advertise the fact. So I think about how many journeys I’ll make and much load I could carry.

Or should I just bit the bullet and climb into that red jump suit or rather drag a trolley that says, OLD AND DONE FOR, all I need now are the Fairies from Peter Pan mocking me. Forget I DO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES, instead it should be, I DON’T WANT TO BE A TROLLEY DRAGGER, dressing in drag would be more favourable, and maybe a bit of fun. But to admit old age and infirmity had caught up with me, that is the question, Shakespeare you can shut up too, Lech, Boris and Gregorgi have been showing him their still in the woods. A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, or all you can drink till you fall over, Shakespeare get out of my sight or I’ll shove that quill where your Love’s labour will be Lost.

If I could find a manly trolley, like an Audi Quattro, maybe I wouldn’t feel as if the gravedigger had started to dig my grave. A trolley with huge wheels and a spoiler on, and go faster stripes, like those cans of larger. I could even say I was being sponsored by a larger firm, I did work for a Market Research company into Alcohol Sales for over 20 years after all. That’s why I have that angel on my wall,it was a leaving present.

Maybe that’s the compromise, pretty girls would stop me in the street to take selfies with me and my deluxe shopping trolley. They could tell me about the PhD studies they were doing, and they did a bit of modeling to help pay the way. Then they’d take one final selfie of me and my shopping trolley before heading off to Birmingham University, or did she say Cambridge, I cannot remember all the flashes distracted me.

So I’ll have to think about it. Me on my new bench with my heavenly sponsor who I’ll be praying for every time I sit and rest my weary bones. In the end we are all a collection of bones, but if you mix with the right ingredients we become something really useful, as useful as a shopping trolley or a bench in a churchyard they remembers a life well spent.