Some People -A Christmas Story

The bus into town was late stretching Jonas’s twenty minute journey to forty-five. He had planned a quick dash into town to replace his burnt out kettle. The streets were packed; shoppers pushing and shoving, the shops, the cafes; the town centre packed with people. Rats crowded in a sewer; a plague of Christmas rats fighting for morsels. Adding to the din were people collecting for charities and sidewalk Santa’s ringing bells and booming “Ho, Ho, Ho!” underscored by buskers tunelessly justifying their street begging. Cries of “Merry Christmas” punctuated the air like full stops at the clink of each given coin. Jonas mumbled, ‘Merry bloody greedy-mass is more like it’ as he hurried past two children accompanied by a reedy recorder murdering Silent Night.

Scrooge was right, he thought, and muttered; ‘bah, humbug’ as he pointedly ignored the youthful singers.

In the store Jonas found the kettles and took one to the counter plonking it down in front of a cheerful assistant.

‘Merry Christmas, sir!’ she said, ‘would you like that gift wrapped?’

‘Certainly not, it’s for me anyway and what’s so merry about Christmas?’ he replied enjoying her look of hurt surprise.

She took his card, processed it and put the box in a store bag and attempted a smile but his glare cut her off and rudely Jonas turned away leaving the counter.

‘Some people….’ She said to his retreating back.

Some people don’t like Christmas, he thought, some people hate the vacuous greetings, the tacky tinsel decorations, the greedy cash registers, the constant pressure to buy that perfect gift for him or her and the sickly, sentimental, sugary Christmas songs played constantly in the shops, on the television and the radio. Some people hate Rudolph the ruddy reindeer and fat Father Christmas telling lies to children to persuade their parents to buy more than they can afford. Some people hated the greedy kids who demanded more and more and threw tantrums when they didn’t get the latest branded items. Some people couldn’t stand Christmas.

A middle-aged woman rattled a collection tin at him.

‘It’s for the homeless,’ she said smiling.

‘Sod the bloody homeless. Bludgers, all of them, they should get a bloody job’ he said and pushed past her.

Her “some people” followed him along the street. Some people have had enough of being asked for money. Some people have buses to catch.

The journey back through the heavy traffic took fifty minutes and he was glad when the bus stopped at the end of his road. The short walk to his house was treacherous with ice on the pavement already forming in the early afternoon and Jonas shivered at the thought of a cold night. Inside the house he took the new kettle from its box, filled it and boiled water for a cup of coffee and made sandwiches taking them into his front room and sat on the settee to watch sport on the television. Outside the afternoon turned gloomy, icy cold and he was glad to be at home, warm and well fed.

He was glad he was not homeless. But then he wasn’t likely to be was he? He had saved up, got married and although they had never started a family at least they had a mortgage, paid taxes, done it right. Two years retired and ten years a widower he considered himself the survivor of a cold, passionless marriage; a dull career as a stores clerk and the afternoon trip down town. Warm and comfortable after his late lunch he dozed off on the settee and woke to the sound of people singing carols. His doorbell chimed and, still sleepy from his nap, he strode thump footed to his front door and flung it open.

‘Bugger off you caterwauling bludgers,’ he said and instantly regretted his rudeness. He might have felt justified if it had been the Vicar who stood on the step or one of those smiling middle-aged women, or a squeaky clean child but it wasn’t.

It was a young woman.

Her dark hair framed a face that had the sort of creamy complexion that glowed with health. She smiled and there was such a look of compassion and kindness on her perfect features that his grumpiness disappeared and he felt ashamed of his rudeness. Wrapped up in a warm coat with a woollen hat and a scarf she was lovely with warm, friendly dark brown eyes that added to her smile.

‘I’m sorry?’ she said.

‘I said, oh, forget what I said,’ he said and gazed at her, puzzled by the fact that she held neither a collection box or anything that looked remotely like one.

‘Mister Jonas Smith?’ she said.

‘That’s me, why?’

‘I believe you are alone this Christmas,’ she said and smiled warmly at him, ‘may I put your name down for the Christmas dinner this year?’

‘What?’ he said confused. ‘Me? Christmas dinner?’

‘Yes, you are a retired single gentleman with no family so we thought you would like to come,’ she said.

‘I thought you were collecting for the carol singing,’ he said, bemused and still searching his memory for where he had seen her.

‘If you wish to give, yes but the singing is for your pleasure not our profit,’ she said and smiled again. ‘The dinner starts at twelve. We will keep a place for you. Here, take a ticket. Will we see you there?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t know anybody,’ he said hardly believing he was almost agreeing to go.

‘You know me,’ she said, ‘just ask for Angela and everybody will know. I would love to see you there.’

He mumbled a reply unsure whether he had agreed or not. She turned and waved to him before joining the carol singers and in the lamp light she thought she looked familiar.

‘What do I want with a Churchy Christmas dinner?’ he said as he closed the door behind him.

Christmas day was quiet and Jonas could imagine the world had come to an end and he the only survivor.

‘Serves the world right if it did,’ he said.

At half past eleven he took the Christmas dinner ticket down from his mantelpiece and re-read it.

‘To be joined after the mid-day service by his reverence, David Potter Vicar of this parish.’ He held it for a few moments and dropped it onto the table with a snort of contempt.

‘I don’t need it.’

But the girl’s face filled his vision and he knew he wanted to see her again.

The brightly lit Church hall was decorated with Christmas lights; a lighted tree in the lobby and from inside the hall there was chatter, Christmas music and the smell of good food cooking.

‘Oh well, here goes,’ he said overcoming his reluctance admitting that he wanted to see the pretty girl again.

At the door a middle-aged woman took his ticket and crossed his name off the list, smiled and gave him a parcel.

‘A gift from the parish,’ she said and shooed him into the room.

He was surprised to see the room nearly full. Surprised too when he found a place mat with a card bearing his name. Surprised even more when the meal was served that he talked with his neighbours, and took part in the silly games afterward, surprised that he promised to go along to the evenings to meet again with his new found friends and surprised when the reverend Potter turned out to be a pleasant young man with an equally pleasant wife.

‘And how did you come to be invited to our Christmas dinner mister Smith?’ said Potter.

‘A rather nice young lady gave me the ticket. Is she here today?’

‘Who was she?’ asked Emily Potter.

‘She was a lovely dark haired girl with beautiful skin and a wonderful smile,’ he said.

‘You sound as if you have fallen in love with her,’ Emily said.

Jonas blushed.

‘Perhaps I have,’ he said.

Potter laughed.

‘Did you meet her at one of our outreaches or at one of the clubs? Potter asked.

‘No, it was during the street carol singing,’ Jonas said.

Potter and his wife glanced at each other obviously puzzled. Jonas shrugged. Maybe they didn’t know, he thought.

‘We don’t normally do that sort of thing during the carol singing. We collect for the homeless usually. What was this girl’s name?’ asked Potter.

‘She said her name was Angela,’ he said and suddenly as if a shadow had clouded the room their faces were no longer smiling but pale and sober.

‘Angela? You did say Angela?’ said Potter.

‘Yes, lovely girl and she knew my name, she called me Jonas Smith, she wrote it on the ticket,’ he said.

Emily Potter gripped his arm and gazed at him.

‘Would you recognise her again if you saw her?’ she said.

Jonas followed them out into the lobby where Emily Potter pointed to a notice board display.

‘Is that her?’

‘Yes, that’s her,’ he said.

He read the sheet and stood for a moment staring at the girl’s picture. ‘Here? She was found here?’ he said.

‘Yes, frozen to death outside the door on Christmas morning last year. The caretaker found her when he opened up to get the hall ready,’ Potter said.

Now he remembered. The story last Christmas of how a young, homeless drug addict was found frozen to death huddled up in nothing but a threadbare coat outside the Church hall. Jonas felt the lump begin deep in his throat and his eyes filled with tears. He was aware of being led to a chair and given a cup of sweet, hot tea. How alone and frightened she must have been. How she must have struggled to keep warm. How cold and hungry and how lost she must have felt when all around her people were getting ready for Christmas.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly remembering his trip to town, ‘some people have a good reason to hate Christmas.’

‘Not if they have hope,’ said Emily Potter.

Some people, he thought, and smiled.

Howling the Moon

I was invited to take part in a project initiated by a local Kent artist, Stephen Turner, who was looking at the phases of the moon during August and September. Fellow poet and artist Bob Collins and I went along to an evening of Haiku composition at the Elmley RSPB reserve on a rainy Friday evening. We drove to the farm and were driven to the car park inside the reserve where we joined in with the promised Haiku workshop.

As you may or may not be aware Haiku is a Japanese poetic art form that is simple and competitive. Basically in translation to our western language the form is three lines using seventeen syllables in the pattern of five in line one, seven in line two and five in line three with lines one and two setting the scene and line three mildly contradicting it. Or alternatively creating a counter to the first image. Essentially the Haiku has to be spontaneous about what you see or observe sensually. The object is to reflect nature and the seasons in some way which is why going to Elmley reserve was a good idea; the nature of the place is remote from the towns and as a bird reserve is as close to nature as you can get.

The result was some Haiku that flowed from the ideas presented before us.

And with the idea that we should read them at the artist's event - viewing the moon from his perspective and the observations he had made - it appears that in Japan there is a moon viewing in September and this was the main idea. We tried moon Haiku but as the evening was cloudy and wet with sudden showers this, using the observation idea, was a bit hard to do.

The Moonview event went well and although I was the only poet who was ready to read the audience was treated to Haiku read by Stephen Turner and a series of poems from me. Below are two written on the night of the presentation event; the nature of Haiku is that they can be written or composed instantly and they should not be changed.

Moon’s mushroom face sees

Westward sinking sister sun;

Kissing the ocean.

This one above was composed to explain how I felt as I drove to the venue with the sun setting in the west and the moon rising in the east above a misty marsh. It was also a treat to see a Barn Owl cross my path as I drove slowly through the entrance. Below is a Haiku that tells of that experience.

Owl Queen’s silent flight,

Deathly flowing feather light;

In sky clear moonlight.

The nature of Haiku is that one begins with an idea, writes a Haiku poem and this in turn is replied to. Also composers take turns line for line and both should be done without thinking too much about it. the objective is to get into the rhythm of the form and simply do it.

We learned that the Beat Poets of the late fifties and the early sixties looked at Haiku and changed its form so with that in mind I chose to finish with my tribute to Alan Ginsberg who wrote a poem called Howl which was so well received that it became his 'party piece'. My poem is more or less a series of Haiku style poems and after I had read the more traditional Haiku and some based on the Beat poets efforts I read this. The last stanza, the single word is read with the audience joining to - you guessed it - to Howl at the Moon.

(on the death of Allen Ginsberg)

LUNANTIC!

Been there, done that, asked the question, lost the plot.

LUNANTIC 1

Do you not

howl the moon?

When

wolf bitten

madmen

scream

unwritten

ancient

tongues.

Lunantic 2

When

Wolf bitten

Madmen

Howl

The

Moon

scream

unwritten

tongues!

Lunantic 3

Scream

when wolf bitten

madmen

howl the moon

in ancient unwritten tongues.

Lunantic 4

In ancient tongues

you howl the moon

Lunantic 5

wolf bitten

howl

Lunantic 6

HOWL!

Try it out in the safety of your own home - wait until the moon is full, get the men together and do what I do - Howl like a wolf at the Full Moon! Don't knock it, it's hilarious.

Changing a story into a stage play

One of the pleasures of creative writing is when the writer changes a story from one format to another. For example changing a short story into a poem is fun but when you can change either into a stage play that is even better. So, how is it done?

First you must decide on a story. This can be your own or you can adapt a story from some other source. Either method is fine as long as you remember that the story needs to be driven by the dialogue with a little help from the scene and the props.

I shall explain using excerpts from my version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I changed the title to Some Day My Prints Will Come - taken from the song used in the movie. The story has taken on a new twist but is essentially the same as the original popular version. We have a wicked queen, Snow White, seven dwarfs and a prince plus a mirror that speaks to the queen. These essentials make up the story we all know except that I have changed the story a little. For a full version of Snow White according to James Apps visit the website shown at the end of the article.

First task with conversion of a story to a play is to decide what is wanted and what is not. For example all the description needs to be put aside and notes made of essential items, such as a building or setting that needs to be used and of course the characters. In this case the characters are the same as in the story. The stage setting is described and the same setting is used throughout with the difference between the Queen's home and the dwarves done by lighting - this is a minimalist stage set designed to be rolled on and removed quickly.

The next task is to take the existing dialogue and use that as a skeleton story and lay it out as a complete tale. The lines can be set out in a number of ways but I prefer to use the Name: Dialogue system with punctuation for breaks but no quotation marks. Stage directions are set out within brackets in Italics.

To show how this works we will look at an extract from the story and match it with the play. This short piece is taken from the opening paragraph:

“Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who is the fairest of them all?”

Asked the Queen.

There was no answer. She didn’t expect one but there was no harm in trying.

Somebody told her that Snow White, her rival, was house keeping in the forest.

“Bloody dwarfs, sorry, Vertically Challenged Persons,” she said, feeling guilty but politically correct. “Little buggers are always interfering.”

She hoped her reflection wasn’t true.

“I can’t be as ugly as that can I?” she said.

But she was.

As you can see the ideas and description are all there in prose and conveys the message to the reader that the queen has a magic mirror and is not as beautiful as she thinks she is. The tone of the story is set and we should expect an alternative version. Now let us see the opening of the play:

QUEEN: Mirror, mirror on the wall; who is the fairest of them all? (There is no answer) Nothing. Maybe I should try again (louder) Mirror, mirror on the wall; who is the fairest of them all? (Still no answer) (louder still) Mirror, mirror on the wall ...

Enter Prince.

PRINCE: Knock it off darlin’ you know as well as I do that as long as Snow White is around you don’t stand a bleedin’ chance. (makes rude gesture - arm up with stiff fist against hand)

QUEEN: Excuse me will you? I’m trying to get something important going here, you know?... mirror, mirror on the wall; who is the fairest of them all?

PRINCE: I told you (Aside) silly old bat. (back to Queen) You don’t hold a candle to Snow White.

QUEEN: Hah! Snow White, that brainless little bimbo. When I get hold of her I’ll show her a thing or two about good looks, I’ll show her (extends long nails like claws and snarls) she won’t have any looks at all when I’ve finished with her. (Cuts down with vicious chopping motion of her hand) Hah!

This does the same thing; identifies the magic mirror - which doesn't work - and with the additional character gives the audience the same idea that the queen is ugly.

A play has a number of levels which should reach an audience and as you can imagine the difficulty is reaching them all. If your story is a good one and you can tell it in dialogue then you are part way there; the impact on the stage will be how the actors interpret the characters and how the director views the story. In Some Day My Prints Will Come I tried to create the levels on stage.

1) Visual impact

2) Verbal communication

3) Audience Interpretation

4) Sub plot

5) Sub text

Level 1 is achieved by creating the stage scene - this applies to all plays - which the audience must recognise. To do this you as a writer must use the narrative of the story to set the scene as true to the story as possible. In this play the minimalism requires that the mirror and the dwarves wardrobe be on stage as a reminder to the audience. The author can write this in to the stage directions at the beginning.

Level 2 could be considered the most important in which the audience is hearing a play - from Hamlet we are reminded by Hamlet that we are hearing a play from the wandering players and also from Midsummer Night's Dream - the Duke insists that he will hear the Mechanicals' play. The audience must get the story through the dialogue. In the case of Some Day My Prints Will Come the audience will hear the story but as it was a revue play with limited time the stage directions will allow the director to set his or her scene. In a longer play the author must make sure that the dialogue is written carefully and not only tells the story but moves the plot along.

Level 3 is what the audience sees as images coupled with the stage visual aids. Here the story you are adapting can help greatly. All those bits of description you had to discard can be added in, albeit pruned down, to the dialogue.

Level 4 is the tricky bit. This is where you as a writer create a sub plot that gives your audience a distraction. I have made at least two - the first is with the Queen and the Prince and the second is Dummy's sly machinations to get Snow White to himself. There are others but you will have to read the play to find them. An author needs to look into the story being adapted to find sub plots. If these cannot be found then maybe they should be created.

Level 5 is where you as the author make allusions to concepts outside the story. This is where the audience gets its real lasting pleasure from and the author the great satisfaction of discovering his or her own depth.

Okay, so what do you need to do to get it working properly?

You add to the existing dialogue by turning the narrative in dialogue. You give a character the words that set the narrative scene without the descriptive prose that fluffs out the story and make it short and to the point. The example below will help.

This is the scene where the queen disguised as an apple seller poisons Snow White. Note the narrative form in this which tells you what is happening and hopefully shows the reader the action.

The trouble with apples, thought Snow White, is that on the outside they look pretty good. Inside, sometimes they can be a bit floury, sharp, or, if she was lucky they tasted sweet and juicy.

As soon as Snow White bit into it she knew she had done the wrong thing. How many times had the little perverts warned her? Stuffy old Prof always said.

“Listen you dumb bimbo don’t buy nuthin” off nobody not nohow, see?”

She knew he was right but the apple looked delicious.

“Try it my dear.”

Anything for free.

Wrong. The damn thing was spiked.

“Oh shit,” she mumbled, and fell to the ground.

Now, convert that to a part in the play and you get:

OLD MEG: Hello dearie.

SNOW WHITE: Oh, I was expecting the Prince.

OLD MEG: Sorry dearie, as you can see I’m no Prince, just a humble fruit seller. Like to try an apple dearie?

SNOW WHITE: How much?

OLD MEG: No charge to try my dear. (Holds out an apple with a label on it)

SNOW WHITE: Ooh (Takes apple and admires it) (Aside) What was it stuffy old PROF said to me?

PROF: (Voice off stage) I said, listen you dumb bimbo don’t buy nuthin’ off nobody, see?

(Both look up and around trying to locate voice )

OLD MEG: No harm in trying and this one is free to you dearie.

SNOW WHITE: (Reads label – slowly and carefully) For Snow White only (Aside) ooh how nice (reads label again) Danger! Poison do not eat.

OLD MEG: Go on give it a try dearie. It’s a special apple just for you.

(Snow White bites into the apple and chomps, eating some )

SNOW WHITE: (reels and falls) Oh shit, it’s spiked. (Dies)

The same story is told but note how the stage directions and the dialogue work together to create the scene leaving the actors enough room to interpret the action their way.  On stage the actors were directed to pause and take their time to complete the scene. 

The fun part is actually putting it on stage.

I have put the script on this site (that is for article readers the squarespace site) and ask if you are tempted to perform it that you acknowledge my authorship and let me know through the site where and when it was produced.  The reason I offer this is simple; the original story is not my copyright and my adaptation is transparent from the popular movie for which I have fond memories.  I use it only as a guide to conversion of text from one medium to another.

So good luck in your enterprise and enjoy.

Narrative Poem - The Turval and the Grobble

Hi!

Click on the title on the right for an excerpt of my epic poem.  I would appreciate comments. 

Adapting Stories - for revues and comedy

During my time as a student at Auckland University I messed around with established tales either as short stories for reviews or plays.   I had fun with the story of George and the Dragon turning it into a full length play which is about to undergo modification.   I long ago decided that A Christmas Carol deserved treatment and also that classic, Cinderella, was crying out for modification.   

But the best one, in my humble opinion is, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 

I have taken it and changed the emphasis with an effort to become politically correct and at the same time mock PC .   Under the title Some Day My Prints Will Come,  the title taken from the popular movie song and the structure of the story more or less following the popular structure of the story familiar to us all.  Other than that with no apologies I look forward to reader's comments.