(no subject)
I keep thinking about owls from Africa lately.
You see, I've got this uncle. My Uncle John, sort of the black sheep of the family, we don't talk about him much. But he's my favourite uncle, by far.
He's...he's a bit of a wanderer, you might say. He's always out and about and somewhere different and new and we never really know where he is or what he is doing most of the time. Most of the time, we don't want to know, really.
When I was younger...three, four, something around that...he...well. There was a bit of a mess and my parents set down one of the few unbreakable Boot family rules that they've ever come out of their collective unconsciousness long enough to set down. "John Marshall Boot is never to be nearer to Terrence Ian Boot than the antipode of Terry's current location."
They actually said it in exactly that manner, as well.
And, for the most part, Uncle John has followed this rule. I haven't seen him, much, since when I was a little thing.
But sometimes...sometimes, I would come downstairs in the morning and there would be this exhausted owl from parts unknown carrying a package. He sent me presents, you see. Amazing ones. Once, there was this...thing. I still don't know what it was, but I think it was from India, and it was made out of metal and shaped like a tree with all these bells of different metals hanging from the branches, and it had a charm on it so that if you touched one, they would all start ringing and play a song. A different song, depending on which one you'd touched first. And, once, there was a carved wooden crocodile from Africa which didn't do anything, really, except look fearsome and neat, and...all sorts of things. Something here, something there, always different, and I always loved getting them.
The problem, of course, was that I wasn't supposed to have them. They were from Uncle John, you see, and there was not supposed to be any contact between him and me whatsoever. And no matter how well I hid them, no matter what I did, eventually my mother, or my father, or usually my Aunt Gemma, would find them. And sometimes they would throw a fit over it, and sometimes they wouldn't, but they would always take what they had found away from me.
I truly believe that they just threw them out, too. With the rubbish.
And I really did not like that. At all. It...it hurt.
So, after a while, when I got one of these packages from Uncle John, I would take it and I would simply have to open it, to see what it was, and I would look down at whatever thing he had found for me and I would think that it was so amazing and so great and I wanted to keep it so much. Then I would think about how much I would hate it when Aunt Gemma found it and chucked it out, so I would put it back in the box, and put the paper back on it as best I could, and sometimes I would write him a note, and sometimes I would not, but I would just send them back.
When I was around twelve, I realised that he had simply stopped trying to send them. And, certainly, that hurt.
But it hurt less than seeing what I'd got and then having it chucked out.
You see, I've got this uncle. My Uncle John, sort of the black sheep of the family, we don't talk about him much. But he's my favourite uncle, by far.
He's...he's a bit of a wanderer, you might say. He's always out and about and somewhere different and new and we never really know where he is or what he is doing most of the time. Most of the time, we don't want to know, really.
When I was younger...three, four, something around that...he...well. There was a bit of a mess and my parents set down one of the few unbreakable Boot family rules that they've ever come out of their collective unconsciousness long enough to set down. "John Marshall Boot is never to be nearer to Terrence Ian Boot than the antipode of Terry's current location."
They actually said it in exactly that manner, as well.
And, for the most part, Uncle John has followed this rule. I haven't seen him, much, since when I was a little thing.
But sometimes...sometimes, I would come downstairs in the morning and there would be this exhausted owl from parts unknown carrying a package. He sent me presents, you see. Amazing ones. Once, there was this...thing. I still don't know what it was, but I think it was from India, and it was made out of metal and shaped like a tree with all these bells of different metals hanging from the branches, and it had a charm on it so that if you touched one, they would all start ringing and play a song. A different song, depending on which one you'd touched first. And, once, there was a carved wooden crocodile from Africa which didn't do anything, really, except look fearsome and neat, and...all sorts of things. Something here, something there, always different, and I always loved getting them.
The problem, of course, was that I wasn't supposed to have them. They were from Uncle John, you see, and there was not supposed to be any contact between him and me whatsoever. And no matter how well I hid them, no matter what I did, eventually my mother, or my father, or usually my Aunt Gemma, would find them. And sometimes they would throw a fit over it, and sometimes they wouldn't, but they would always take what they had found away from me.
I truly believe that they just threw them out, too. With the rubbish.
And I really did not like that. At all. It...it hurt.
So, after a while, when I got one of these packages from Uncle John, I would take it and I would simply have to open it, to see what it was, and I would look down at whatever thing he had found for me and I would think that it was so amazing and so great and I wanted to keep it so much. Then I would think about how much I would hate it when Aunt Gemma found it and chucked it out, so I would put it back in the box, and put the paper back on it as best I could, and sometimes I would write him a note, and sometimes I would not, but I would just send them back.
When I was around twelve, I realised that he had simply stopped trying to send them. And, certainly, that hurt.
But it hurt less than seeing what I'd got and then having it chucked out.