Lie to your children, never your wife

At 7pm the sirens sounded.

That is, the sirens in my head. 

This particular pupil was annoying in that he was erroneously misinformed that I was nice. Generally, in the hazy melodrama of being a teacher it is important to maintain some sort of bland decorum, in order to maintain order in the ranks. This can be accomplished by coming across as a serial killer on coke who has been clean for three years and just got his first rush. This makes them scared,very scared. Which is good. 

So, the fact that this child had suddenly got the idea into his head that I was nice was unnerving. I was going to have to ease myself into dictator zone, which is not something I generally like to do.

Creeping his little urchin head around the corner, I heard 'Alan' say 'Hi Mr Ariev' in the most chirpy and fearless tone that Bambi would be proud of. I gave a curt nod. In the usual order of things, I began to explain about this chord and that chord and Alan was bobbing and swinging his little head in appreciation. 

My mind started to wander at some point, maybe at 7:18 and I thought of something funny. I started to giggle. Children like stability. And when Alan noticed that his learned teacher was giggling like a deflating chipmunk it didn't go well with him. He looked up and gave a slightly uncomfortable smile, with the knowledge in his mind that his parents had warned him about these 'teachers'. I giggled more as the situation was becoming untenable, and Alan made the decision to edge his chair back slightly, closer to the accessible phone.

I explained to him, that sometimes teachers find things funny, and this is perfectly natural. He nodded and smiled with an even more worried and concerned look on his face. So I decided to reincarnate myself as Mao for the last 8 minutes of the lesson. Children need guidance in times of uncertainty.

'Turn to page 82' 

'But, but'

' I said..'

'But there is no such page as 82'

'Turn to page 82'

'Hmm now i would like you to play Chopin dance minuet in Fm'

He could play 'Mary had little lamb. Just.

Trembling, he reached for a note he could find, any, as long as this crazed revolutionist emancipate him from the iron reign that had befallen this lesson,

When it had ended, I was approached by the male parent who was interested in his other child being dragged in chains to the 'free' Republic of Avrom II. I entertained him with the idea that there were other instruments available for tuition in my regime and he particularly liked the sound of the long horn with buttons, the clarinet. But his wife didn't. He inquired as to the ins and outs of the air in the horn, and when he was fully satisfied that it made a good sound he confirmed he would like his child to be indoctrinated.

There is one point to mention here. The Male parent was of frog-eating origin. So am I, but I have a rule. I never, on any occasion let my fellow frog eaters know my humble green origins. This is to ensnare them into thinking they are perfectly safe to switch to a frog Tongue of their own in times of danger. And they fall right in, most of the time.

So, the male-parent said something about something and giggled to make chairman Avrom feel comfortable and said he would consult 'wife' for confirmation of entry into Clarinet labour. I told him that there are other choices too apart from the black horn. Nevertheless he cooed up to his wife, in French.

'The man says that clarinet is easy'  I said no such thing.

'He believes clarinet will take our child to the upper realms of heavenly musical creativity'   Oooohhhh.

Enough was enough. I nodded and smiled accordingly and left. Later, I sent a message to Female parent.

'Dear Alan's mum.

Clarinet is a very difficult instrument. It can take many years for a child to master the various blowing techniques, never mind the mental and emotional challenges along the way of learning to play such an instrument. It may take him years before he can blow out a single note'

Later I received a curt reply. 'Husband dead'.

Frollicking Fun

We met in a secluded field, the sun nearly kissing the evening horizon. The warm breeze was full of that earthy, musky scent that only those fortunate enough to live outside the urban rat race know, and a quiet whispering of leaves in the weeping willow overhead added the final touch to the most romantic scene.

We lay there, both naked. I knew I had to have her, and have her now. Without a word being spoken, I moved to a position of dominance. I could feel instantly that this was what she was waiting for as she frantically thrust her pelvis at my approaching organ. I moved slowly at first, inch by inch, until I was fully inside her. Then as the tension rose, we threw caution to the wind and abandoned ourselves to the moment. Although inexperienced, she approached every change of position with enthusiasm, moaning with despair every time I withdrew to prevent myself ending it all too soon. As the sexual tension heightened towards the inevitable mind blowing climax, it was all I could do to hold out any longer.

Finally, the moment we had been building up to was upon us, and passed too quickly. Breathlessly we rolled together in the now damp grass. As the last deep orange glow of the long setting sun melted into the darkness of approaching night, we lay there still entwined in an amorous embrace. I kissed her long and lovingly, and whispered reassuringly how good she had been. She tenderly and sensuously licked my ear then whispered, 'Baaa' and rejoined the flock.

This book can only be purchased in New Zealand.

A Cleaner in a Foreign Land- A polish refugee’s tale of translation from the untranslatable.

Magda was lost.

Just two days earlier her cousin Brtyk ,correctly pronounced Brtyk, had accidentally impregnated her and, offering his apologies, had suggested she flee to the promised land- England, to pay for her mistake.

Now she was facing a door with an incomprehensible drawing of a man, and had just ben sympathetically removed from the opposite room with the drawing of a woman. The man nervously ushering her out had kept repeating the word that her cousin had advised her to use in all emergencies repeatedly -'sorry'.

Holding her imported sheepskin bag and clutching her prized nutrition, a bottle of Vasyk Vodka, she put on her best refugee smile and ambled to the moist-eyed Englishman at the passport counter.

As she signed her name with a well-practiced 'x' under the 'I have been beaten repeatedly to a pulp' box she breathed a quick Hail Mary and rushed to the dark, eager-looking man beside the taxi before anyone could see the Jeffrey Archer novels in her bag and arrived just in time to whip out her 'slightly dented' refugee look.

True to her cousins' warning, she repeatedly used her minimal vocabulary. The taxi driver, noticing her sheepskin and thinking her to be of oligarchic descent, urged her unto the vehicle and quickly locked the doors before she could escape. Smiling to herself in deep simplicity Magda looked up to the rain and saw little queens floating down from the sky.

She was on her way to earning her first hourly pound..

A Song Too Far - A woe betided tale of a Jamaicans' over enthused larynx.

'Ye who enter, shut it' - so read the unwritten sign on the entrance to the evaporation room.

It was known to all, that this room was for breathing and sweating. Yes, occasional bouts of machoistic conversations were allowed, even encouraged, a rhetorical results query such as 'watch the match today?' was sometimes quietly applauded. But no, no, no - to rampantly chatter or sing was heresy.

It was recounted once of a Chilean immigrant who had entered whistling an old caustic refrain; they had strung him to the evaporator so that he could 'sing now'.
Another Saudi had decided to chant to Allah- blessed be he mid-morning; he never mounted a camel again.

Thus, in keeping with the law of the non escaping goat, it was inevitable for another to be strung.

And so it was on the 5th day of the week, as Samuel H Rousta entered the maze of water, it dawned upon him a tune and what a tune! ‘Three blind mice’, ooh he must 'av earrd it laast in kiingston'.

Throatily he cleared his pipe hole, and readied himself for his performance.

James T Hogby, had had a particularly doursome day.

Middle management had given him a real gooly twisting about the state of the centre. As he traipsed past the lockers near the steam room, he tripped, fell and heard the song three blind mice, as sung by his abusive stepdad whilst on the whipper.

This version was also in no particular key and emanated in a trebly wheezing voice.

Enough, said James, Enough he even screamed, and crawled over to the non-assuming Caribbean gentleman. 'Ouuuuut' he shrieked, as Samuel cowered from the white settler.

Once more in exile, once more 'byy dee riivers of..'

Alas poor Yochi he did not know me well

I have a good pupil. Any scholarly educator would probably laugh, say 23 hail Mary's, and then proclaim me a sayer of falsehoods for saying these words. But I can, I can. Usually…

Yochi, short for Yerachmiel,Solze, Reuven, Dovid, and Jacob for good measure, is a good kid. He clears his toys, brushes his remaining molars and giggles at squirrels.

Always a pleasure. I dumdidum as i knock on his door with brisky joy. 'Huullo'. A pokerfaced weener stares up at me,sucking.

"Bob...bob...bob...bob…BOOOOB THE BUILDER CAN HE FIX IT"... I jump… It seems this weener's automobile has an Asian sound system, the one where the driver has no brain, coz the bass has removed it whilst he plays the look 'no hands' game with his mates like the weener, only the bus heading towards his doesn't say 'Fisherprice' on its side it says National Exp…BOOM.

Anyway,bob, bob, bob, bob… BOOOB, ok,ok. I decide to kick my way past the weener with the glandular dysfunction, crushing bobs skull on the way. He'll never sing again.

The keyboard is in the adjoining room and I sit idly, perceiving a rogue hair on my arm, whose impertinence is making me re-consider its swift execution. Mid-execution Yochi walks in with a look of bafflement at the sight of a teacher, knee on the keyboard shouting ' OUT YOU PIECE OF SH…MALTZ, OUT'.

I calm Yochi with a soothing lulllaby as he rocks back and forth whispering chassidic nonsense; the melody is ' A little boy from Bethlehem'. After another fit and various euphoric hymns, we get on with the lesson. But as we progress I notice a strange whiff in the air, I check the baby; its not him. Its not that smell anyway I realize. It's alcohol. I ask Yochi if he had booby, 'Nooo'.he slurs. Glorious,he's 8 and p***ed out of his mind.

I decide to take advantage of the situation in a legal manner.

'Play me Chopin's concerto in D flat minor'.

’Tihihihi nonono’.

'Now play me a Beethoven nocturne, any you want'

'Whatsha whatsha ho notchurn’.

Now it’s my turn to break. After I've finished with my high Ha's and many, many Hi’s, and my tear duct is as dry as a Saharan well, I call the police. They're busy, ah well. Back at the party Yochi is conducting an experiment. He would like to discover the full capacity of his left nostril by taking a… oh no... party's over.

Mrs Yochi walks in. I explain fervently that part of the classical methodical training involves nostril stretching, particularly the left one as it is good for a child's development. Those two words have done wonders for me in previous parental inquisitions and this time is no exception. Like a shake of a wand, she disappears into the night and I'm a free man, able to enjoy Part 2 of my evenings entertainment, the right nostril.

Alas, Poor Young Man, He Meant Well

'Please refrain from touching the exhibits, Please refrain from touching the exhibits, Please refrain from touching the exhibits' …

So sounded the increasingly angry-sounding  voice mechanism as a middle aged man, bored with life, prodded the explosive looking mechanism at the Imperial war museum.

His wife, outside the blocked of area, was enigmatically motioning for him to follow, pertaining that we’re-going-now-and-we-don’t-care-about-your-middle age-crisis with her eyes.

The purpose of my visit was a Holocaust conference, at which numerous la-di-da type characters would be present, me being the exception of course. I mentioned to the security guard all hmph-like that I - 'ynow am attending the..ahem conference' … he saw straight through my act and instead of addressing me as guvnor or the gentleman he called me his mate and pointed a waning finger somewhere north. After i had finished careering around the 1st floor like a Iranian nuclear test missile, I bumped into a cardboard guy waving with a funny short moustache and a quiff and thought, ah, this must be it.

Gently sidling in through the doorway I nearly managed to avoid any late-attention. Unfortunately, i had managed to involuntarily make the acquaintance of an idiot…who bumbled his way in tripping over the samsung YH1000 projector wire thereby cutting off Mr Wiesel’s nephew mid-sermon and seriously irritating a number of attendees who grinned and ok'd in much feigned amusement.

After the presentation was over, it was decided that people should make their way to the coffee and tea where they should ooh and ahh at each other, which they did, and quiet professionally. I decided to ooh  with an author of supposed famed repute, a veteran ahher by all accounts, chap named Bill Knight.

I looked at his Tag; it said 'Bill Knight'. He looked at mine, and kept on looking. You see, although i was, on the list, it seemed i wasn't poloi enough to have my own tag. So I scrawled one meself.

Knight kept staring languidly, then gave up and said 'so… Aurom'.

I am a fairy liquid, I didn't say.

'Yes'.

'What..who..err. What are you?'

I thought about the answer for a bit, long enough for him to turn and stare at the 'Security' sign at the end of the room.

'I'm a student, a student' I hurried.

‘Aha,aha’  the paranoiac story plotter inside him wasn't really convinced, so I gave him a cookie and a minstrel to calm him. We spoke at length about this and that and when he was satisfied i was no Hezbolla agent he let me go play.

A tall woman, with a short no-messing hairdo, and a definitely-messing-around-because-my-husband-is-oblivious top, got up and spoke about shoes. I like my shoes, so I was quite interested. However, the young man beside me was the short, bald, I’m an intellectual and EVERYONE must know me type and he salivated at every opportunity to address everyone about himself.

The woman did not like anyone else talking. So she told him that first of all he may be right but he was wrong, and didn't really get the second-of-all as there didn't seem to be any. So he looked elsewhere for comfort. His teacup.

I saw him continue to mount sugar into his teacup until it resembled Mount Harari, there was no stopping the sugar-capped PG tip, but the young man, now fully immersed in researching his next academic advert, did not see the tip become Vesuvius. I did, but for the sake of light entertainment, I kept shtum.

‘Woowoowo’ I bowowed like a war mongering Indian just in time before Vesuvius became Pompei. Sadly the shock was too much for the young man, and PG Pompei erupted.

Short excerpts from the Confessions of an Aggrieved teacher

It was raining out. 

Drip,drip. Fuck, Man it was pisssssing it down. 8pm. I was late. Fuck. Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. That helped. I looked at my watch. Fuck. Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. And walked to the rhythm. A child had called, a little cretin of a whelp, saying he wanted 'lethons', get some teeth.

I could hear his dad in the background, breathing like an overweight frog, urging him on in his first TELEPHONE conversation, while I fucked around trying to make out what the little brat was saying.

'Sooo would you like some lessons then?'

'Say yes Andrey, say yes' papa urged now in deep elated frog breath.

'Oook tuesday 8.30 it is'

I managed to squeeze in 'you little prat' just after slamming my finger on the red button.

And here I was, body and soul, urging to whack something, waiting to teach some little goon named Andi. The idiot-frog opened the door.

 'Halooo…'

 I didn't share the enthusiasm although I had to present it.

After all the niceties and traditional offspring parading had been over and done with, I politely
escorted the patriarch frog out of the room as he babbled incoherently about this and that Andi achievement. I told Andi to open the book. He said 'yup'. This puzzled me as he had not used that adverb before. 'Yup' he repeated perkingly. I could not control this dog.

I pushed his fingers roughly on the d string. 'Play', I said roughly. He looked at me fearfully. I looked at him menacingly, and gnarled. 'No CLOSE your hand'

'Yup!'

I could not take this for long. My eyes averted to a thin knife then to his dad and the tenner his hand cradled. I would have to deal with this later.

I decided then to treat him as a new specie, and in my next lessons much would be learnt about how to control this particular breed. As I left the house I said 'see you next week'?
Yup Fucking, yup.

Blade on a C

Today, I rollerbladed to my lessons. And not out of choice. My Black beauty, my amour,my combustion joy was ripped from my heart by two Umbro garbed ferrets who hopefully slipped and died whilst peppering cannabis on their omelettes.

I arrived unpromptly to my first lesson at exactly 7.38. The pupil in question was a small, goggle-sporting talking mannequin. Let's call him goggles.

We sat down, and he began mannequin-like tinkering the keys whilst I dozed off. Then whilst playing a lullabying f# he turn around to me and with a smile of mirthful insolence said " Has your motorbike been stolen?"

I turned around and slapped him, not once but twice, mainly for insubordinance.

I wish. I turned around and lightly tapped the keys saying quietly "go on". He saw my fingers shake and decided to carry on.  I resumed my sleepy demure when suddenly out of the corner of sleepy eye 1 I spotted something move on the couch, it looked like a towel. I pinched myself then pinched goggles to check I was still awake, and then the towel wailed. I got up and started to encircle the couch thinking I had gone cuckoo due to my bereavement.

I touched the towel to see if it would bite, and it did, whilst the camouflaged foundling behind it snickered at its combative utility.

Twas a babe, just a babe. I turned around to check on goggles and found him examining the C to check if it was indeed, a C.