Consequences of Gods

Chapter 1.

It was the setting sun, the warmth and the glare of the blinding sun. The haze on the horizon gently bending in his eyes. It was where he knew, or so he thought he knew, that this was his departure point from existence.

Turns out, he later recalled, couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, each time he thought he knew that his time was at an end, it should've been blatantly obvious that it wasn't.

A rather drooped, sad individual, Terry Commons, wasn't the most idealistic man about time, that most women wouldn't exactly swoon over. He was slightly portly, around average build for a forty two year old man owing to his amour' with cakes allied with a complete lack of activity in recent years. With a rather 'eighties' looking mullet from which his ears protruded that could easily have picked up the BBC World radio service. His face was weathered and had rather pockmarked cheeks and a bulbous hooter. All in? gods' gifts were not handed down to him but more completely missed.

He wasn't an unpleasant person to look at, just an average working-class chap, which through the trials and tribulations of merely existing on planet Earth in recent years and allied with the fact that there may have been a bit of incest somewhere quite recently in the family tree, seemed to have bestowed upon Terry a look of defeat and 'Oh well, this is my lot in life' outlook.

Terry had stayed with his mum up until he was thirty nine. She had had to go into a care home as the early onset of dementia that had started several years previous, had really become more profound. A hard woman to most onlookers, Terry had found her softer towards himself when growing up. She had pushed most people away but had found her solace the most with her son. She had a fairly tough life and had the emotional scars as well as the physical ones to prove it.

Although she always wanted companionship, she wasn't always emotionally prepared or confident enough to give her it all to accept it. Men, generally, had been a conundrum in a sense to Terrys' mother.

The men that had had the gumption to try there luck with her always thought she had spirit and were always willing to have a go at trying to calm the hard beast of Ms Commons'. But when they peered under that tough exterior, they generally found an inner layer of Samsonite and upon peering further a right hook, swiftly followed by a rather bent out of shape frying pan. It was always at hand to douse the flames of lust, handily enough for Ms Commons'.

'You filthy beast!' She would exhort.

'I get my finest China for a lovely afternoon tea out for you and all you can think about is THAT?? Ms Commons' indignantly exclaimed one afternoon when she had been at a low ebb.

Whack! Thwap!!

'Oh ye bastard, steady on luv!!' the cry from the gentleman visitors would come hence forth.

Terry would listen while the goings on downstairs, well went on. The indecipherable murmurings of two people nattering away, then became clearer as time went by. A voice was raised, the eventual dinging noise of metal to skull ensued, a door would creak open at pace and the sound of hurried footsteps along the hallway which would be interspersed with anouther couple of 'thwaps and whacks' for good measure. The gentleman caller whimpering his way to the front door, slamming it shut behind him. The unknown man would then no doubt amble off down the street, rubbing his bruised noggin and trying to soothe his bruised ego in equal measure to go to his comrades in the pub the tale of Ms Commons' afternoon tea's.

Terry, through timing and experience, sitting in his bedroom knew around fifteen minutes later after the last 'Thwack', he could go downstairs. That would have given his mother time to get herself together. That way, he'd got to eat the sandwiches and cakes that the 'gentlemen' had never got their mucky paws anywhere near. His portly image and love of cream scones had manifested itself during those times.

Ms Commons' had never explained to Terry where his father had disappeared to. She'd never really uttered anything about the man to him. Only when in conversation about a school friend's father with her, Terry had pushed a little to see if she would part with anything to him regards his father. It was revealed that he was in the military at some point and that whilst on leave, they had spent a wonderful and glorious three days in Scunthorpe.

'Oh those heady days' Ms Commons reminisced. It was never really mentioned again after that.

Terry had become accustomed to life with mother and himself. He hadnt overly seen the requirement to bring someone else into the house, which of course would cut down on his quota or cream scones in his opinion. Mother was happy batting away with her frying pan and Terry happy scoffing the leftover scones.

'Blissful' he thought to himself.

Then, as the years went by, Terry started to work, and after a few odd jobs here and there, he managed to get a apprentice watchmakers' job. The job seemed made for him. He loved the steadiness of timepeices, the continued ticking rythyms.

He studied all the different mechanisms and the different sounds they made. Fascinated and learning all the time he bagan to research the past masters of timekeeping and watchmaking engineers. He had found his passion. When working, it was his time. Terry would while away the hours tinkering and playing with old timepeices, cataloguing all the knowledge he could accumulate regarding his hobby and work. He thoroughly loved it. Not many people can say that in their life.


... tbc