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    Put Me Back Together
    Put Me Back Together
    Put Me Back Together
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    Put Me Back Together

    By Tim Holmes

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    About this ebook

    Put Me Back Together is a handful of thirty short stories, poems and anecdotes to be dipped into during a dull moment waiting for the bus, or to be glanced at before you fall asleep at night.

    Some are perfectly true stories, others a blend of truth and fiction, and some just pure fiction, but all will leave you with a thought in your head by the time you’ve reached the end of the page, otherwise the raison d’être has failed.

    You’ll prefer some to others because you’ll be in the laughing mood, but others will leave you cold and melancholic, pensive and disturbed, but what’s the point of reading if you’re not carried into another world for the duration of a few pages?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTim Holmes
    Release dateOct 26, 2018
    ISBN9781916456440
    Put Me Back Together
    Author

    Tim Holmes

    “Although I came to it late in life, writing was always in the blood,” he once told a friend, “and I now lead two lives, those of my fantasy characters, and that of the real me. And often I confuse the two.”Tim Holmes was born in London, brought up in Geneva, Switzerland and educated in England. He eventually embarked on a thirty-five year career in the international wine industry, having learned his craft in Bordeaux and Burgundy as a ‘stagiare’ winemaker during university vacations.After a stint in the Ministries of Agriculturs of those Eastern European nations assimilating their wine regimes with those of the EU Common Agricultural policy in the early 90s, and after a lifetime of travel, tasting and trading wines around the world for a company he founded with two Swiss friends in Zürich, Tim now lives in France and England where he dedicates his time to writing novels and short stories.

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      Book preview

      Put Me Back Together - Tim Holmes

      A Little Silver Cloud (story for a child)

      There was once a little silver cloud high up in the dark blue sky. She lived in a part of the sky which looked down over a lake. The lake was surrounded by streams, forests and high mountains which had blankets of glaciers cradled in their laps, and immense, jagged, snow-covered peaks towering above the turquoise water below.

      The little silver cloud was very independent. She loathed the larger puffy white clouds which sometimes turned dark and dangerous, expressing their anger with rumbles of thunder and flashes of white lightning. The little silver cloud tried to keep away from the larger clouds, which hugged the lower mountain sides and the shores of the lake. She always feared getting lost, and being swallowed up by the larger clouds.

      One day the wind started to blow and the little silver cloud found herself encroaching on the larger clouds. The wind blew harder and harder and the little cloud pleaded with the wind to stop blowing, or at least to blow her in another direction. At first, the wind ignored her and continued huffing and puffing. The little silver cloud tried dispersing but this didn’t work. She then tried to descend closer to the earth and turn into a thick layer of fog over the forest, but this didn’t work either. She then looked at the lake and thought she might disguise herself as a thin wafer of mist along its surface. But this could hardly prevent her from being blown closer and closer to the larger clouds, which by now had begun to notice what was happening, and were encouraging the wind to blow even harder.

      The little silver cloud thought she must plead once more with the wind. It was her only hope. So she asked the wind once more.

      Please, please Mr. Wind, help me, I don’t want to be swallowed up by the larger clouds, and you’re blowing me closer and closer across the lake where they are waiting for me.

      Mr. Wind thought for a moment and then asked the little silver cloud why she wanted to be on her own and not feel the comfort and safety of being part of the larger clouds.

      The little silver cloud said, I want to be my own cloud. I want people on Earth to look up at the sky and say, oooh… isn’t that a lovely silver cloud up there. If I were a part of the larger cloud formations, no one would ever see me or appreciate me for who I am.

      The wind responded, Well, I must say I’ve never really liked those larger clouds. They’ve never done much for me, and they make very little effort to look as beautiful as you. Perhaps I can help you, but you will have to help me too. Do you see my dear old friend Yerupajá up there - the very highest and whitest of those mountain peaks? I know he’s very big, he’s covered in snow and deep glaciers of blue ice and he’s certainly extremely cold. None of those big clouds ever bother going anywhere near him. In fact those big clouds rarely go anywhere near the mountains at all. I think they must be frightened of them, because the mountains are so cold, and they think the cold will turn them into flakes of snow and they’ll float away down to the earth and disappear. So what I suggest is, if you are courageous enough to go and live up there, and join Yerupajá, the mighty mountain, and keep him company, you will never be bothered by those larger clouds again.

      The little silver cloud thought about this carefully. She looked at Yerupajá, bold and majestic in the distance, contrasting with the deep blue sky behind and without a single cloud anywhere near him. She then glanced at the dark, menacing clouds to which she was being blown.

      Yes, Mr. Wind, I will do you a favour. If you can warn Yerupajá that I’m coming to live with him, and ask him to look after me, I’ll keep him company forever.

      As soon as the silver cloud had uttered these words, Mr. Wind drew his breath, and with one big bellow he blew the little silver cloud across the lake, and down the valley to the foot of Yerupajá. The little silver cloud was frightened and disorientated but, to her surprise, Yerupajá greeted her with a deep, croaky voice.

      Welcome my little friend, please don’t be afraid. Come right up to my summit and pay your respects. The little silver cloud immediately felt happy and knew her life had changed for the better, and forever. She called out to Mr. Wind and thanked him profusely.

      Still to this day, if you walk up through the long, steep-sided valleys of the Cordillera Huayhuash, you will see the proud Yerupajá mountain coloured in sunlight with only the Little Silver Cloud, resting peacefully on his summit, as beautiful as ever. But before you reach the magnificent Yerupajá and his new friend, you have to pass through the large, ugly clouds, which taunt you on your way with their thunder and lightning, drenching rain and blizzards of snow.

      But if you summon up the courage and persist, you will reach that beautiful place which is now called Yerupajá and the Little Silver Cloud.

      Aromatics

      A few weeks after we first met, Annie turned up late on a Friday evening after a long drive from London. I carried her bag up to her room and left her to unpack. I chucked another log onto the fire and returned to the cooking.

      May I have a glass of red? she shouted down. And I hope you’re a good cook. It smells good anyhow. I’m really hungry. Four fucking hours in that traffic. How do you put up with it?

      Yes, there’s a glass waiting for you here in the kitchen, unless you’re expecting room service. But that’ll cost you extra.

      Thanks. I’ll be down in a mo, she shouted back. Did I tell you I’m a vegetarian?

      I went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted back up. No, you didn’t, and you just said you liked the smell. And that’s beef I’m cooking, and whole roasted garlics too. You told me you had a great lamb shank the other night at that new Moroccan restaurant in London, if I remember.

      Only joking.

      Well, you could have eaten just the roast garlic. That would sort you out, a whole plate of garlic. It’s great for the circulation apparently and cleans out the pores of the skin. But you’d have stunk like hell.

      I need a drink, she said as she entered the kitchen wearing tight blue jeans and an emerald green jumper which hugged her upper body. Clearly nothing underneath. Easy to spot. Provocative too. I like little bumps and contours, but I said nothing.

      Annie and I seemed to get on well. It was only the second time I’d seen her. One of those very rare instant fits. It just happens like that sometimes. An invitation for the weekend hadn’t needed too much persuasion. A few well posted words and she was on her way. She was young, adventurous, up for a laugh. That kind of woman, that much I knew. And refreshing too. Just what I needed.

      After supper we sat by the fire, sinking together into a large faux-leather pouffe, a glow on our faces. She’d brought a bottle of single malt with her, so we got started on that. Good choice. I’d rarely seen a woman down a whisky with such confidence. Must be the strain of a man-infested life as a City banker. I like a woman who knows how to drink, and knows how to handle shedloads of money. Someone else’s money of course.

      Annie had just broken up with Jack, someone I couldn’t possibly have known. Another City boy. Not my world. She hid her misery well, but tonight she drank to forget. I was a good distraction. She told me so. He didn’t sound very nice anyway. She told me she’d wanted to snog me the first night we’d met, after dinner, when I’d walked her back to her car. I was glad she told

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