Eight O’Clock

Hush.  It’s eight o’clock.  A magical hour.  Hush.  Tiptoe, lower your voice, turn down the lights.  It’s eight o’clock.

All over the land freshly bathed, and now scented of baby shampoo and talcum powder, the little folk are succumbing.  They settle in cots and tiny beds, one thumb in their mouth and the other clutching the covers.  Slowly they drift away to fairytale lands, places like the Land of Nod.  Some are already there, one foot twitching with a dream.  Others are still seeing shadow shapes on the ceiling, plotting tomorrow’s voyage in a cardboard boat or squaring up to do battle with the monster under the bed.

Hush.  It’s eight o’clock.  A magical hour.  Hush.  Tiptoe, lower your voice, turn down the lights.  It’s eight o’clock.

Downstairs there’s another world.  Parents crash onto sofas, exhausted at the bathtime and bedtime drills and battlegrounds.  Maybe some are guiltily flicking on the television, surely they can relax for a bit.  Others are still on duty, loading washing machines, preparing tomorrow’s lunches or squaring up to do battle with the monster in the corner, the ironing basket.

Hush.  It’s eight o’clock.  A magical hour.  Hush.  Tiptoe, lower your voice, turn down the lights.  It’s eight o’clock.

There’s quiet and peace in both these worlds though.  A time of focus and distraction free work or maybe even a little time to wind down and find some coveted me-time.  These worlds won’t meet again for a few hours until parents too climb up the stairs to the Land of Nod to meet their children, days at the park, days at the seaside, plans yet to happen.

Hush.  It’s eight o’clock.  A magical hour.  Hush.  Tiptoe, lower your voice, turn down the lights.  It’s eight o’clock.

Unless from somewhere out of the dark comes the dreaded pad-pad of little feet.  Little feet stirring and marching with purpose.  A querulous voice sounds out of the dark:

“I WANT A DRINK OF WATER!”

This week we were asked to respond to:

8:00 -AM or PM, fiction or creative nonfiction but 8:00. In 200 words or less.

I’m a ‘little’ bit over (by about half again!) but it was fun to write.

Different Generation, Different Technology, Different Language

One of my youngest friends was sitting the other day, scribbling away at her magnetic sketching board.  When I was her age, or older in fact, they were rare as anything, virtually unheard of.  Now they’re as common as anything and every child seems to have at least one.

Despite the chunky, pixellated, gritty images these things are something of a marvel.  They’re never going to make me into an artist (actually, I don’t think that there is anything that can work that kind of miracle) but I love the instant-ness of them and then whoosh (a slightly sticky whoosh most of the time), it all disappears.

However they maybe aren’t quite as magical to this generation as they were to ours.

This little mite looks up and announces:  “I’m drawing on my iPad*.”

Different generation, different technology, different language.

* Yes I do try to avoid product references but the whole punchline of my post depended on this one!  It just didn’t sound right when I wrote fruit-themed tablet.  And I’m also pretty sure that lots of you, like me, would go tablet-pill-medicine on first take anyway.