The darkness and the light

A creature born
within the comforting anonymity of darkness

Awakens in the harsh truth of daylight

It squirms
in the glare
afraid of the light
that pins it to the chair like a needle through its heart

Its heart beats faster
Panic starts to creep into its soul

Does it understand?
Or is it so blinded by the light
that it can think only of returning
to the velvet cloak of darkness?

No matter

Perhaps it is better that it doesn't realize
how close death has come

But make no mistake, there is no escape
It has reached the end, and soon it will die

It bares its tiny fangs
hoping for a chance to strike
to sink its teeth deep into the flesh of its tormentor

But that chance will never come

And somewhere
beneath the gleam of hatred in those eyes
lurks the certain knowledge of its impending death

And it begins to know fear

This is part of your guilt. You did this to me

And you don't even know who I am

I wasn't part of your war
I was an innocent

I'm glad that you remember
Don't you feel guilty?
Don't you feel ashamed of what you did

Indiscriminate killing
No sense of morality
No thought given to the consequences of your actions

That's what makes us different

The creature's diseased mind
cannot understand its plight
Its imagination is too limited
to perceive the truth

It cannot be saved

The creature's cries grow louder
but no one can hear them

It's time



From the lines of Silaran in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode The Darkness and the Light. Lines with plot points in removed and punctuation stripped out. Submitted by Wesley Brown.

Narrator in Nativity

It's

not

unusual …

This morning I attended the school Christmas play involving two of our sons. Our 6-year-old had a speaking part, and made us wait until the performance to find out what his line was. That was it. He delivered it splendidly. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Bagpuss

Once upon a time, not so long ago,
there was a little girl and her name was Emily.
And she had a shop – there it is.
It was rather an unusual shop
because it didn't sell anything.
You see, everything in that shop window
was a thing that somebody had once lost,
and Emily had found,
and brought home to Bagpuss.

Emily's cat Bagpuss:
the most important –
the most beautiful –
the most magical –
saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world.

Well now, one day Emily found a thing
and she brought it back to the shop
and put it down in front of Bagpuss
who was in the shop window fast asleep as usual.
But then Emily said some magic words:

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss,
old fat furry catpuss,
wake up and look at this thing that I bring.
Wake up, be bright,
be golden and light;
Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing.

And Bagpuss was wide awake.
And when Bagpuss wakes up
all his friends wake up too:
the mice on the mouse-organ woke up and
stretched; Madeleine, the rag doll; Gabriel,
the toad; and last of all, Professor Yaffle,
who was a very distinguished old woodpecker.

He climbed down off his bookend and went to see
what it was that Emily had brought.



The voiceover from the beginning of each and every episode of Bagpuss, a UK children's TV programme from 1974. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Hose on Charlie's Nose

–Drip. Drip. Drip.

Charlie, can I ask you a favour?
will it be alright if I stick my hose
on the end of your nose
because we need a lot more water
to wash the soap off Button Moon.

Of course you can Small. Come on,
Charlie, get ready to be turned on.

–I don't want a hose
on the end of my nose.
I'll look like an elephant.

O but Charlie, just think,
you'll be doing a great job.
Your cold water will be cleaning
Button Moon.

Please Charlie.

–Alright Small,
just for you.
Go on.
Stick it on.

Small, when you're ready
for Charlie to be turned on
you just call out
and I'll get soggy cloth.
He spends most of his time
sitting over there in that soap dish.
It's about time he did some work.

Sorry Captain Large,
I've got the other end of the hose
but I don't know what to do with it.

–Look Small, we're running out of time
so you give me the hose and I'll do it
while you operate the remote control.

You might as well get ready to turn him on.
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.

–Oh well done Small.
Now you can press the button
nice and slow.

I've never worked these before.

–Oooooh.



My kids were watching Button Moon and the dialogue caught my ear. Button Moon is a British children's TV series with puppets broadcast in the 1980s. The dialogue above is from the episode 'Hose on Charlie's Nose.' Submitted by Gabriel Smy.