Terror

THREE WORD WEDNESDAY

http://www.threewordwednesday.com

'jerk, carnage, puncture'

The second I read this week's words an incident from my childhood came to mind.

TERROR

(A True Account from Long Ago)

I was eight.

Old enough to fear War, 

But not old enough to rationalise.

For weeks we had known War was 'coming'.

Now it had come.

*

'The Prime Minister will address the nation'.

That was all it took.

In my eyes, 'it' was upon us.

*

I remember rushing out of the house,

And up to the top of our small garden,

To the Bicycle Shed.

I locked myself in.

*

Because I knew that words were going to be said

Which would unleash carnage.

And it would be carnage in my street.

Immediately.

*

The German troops would march up Connaught Road.

And I would die.

*

The emotion I felt was terror.

*

My father's bicycle stood up-ended

In the middle of the shed.

A puncture was in mid-repair.

*

With a jerk I began to spin the wheel,

Faster, faster, faster,

In an orgy of terror.

It was like running away,

But being trapped.

*

At last my father tapped at the door.

'Let me in' he said,

'Everything's all right'.

*

And it was.

*

But not for Ann Frank.

*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE GRINDLY WITCH!

The grindly witch sat in the slarve,

Scrawning her splintly schemes,

She cordled her fload

Like a randled poad

And stirred the smilty plemes.

'Oh grindly witch' I grozzled then

'How can you pleft alone?'

Said she 'I'm doomed

To be befloomed

For the Trant turned me into stone!'

*