Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World

I've always been interested in UFOs, Lake Monsters and other Cryptids, and as the famous UK magazine called it, "The Unexplained". And that is despite knowing it all to be nonsense.

I think it is always going to be a part of humanity to want their lives to be full of mysteries, to not want everything to be explained lest the world becomes boring.

I can't remember when I became interested in all this stuff, but I've got a feeling that Arthur C.Clarke's Mysterious World, which was first shown in around 1980, was a big part of it.

Right from the crystal skull - a wonderful object we now know to be a modern fake - rotating to face the camera in the opening titles and causing the terrified me to look away before its unearthly eyes gazed upon my child face.

There were, I think, 12 episodes, some dealing with non-supernatural stuff we don't know the purpose behind - chalk figures, the Nazca Lines, the Tunguska event etc - that I as a child found a bit humdrum compared to the episodes that dealt with the real hard stuff - The Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, Yetis and Bigfoot.

Narrated by soon to be TV-AM newsreader Gordon Honeycomb in doom laden tones - "Is this a photograph of Nessie's flank?" - I have always remembered the story of the Scottish forestry worker who was attacked by two spiky balls that emerged from a spaceship.

The (faked) photography of the Loy's Ape cryptid was always pretty scary too.

But the most famous imagery from the show, to me anyway, is the Patterson Bigfoot film from 1964. Now accepted to be a pretty blatant "man in a suit" fake, back in the day it attracted serious scientific study from academics, and serious outbreaks of sleeping with the light on from me.

All text Copyright Bloody Mulberry 16.08.20

What is Going on with Betelguese? I hope it's not Boring!

Betelgeuse, Alpha Orionis, the blazing orange star that marks the shoulder of Orion, the celestial hunter, well it's been going through a weird time lately.

First of all it faded so much it went from one of the ten brightest stars in the sky to being one outside the top thirty and nearly outshone by Bellatrix and its other less famed constellation-mates.

"Was it going to go Supernova?" wondered more click hungry astronomical sources and even I looked at it with excitement, wondering if at any second it would suddenly flare up and blaze brighter than the full moon and cast us all in starlight the likes of which no pair of eyes on this earth has ever seen.

Of course, it didn't, and I can see with my own eyes that it has started to brighten noticeably again. probably some dust built up in its atmosphere and then was blown away to free the light again. Boo, mundane, boring, dull.

Could it be more exciting? Perhaps it was a giant signal, a giant curtain of star-proof material, held before the star and then let go to signal the start of a giant space race, a race of super powerful spacecraft looking to see who could be the fastest to Rigel and back. Perhaps we will soon see (from 600 years ago obviously) their hge glowing ion trails shining through the spaces in the stars as they rip space time to pieces as they compete for the universe equivalent of the Indy 500?

Maybe a Dyson Sphere was being constructed, and someone fucked it up and broke the whole thing, a sleepy multi tentacled crane operator the size of the moon drunk on the fucking job fucking typical.

Maybe they were just repainting Betelgeuse and ran out of paint.

or perhaps, just perhaps, perchance, perhaps, a massive solar sail was being unfurled on a generational ship designed to sail space to the Earth and render us slaves, or worse still food?

The sail has now stopped blocking the starlight, and the ship to end civilisation is on the way.

Copyright BloodyMulberry 17.03.20

The Planting

The Planting

How I came into possession of the sapling that I dug out a whole for near my fruitful orchards is a
mystery. Well not a mystery, I was given it by a friend, but its provenance, who knows.

I knew it was unusual, and I joked to my friend that it was probably “other-worldly” to which he
laughed and got into his car and drove off.

He said that just growing fruit was boring and I needed something else to do. Something different. 

And different it certainly was. It’s bark was purple and shiny, its leaves blue green and succulent,
and as I was to find out after I let it settle in for a few days with some eco frienly (of course)
peat substitute and a minor watering, it grew quickly.

For a year, unbothered by sun, rain, frost or snow, it made its way upwards, overlooked initially
by the pear and apple boughs but gradually growing to surpass their height by the end of year two.

In its third summer, some of the leaves gradually turned blue, then purple, and then boughs
drooped towards the ground, opening up like elongated lilypads, curling invitingly inwards
and waving in the breeze. They ended up with their pointed tips just touching the grass of the orchard.

Alas after that, the tree began to sicken, the bark grow cankers, the leaves yellowing at the
edges. I had no idea what to do.

My friend came to visit me, and berated me mildly saying that I had not looked after his gift properly.
Ok fine. 

But then he said it was no wonder my wife had left me for a younger man. This I could not
tolerate. You know I hadn’t thought about it in so long, and where she was, and where he was, I
had almost succeded in forgetting about it. They were out here, somewhere, buried and buried in
my memories, in this orchard, the orchard I had put my life into, the trees and fruit I had concentrated
on to the exclusion of all else, the apple tree where she was, the pear tree where he was, and
this, this fucker, was trying to bring it all back and make me think of people again, horrible, idiotic
love sucking people, ugh, well, I knew what I had to do, there and then, to make me well, to
make the tree well, to make everything well.

I punched his cunt face in the face, and shoved him into the vulva count of a leaf that was
beckoningly so invitingly for him, with all of my might. 

The leaf, more substantial than we could imagine, enfolded him like a lover, before crushing his
cunt body like a fist around a ping pong ball and absorbing all he was with great thirst.

Then the leaf rose from the ground, dripping, and as fast as a bird flies across the disc of the sun,
the tree began to heal.

And me with it. 

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 28.02.20