Getting a call from HP at six am is not strange by our
standards, he phoned me often at that time of the morning. Today was a
Wednesday, so to hear his voice on the other end of the line was no major deal.
When I read the caller ID on my cell phone a number of
thoughts raced through my mind. They ranged from, he couldn’t make our ritual
morning coffee meeting, to, he had an idea that just couldn’t wait until later.
Now mostly I am rather good at not thinking negative thoughts. Jeez, HP would
do me a mischief if he knew I did have the odd negative idea or thought flash
across my mind, like the time my car was about to be rear ended by a taxi. The
two seconds before the collision the poor taxi drivers’ family history came under
very close scrutiny as no adjectives relating to their afflicted crotches were
left unsaid. For HP even those situations have a bright and positive angle,
totally annoying I know, but mostly a good thing. I was almost sure nothing bad
had happened to him; no seriously, you still have to get to know HP.
However, this morning his call did make me frown, his
requests were straightforward and too the point, and more then a little formal.
I didn’t even have time to question him and the phone went dead. I was to meet
him at noon at his house, oh, and I was to bring a few items that just didn’t
make any sense at all. Where was I going to get strong, bittersweet seventy
percent Cocoa,
Belgian chocolate before one this afternoon? I thought to myself if this was another
of his hair-brained ideas… a little voice in my head screamed ‘you are being
negative, just go with it, they maybe daft ideas but they were mostly worth
it.’
I arrived at his place at about twelve forty five, clutching
my very rare and expensive purchase. I knocked on the door, without effect,
after waiting a few minutes I walked around to the back of the house. There,
right at the bottom of the garden was my friend and coach, HP. As soon as he
saw me he smiled and waved with a long pointy stick. Shaking my head, I just
stood there looking at him draped over one of his canvas camping chairs. He
vigorously beckoned to me, indicating he would like me to join him in the
vacant chair alongside him. As I got
closer I noticed to the right of my chair was his blue Afrox gas cooker with an
empty pot on it, and in front of him was a ring of neatly packed bricks with
another of the long dangerous looking pointy sticks.
Placing the paper packet, with the very expensive chocolate
in it, on the ground next to my chair I turned and sat down. Before the canvas
had taken the shape of my rear end, HP had his nose deep in the packet. Still
with his nose in the brown paper packet, he glanced at me from over the
serrated packet edge. The look I saw there told me immediately that I had been
stitched, they screamed, ‘…you mean you actually went to all that trouble, I
would have been happy with a few bars form the local café...’
Unfolding himself from the camping chair he stood up and
opened the packet of dry twigs, he hunched down next to the ring of bricks, his
knees, and other extremities getting in the way of each other. With the
deftness and flair of a master swordsman he pointed the sharpened stick in my
direction as if it were a steel épée and he had received lifelong tuition
under the grand master Girard Thibault d'Anvers himself. He proceeded to tell me how important
it was for a man to know how to make a fire. That beside standing on one leg
and holding the required equipment in one hand and pissing off a cliff or
possessing the prowess of reaching grand heights up a dry wall with
aforementioned equipment; the art of fire making was primal and men had a deep
seated urge to simply burn things for no good reason at all. Of course he was
correct on both accounts again, I had witnessed many grown man sit at a camp
fire, stare blankly into a fire, and burn little sticks just to see what shape
the ash would form, I had also witnessed them peeing off a cliff. Now this was fine
but I was not getting any new life lesson here, I knew all this very well,
however I had learned from experience that it was wiser in these situations to
keep quiet and watch.
In the center of the ring of bricks, the kindling sticks
formed a neat little teepee around scrunched up pieces of paper. The bright
orange flame devoured the paper and began to burn the kindling he quickly
stacked the larger wood to keep the flames alive. Before long, we had a grand
little fire going. Taking a burning stick from the flame, he lit the gas bottle
and to my horror, he tossed the chocolates into the pot. Before I could stand
up, they had begun to melt. With the most ridiculous grin on his face, he laid
his hand on my arm and pushed me back in the chair. From a box next to his
chair, he whipped out a huge, and I mean huge packet of marshmallows. They were
the little pink and white ones, the ones that bring back memories of cold
nights and hot coco.
HP skewered three marshmallows on the end of the long pointy
stick and handed it to me, doing the same for his stick he settled back into
his chair. He then opened the box next to him and began to throw the sheets of
paper on the fire. As the flame climbed he roasted his marshmallows, dunked
them in the chocolate, and in one fluid motion all three disappeared into this
mouth. He huffed and puffed and chewed gingerly all the time keeping his mouth
in a great big ‘O’ and skewered another three, all the time tossing sheets of
paper on the fire. It was only after my third three marshmallows that I
recognised what paper he was using for us to roast our chocolate marshmallows…
…it was a manuscript of a novel I had been stuck on for
years, and had recently asked him to look over…
‘What you doing?’ I yelled struggling to get out my chair
A puzzled look owned his face,
‘Getting rid of your excess paper work. Why?’
What lesson did I learn that day, beside a way cool method
of getting rid of unwanted paper work, and eating very expensive marshmallows.
It is sometimes better to scrap something and start again then to let the past
hold you back from moving into something new.
