CREATIVE WRITING CHALLENGE August 2020 👣 CARPET CRAWLERS 👣

jesi23

Welcome to the NEW Creative Writing Challenge!

We will be having a NEW TOPIC every month.

Topic for AUGUST 2020 👣 CARPET CRAWLERS 👣

This month’s topic was chosen by @caro120 - I challenged her to come up with a topic, and she replied:

“just inspired by fact could do with a hoover here and not got round to it yet.
‘Carpet Crawlers’ was a track by early genesis who did very odd video! got the song but not the lightshow film thingy they projected onto back of stage… all i remember was long carpet fibres and people weaving in and out of it, must have been shag pile lol! It makes me think also of those electron microscope piccies of dust mites; could also be fleas, developmental steps of babies, our cat we took in once made his home in a roll of carpet outside the house - he could be a carpet crawler.”

I have edited this post to remove distractions: The Genesis version of the video is now only available in the COMMENTS thread instead of both threads …

”… You’ve got to get in to get out! … “

This thread is for ENTRIES only.

One entry please per person.
This makes it easier to read and judge the entries without distractions.

Please put all comments in the COMMENTS thread.
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The comments thread is where you can ask more questions about the entries, and discuss the writing styles and ask for advice. Basically, anything related to the topic but not in itself an entry!
You can also submit ‘non-entries’ in the ‘COMMENTS’ thread if you are so inspired!

Everyone is welcome to submit an entry in this thread.
Feel free to interpret the theme however you want!
Please keep your entry under 1500 words if possible.
If you submit an entry written by someone else please give proper credit and acknowledgements.
There are no prizes, but the winner will be chosen as usual on the basis of ‘reactions’ received by the end of the month

We have had quite a varied interpretations each month in the past, and a lot of thoughtful responses … Looking forward to reading your entries this month!

Jes _{_🤡}

amejoy

Voice 1: I get ‘em all in here, you wouldn’t believe it. I want a pair of those carpet crawlers, he says. Don’t you mean Brothel Creepers? I say. That’s it! He says. A pair of those, blue if you’ve got ’em. Well I did have ’em, I stock black and royal blue as a rule. I can sometimes get hold of a fancier design with two D rings for lace holes and a woven check pattern set within the moccasin top. Last lot of those I had sold out pretty quick, although plain black is the best seller. Carpet crawlers I ask you! They’d be carpet slippers wouldn’t they? I got some nice slippers just come in in fact, red tartan uppers and non slip soles, nice and cosy. Just right if you ain’t going anywhere much. Well, you could nip out into your yard in ’em, as the soles are a sort of waterproof Sorbo, nice and bendy. I got ’em in a deep red tartan or the dark green check. Well I suppose that’s tartan too. Maybe you’d have to ask a Scotsman.

Voice 2: For today’s edition of "That’s My Business”, I’m in the East End of London, where continuing our popular series on ‘a nation of shopkeepers’, I’ve come to speak to Mr Arthur Crabtree at his shoe shop.

Arthur: People quite often get mixed up. I don’t think they take it in in the first place y’see. A fella asked me for a pair of wrinkle pickers the other day. I said, they’re winkle pickers mate and he said Oh! What is a winkle anyway? I said to him, ain’t yer ever been to the seaside? No, he says. Well I say - they eat ’em there with vinegar! Horrible little grey things they are too, give me a nice plate of jellied eels any day, but winkles no ta.

Voice 2: Do you get many unusual requests in your shop?

Arthur: I was just closing up one evening and a smarter looking gent slipped in the door and asked if I had any ladies’ evening shoes, size ten. Well, they only usually go up to an eight. So I told him that and he wasn’t surprised. I said “Your wife must be very tall to have such long feet.”, but he just chuckled and said “about my height”!

Voice 2: Do you get much call for dancing shoes?

Arthur: Not all that much. I only stock about half a dozen ladies’ styles in black, tan and oxblood. There’s a lot of working people live round here and they don’t seem to want fancy shoes for going out. I once got some silver ladies’ heels in around Christmas time, but there just wasn’t the call for ’em. I was still trying to flog ’em at Easter and I think there’s one pair left in stock out the back.

Voice 2: But you cater for all ages don’t you?

Arthur: Oh yes. Start of term I get all the little kiddies in here for their school shoes. A nice little earner at the end of August especially. Coming in with their Mums or Dads, who always want to know about room to grow and squash in the toes of me brogues or pumps feeling for room. I sell a lot of smart black lace ups then, leather of course and mostly they buy some plimsolls for games lessons too. I got white lace ups or black slip ons. And T-bar shoes or what the Yanks call Mary Janes for the girls. Some of the kids look so fed up, so I’ve bought a big jar of lollies to give out, one per customer. Choosing one of them puts a smile on their faces, even if they’re not fussed about the shoes. Trouble is I’ve started eating them myself when it’s quiet. Sweets only come off the ration five years ago and I’ve always had a sweet tooth.

Voice 2: I believe that you’ve worked at this shop for thirty years Mr Crabtree?

Arthur: Nigh on thirty-two now.

Voice 2: Thirty-two, I see. You must have seen some changes in that time.

Arthur: Oh I’d say so yes. I first came here in 1926. The year of the general strike, when I was only 19. I’d been training to be an ostler, working at a big stables, but gave that up after I got a horse hair stuck in my eye. It went to such a bad infection, that I nearly lost that eye altogether and I still can’t see much out of it now. So when I was fit for work, it was a nice clean indoor job I wanted and Mr. Peabody, whose shop it was then, took me on as a junior assistant. He was a good sort and kept me on even through the mean years of the Depression in the thirties. There was a lot of out of work then, but in a way I think he felt sorry for me because of my eye and also he’d lost his son Jack, right at the end of the Great War, so I think he liked doing another young fella a bit of good, by keeping me in work and out of trouble.

Voice 2: Is that why the shop is still called Peabody’s?

Arthur: Partly that and partly because you don’t throw away a good reputation! Somehow the shop stayed standing all through the Blitz, which was terrible around here. Whole streets flattened and then a big crowd of people died in a crush at Bethnal Green Tube station, all rushing in when the air raid siren went. I think it was 173 people all told. My sister often used that shelter, as it was near her work, but luckily for her she had a bad headache that day and she hadn’t gone in. It was awful, a dreadful time. The shop had its windows blown in by the bombing more than once, but we boarded it up and somehow kept going. VE Day we put some bunting up and I joined in a conga line up and down the street to The Red Lion and back. They drank the pub dry that night!

Voice 2: And how’s business these days?

Arthur: Steady I’d say. The area gradually picked up and put itself together. Some people moved away from bad memories, others came in. Some new flats have gone up, while other bomb sites are still there. Some people seem to have a little bit more money in their pockets nowadays. We’ve ‘never had it so good’ apparently and most people are in work, the youngsters especially seem to have some spare cash to spend on themselves, which is very different from my young day.

Voice 2: And what of Mr Peabody, he must be long retired?

Arthur: Unfortunately Mr Peabody did die. The winter of 1953, it was, but he was quite old. Well, older than I’d thought. I found out afterwards, that he was 82, when I’d thought he was only about 72, which is a good innings for a bloke round here.

Voice 2: That is a good age. So what are your plans for the future?

Arthur: This is me now. I’ll keep this place going until I drop, even if I’m only open a few days a week. I wouldn’t know what to get up to without my shop. Some fellas want to retire to the country, but I’d go spare with the boredom. There’s always something going on round here and I know my customers. Sam Phillips at the fishmongers there, he bought his school shoes from me and Lily who works at the laundry, always gives me a wave as she goes by.

Voice 2: On that cheerful note I’ll say, thank you very much to Arthur Crabtree and to you at home, until next time, Goodbye!

Voice 3: You’ve been listening to That’s My Business, presented by Edward McHugh. Next week he’ll be in Melton Mowbray talking to a pie maker about his famous pork pies.

caro120

wee sleekit staggerin beastie
oh what a panic’s in my breastie
knowing you’re there

too small to squash
resistant to wash
and makes us all a wee bit sneezie?
crawly creepie!

(homage to rabbie burns)

jesi23

The Carpet Crawlers:
Beware the Carpet Crawlers
Those insidious sneaking beasties ~
Beware the Carpet Crawlers
That sneak beneath your sofa!

Dragon feet would be most welcome
On a cold and frosty morning ~
But beware those Carpet Crawlers
On a hot and steamy August evening!

You might not be scared
To see what they have dared ~
But Beware the Carpet Crawlers
Whenever you have Callers ~
They might look harmless
(They are certainly ‘armless’)
But they’ll trip you if they can.

Beware the Carpet Crawlers!

They’ll Catch You if They CAN ‼️
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serving_n_a_j

CARPET CRAWLERS

What a strange subject to choose for a piece of creative writing! It makes one think of sub-microscopic creepy-crawlies multiplying and reproducing deep in the pile of a soiled and extremely dirty carpet. Yuk! The difficulty is that being sub-microscopic, no-one knows they’re there and they can cause untold fear and panic (if real) – just like the Coronavirus…. Who wants to be reminded of that fear-inducing subject? (I’m trying hard but unsuccessfully, I sense, not to give away my secret that I’m not so fond of the music of Genesis).

But ‘carpet crawlers’ (with small “c”s) set my mind on a course which I thought might be very interesting research, namely to identify all the idioms connected with carpets in the English language with their histories and meanings. Let’s start with the inspirational flying or magic carpet common to several well-known children’s stories, which appeals so much to the imagination of youngsters (and grown-ups too, I suspect). Before the days of air travel – being only a little over one hundred years old – to be able to travel from A to B through the air in record time, even semi-instantaneously, could only happen by magic. Such an ability would certainly be appealing to everyone and anyone when means of travel across land and sea were so slow and dangerous. It is likely that the magic carpet idea was based on the prayer mat common to some eastern religions as many stories featuring this seem to originate in eastern lands, like the stories of the Arabian Nights. Another possible source could be from Persia, long famed for the richly-patterned carpets woven there.

Not far removed from the magic carpet – topically and chronologically – is the red carpet. This idiom is thought to have originated around the fifth century BCE in Greece. Its first mention is in the play ‘Agamemnon’ by the Greek playwright Aeschylus, in which the Greek King’s wife, Clytemnestra, prepares a red carpet as a means to murder her philandering and wayward husband.

So to put (or roll) out the red carpet (or more simply to give the red carpet treatment) is to give elaborate ceremony or hospitality to a distinguished individual (but certainly not to murder them). This might be royalty or other authority figure, or someone who has done something especially courageous or noteworthy. It is frequently carried out literally.

An idiom semantically and chronologically at the opposite end of the spectrum to the previous one is to have the carpet (or rug) pulled out from under one’s feet. This twentieth century classic slapstick expression envisages someone who is standing on a piece of carpet which is suddenly pulled out from under them so that they fall down sharply flat on the floor. The same image is applied to symbolically express the ruining of someone’s plans, hopes or dreams by the sudden and unexpected withdrawal of support or assistance, placing them in an awkward, embarrassing or even catastrophic situation.

An expression which imbibes fear and nervousness is to be on the carpet (or to be hauled on the carpet). Its British meaning is slightly different to its US meaning; in the UK it means to be expecting or facing rebuke from an authority figure while in the United States it has the more subtle meaning of having been criticised by an employer or authority figure for doing something wrong or without proper thought. It could mean one losing one’s job.

To sweep under the carpet, an expression dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, envisages a lazy maid or homemaker sweeping a floor. Instead of using a brush and dustpan to sweep up the dust into the bin, it is swept under the carpet and hidden there. The idiom expresses what some people do with their problems and difficulties – ignore them and hope that they go away. Something placed under the carpet is secret due to it being embarrassing or something of misfortune.

Mentioning the United States reminds me of an expression peculiar to the USA which has on occasion been imported into British lingua franca. Carpetbaggers is a derogatory term referring to someone who moves to another part of the USA to profit from someone else’s loss. Dating from a time immediately after the American Civil War, a time known as the Period of Reconstruction, politicians and financial adventurers from the northern states emigrated to the south to snap up vacant land and constituencies lost by the defeated states. The term describes an individual with no more property than could be fitted into a satchel made from carpet pieces, sewn together, whom the Southerners accused of being opportunists. The term was given a boost in the mid twentieth century by the 1964 film ‘The Carpetbaggers’, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring (among others) George Peppard, Carroll Baker, Elizabeth Ashley and Alan Ladd. The film is based on the 1961 best-selling novel by the American author Harold Robbins.

Today someone who runs for election in a state away from their home state because they have a greater likelihood of being elected is sometimes referred to as a carpetbagger (the late Robert Kennedy, brother of the assassinated President J F Kennedy, would be an example).

Although the term is slowly falling out of use, the expression is retained for an item on some hotel menus where a steak stuffed with oysters before being cooked is referred to as a Carpetbag Steak!

A few more expressions before I finish… To titter or laugh in a shy or embarrassed way is to laugh at the carpet. It can also mean (as a slang expression) to vomit on the floor. To have blood on the carpet is to have a serious conflict or disagreement – or its aftermath – within a group and to roll up the carpet is to call an end to discussion of a matter usually before it has been resolved or brought to an amicable conclusion.

And so we return to carpet crawlers. What is it – or what are they? An idea came to me when I was at home in the flat yesterday; carpet slippers could be a version of carpet crawlers – especially if they have CLAWS!

(Edited to emphasise and change photo)

frenchielove

Benjamin Cole was born in the little cottage he was living in now, he had grown up here, his father had worked on the farm and his mother had cared for them and done her fair share, as farmer’s wives did. He had always been a loner, but he loved playing in the fields, helping his mum and dad, he suffered school, and couldn’t wait to leave.
When his father died, the land was sold off until the cottage was left alone, on the edge of the fields with a small plot where they still grew vegetables and kept some chickens.
Benjamin worked for other farmers then, it was ok, he did what he had to do. Then his mother died and he was truly alone. He never minded his own company. Life was simple, they never had a television, but he loved the radio.
After he finally retired was when the problems started.
He had taken to napping in the day. He had to stay alert at night, it was when they came, usually three, but sometimes four.
He called them his carpet crawlers.

It started one night when he was dozing while listening to the radio, everything was peaceful, and then he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. He jumped awake, his heart thumping, had he been dreaming? Then he saw it, a wizened creature on all fours, watching him, like a cross between a human and a beetle, but it could never be real, could it?
It got worse over time, of course he could never tell anyone, they would think he was mad and lock him up.

So he devised a plan, sleep through the day and stay vigilant at night, because they were getting more and more brave and circling him closer each night. They whispered to each other, even when he shouted at them to go away, they just sniggered.
The only way to beat them was to stay alert. One night, he dozed and just for a few seconds, when he opened his eyes, the four of them were at his chair!
What did they want? He asked them……nothing.

Life was never the same for poor Benjamin, could never never be the same again.
He was not madly religious, but had taken to keeping the bible on the table beside him, it seemed to comfort him.
When he hadn’t been seen for a few weeks, the neighbour paid him a visit. Found him dead in his armchair, a look of horror on his face, his bible on his lap. Poor Benjamin. It seems the carpet crawlers won after all.

polowoman

Carpet Crawlers

Today is the third anniversary of our move from a small flat in London to a lovely new house by the sea. We were fortunate as Bob, who owns the small company my wife Josie and I work for, consulted all his employees (all 20 of us!) and, with the exception of two who wanted to stay in London and were happy to take voluntary redundancy, we were unanimous in our desire to relocate.

Bob was very good to us all and though he couldn’t pay our moving costs, he was happy to give us time off to house-hunt and for each employee’s moving date to be mutually convenient. He had decided that the cost of running an office in London was becoming unaffordable and had long harboured thoughts of moving back to the seaside town where he grew up. When space on the third floor of an office block there became available at a reasonable price he jumped at the chance to rent a small self-contained suite, and none of us has lived to regret our decision to make the move.

Josie and I spent a few long weekends in the area looking at various residential properties one of which was on a small housing estate being built in a village about 5 miles along the coast. To cut a long story short, our offer for one of these homes was accepted, we managed to sell our flat for more than the cost of the new house, and made the move soon after Bob and his family. He kept the London office on for just over a year, till all staff had managed to find homes around the coastal town..

To begin with Bob, Mark and I were the only ones actually working in the new office, mostly getting it physically organised and up and running commercially. Josie was able to link up her computer to the company’s system and work her usual part-time hours at home for the first few weeks. This gave her the opportunity to get us settled and organised in our new house.

I remember the first evening in our new home. The living room and one of the bedrooms appeared to be half-filled with boxes and bags – the sum total of all our worldly goods it seemed. It all looked rather daunting and our main aim was to unpack enough for our immediate needs and worry about the rest the next day.

In the course of the next couple of weeks Josie concentrated on working in the mornings and unpacking during the afternoons. When I returned home from my first day in our new office there was more carpet visible in each room. After three days, I remarked that the boxes and bags seemed to be gradually moving away from the doors and even gave them the nickname “carpet crawlers”. This name stuck and I even started counting the diminishing number of carpet crawlers in each room till all had been emptied and their contents placed in cupboards and drawers around the house.

Three years on and we have more carpet crawlers, but these are far more mobile than the originals which occupied half the floor area in the living room for a fortnight. Towards the end of last year Josie and I became parents to twins: two identical baby girls whom we named Michelle and Stephanie. Since their births they have been a constant source of joy to us with their ever-changing ways. Now, at 8 months old, they are both starting to crawl. They will follow each other, go their separate ways and then come together, often giggling and rolling over and delighting us with the progress they are making. It won’t be long till they can walk but in the interim we shall enjoy having our very own baby carpet crawlers, along with the videos and photos to remind us, as the years go by, of these happy times.

ja11

Stockpiled the agent’s wide-eyed weave
Dye cast a golden thread
A-Listers carpet crawling
The Limelight starstruck Red. Xy.

jesi23

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR ENTRIES ON CARPET CRAWLERS!

The winner was chosen as usual on the basis of ‘reactions’ received by the end of the month …

And the overall winner for AUGUST 2020 is @amejoy with 7 reactions for her story of “That’s My Business” in the East End of London.

Joint second place, with 5 reactions each were @caro120 and @jesi23

We had seven entries this month of a very high standard, and had some really good discussion in the Comments!

Congratulations, All!

Here are the links for September’s Entries and Comments:
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33166191-creative-writing-challenge-sept-2020-memories
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33166196-comments-on-cwc-sept-2020-memories

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