What Binds Us?

What Binds Us? ©

By

Michael Casey

I just checked my readers for today, as I do every day, that’s why I always have a ruler with me, to slap their knuckles if they misbehave. Yes very old school, my dad’s teacher in 1920s Kerry in fact said “One Day Casey you will hang” But my dad had the last laugh, out of dad’s  kids 4 of the 6 of us, became Teachers, though I only did Esol, but I am  open to offers if you can tempt me. Now today from Colombia to Korea and Singapore I’m being read, I won’t rattle off the list, 80 countries in total. But it brings me to my point, what binds us.

Many things bind us, our family, our faith, our football team, our gang, fear of our mum and her tongue lashing us. Having something in common binds us, working as a team, or sharing the same canteen.  Things bind us, they make us stronger.  If you look at a bridge you’ll see how the ropes twisted together makes the thing stronger as you cross that river in Colombia or wherever you are today reading my stuff. So, rope or metal is weaved together to make it stronger and it can then support the weigh as people or animals or trucks cross it. So, it is with people too, if you bind them you make them stronger.

A strange thought came to me as I checked out who was reading my rubbish today, what if my scattered readers all met, say at the United Nations. They wouldn’t be able to speak each other’s languages, no doubt English would be the Lingua Franca, though the French would pretend they could not speak it, and insist French was the language of Diplomacy. My scattered readers, what can they say? Michael Casey, and then smile and mention Big Sid, or Smiling Paul, or the Gavin twins, Amjit and Patrick, not forgetting Mrs Murphy. They might not be able to use each other’s language but they can mention a name and they all smile, why are those people in that book so stupid, or clever, or poetic, or just so full of love. So, a fan club, unites, not that I’ll ever have a fan club, the point is there are things we all love, or characters in a book who we like the most. Fan conventions especially SciFi allow people to dress up and be like their favourite star or character, thus the love of this brings people together. I have actually met the real Chewbacca and r2d2 when there were fan conventions at the NEC  in the early 2000s, and yes they both asked for my autograph, NOT.

A connection breaks down walls and friendship and love or just lust begins, and that forms families, sometimes even after just one night. So, we are bound together. Some binding may just be because we belong to the same bondage club, Cuffs and Links, does not refer just to fancy ways of closing your shirt sleeves, it might also be Cuffs and Links a members’ bondage club. Or you are in a drinking club or a diving club, or selfie taking and accident club. Selfies do lead to accidents as fools fall off things, too many times people die because they were too busy taking a selfie.

A common thing, a connection, starting with cobwebs love, binds and unites and strengthens us. We feel happier if we have a connection and are more likely to help each other. Back in 1999 I was in Barcelona, my last solo misadventure, I had relearnt my Spanish by practising for just 15 mins a day but for 3 months I think it was, the exam was in 1975. Anyway, I was lost and unable to find my hotel, so I stopped 2 old ladies, older people and ladies always help, remember that. So, I stammered “Donde esta Hotel Paral Ley” and the ladies helped. Why? Because I said, “me llamo Miguel” and she replied “ mi hijo es Miguel”  I said I was Michael and her own son happened to be called Michael. The accident of a connect no matter how bad my Spanish allowed me to get help. So, they walked 400 metres with me to the Subway at the top of Las Ramblas, and pointed the way. I then said I was hungry, so they too me to a Tapas bar next door to Dunkin Donuts and told the bar staff, feed this man. So obviously every day for a week I went back to that bar, “otra vez” they named me. Connections work, no matter who spurious.

So, to finish because I need to visit the tapas bar that is our kitchen, why does a Colombian read my stuff as well as a Korean? Not to mention the rest of you. I hope it’s because I make you laugh and mix the almost serious with really stupid ideas. So, as you do whatever you do in Colombia you say to “vuestros amigos” “Miguelito Casey es Loco, pero Que Aproveche” if my Spanish idiom is right. As for Koreans it might be just because I so damn attractive all the girls read me. Though, if that’s true, somebody must have a really bizarre sense of values. Whatever values you have I hope you can see yourselves in The Butcher, The Baker and The Undertaker, and laugh with me and at all my 2000 plus short stories. Because laughing together is the only gift I can bring to the table.