We met up with our lovely daughter at a shopping centre, roughly halfway between where we each live. We wandered about a bit, then we had a delightful lunch at Wagamama’s and then we wandered a bit more. We were in a shop selling household goods and furnishings, and I was looking at settees for no real reason because we have enough. I stopped and looked at some cushions… yes, cushions, and couldn’t help but feel that the design of their fabric was rather strange.
It took me a few moments before I recognised not only why they made me feel uneasy, but what they reminded me of and I was taken back to being a young but adventurous reader and came across John Wyndham. I may have heard his most famous book dramatised on the radio – certainly “Day of the Triffids” was made into a radio drama, and subsequently television series. In fact the cushion covers don’t really look triffid-like at all, but they just gave me an uneasy feeling, so I obviously didn’t buy them, but I took photos… and now they seem to be menacing me.
Of course I am being fanciful, but as usual I might use the images and my imaginings to write something. I don’t think I have ever written a science fiction or dystopian future novel, but I do like to challenge myself – so maybe I will, but it won’t be the killer cushions!!
On the other hand… I still haven’t started my piece for the writers group, a monologue this time. One of the writers has shared her story already as she isn’t able to be with us, and she has set the bar high. I’m dithering about what to write… I mentioned I was thinking about writing a reminiscence written as if speaking to a cousin who shared the story, and I might write that anyway. However, I don’t think it’s the sort of thing for the group, it would have been perfect when I ran a creative writing group about autobiography and memoir… But now… maybe… “Death by Killer Cushion“? “The Plague of the Soft Furnishings“? “Upholstery Uxoricide”?
Lois Elsden 
Now John Wyndham is a writer that has fallen back into my memory, and yet Lo, your piece reignited my interest.
I remember smuggling into the cinema and watching the Village of the Damned sometime around 1964, I would have been 15 and the film based on Wyndham’s novel, The Midwich Cuckoos made me very uneasy as did the idea behind The Day of the Triffids.
And it would be another two years before I started reading his books and in the space of a year got through The Kraken Wakes, and The Chrysalids, but even then never quite could read the Midwich Cuckoos.
I suppose it was that idea that something so sinister could happen to a group of children in a seemingly innocent and peaceful village. As if Father Christmas was really a serial killer leaving havoc across the homes he visited.
And that is Wyndham’s power …. horrible things happen in nice places. Which takes you back to the opening line of The Day of the Triffids, “When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
So, I think it is time to revisit some of those novel and look out The Lost Machine written in 1932 which is all about an intelligent Martian robot stranded on Earth after his spaceship crashed and focuses on his attempts to cope with living among humans.
And I have to say that cushion design could be the cover for a new edition of The Day of the Triffids, and yep I like the possible subject themes for your monologue.
Just be careful how you feel asleep on a Tuesday evening
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Thank you! I’ll let you know how i get on with writing my monologue, and what happens when i re-tell it tomorrow!
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