25 | November | 2013 | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Tell us about a bullet you’re glad you dodged — when something awful almost happened, but didn’t.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us CLOSE.

I made a close call on one of my orchid flowers yesterday evening. I was quietly sitting in my comfy chair playing around with my iPad with one eye and then I heard it.

“Hey”

“Huh”

“Hey, it’s me look in my direction, just do not ignore me. Whip out that high fi special close up on your super DSLR camera and take a photo. I will only be around for a couple of months, if you take care of me, so trap the moment when you can. Wake up human, it’s me your new orchid, the flower in the middle of the others.”

My eyes followed the direction of the voice, a rather noble voice and there she was wide open and nodding. What to do. Of course, I followed instructions, arose from my comfy strelless chair and returned with camera in hand: the chance to take the photo of the year of a talking orchid.

“I am ready, smile” and there was no answer. I repeated my words.

“Forget it, I only do the talking routine once in my lifetime and now take the photo.”

I decided the orchid was talking sense and who is going to believe me that I took the photo of a talking orchid because it told me to.

Otherwise I seem to have come through life unscathed. My first encounter with near death was having my tonsils out when I was seven years old. Actually the doctor found I should have had them removed three years earlier and threatened my mum that she was not being fair to me, having the biggest infected tonsils in the neighbourhood. That was what mum always told me. The surgeons also removed my adenoids, which is some sort of accompanying organ to the main tonsils near the nose, just to be sure. They left my nose and throat where it was, although a small scalling down of my nose size would have been a good idea.

I seem to have come through childhood otherwise unscathed. There was an adventure on holiday once, near the sea where I decided to climb a cliff with a friend of mine. I was not really used to the wild side of country life, growing up in London, so I suddenly found myself hanging onto a plant on the cliffside and trying to get a hold with my feet. I was also looking down to judge the distance I would fall/slide if the plant decided to no longer be planted. I was lucky and somehow managed to pull myself up, or was it dad that came to a Bruce Willis similar rescue. Again I survived. It was the perfect scene for an adventure film, something like Die Hard, the sequel they never made.

Growing up in the East End of London also had its dangers, but you just get used to it. Jack the Ripper’s last murders of ladies of leisure took place in 1888 a few streets away, which was before my time. I would often walk along the Bethnal Green Road on my own after leaving the last underground train around midnight. It was not the days of having a car; it was the days of doing what you could afford. Saturday evenings were fun in the big city, at a palais de dance. Bethnal Green Road was probably an obstacle course for the innocent, but I grew up in the area and the odd strange people walking stumbling around after their visits to the local drinking dens pubs made no impression on me. I remember one gentleman who decided to punch through a glass window with his hand, but probably did not even notice it in his inebriated condition. I just moved on.

I think my mum was the happiest person on early Sunday morning hearing the click clack of my stiletto heels tapping along the street and the noise of my key in the door. She knew her little girl was at home again. She did not know what I had seen and experienced on my walk along the street at midnight, but why cause worry when not necessary.

So there we have it, no bullets to dodge, no risks taken, or I have probably forgotten them in the meanwhile. I now live in the land of bank gnomes, cheese and yodels. The only risk I could now take would be serious burns from a cheese fondue and I usually leave that part of the job to Mr. Swiss, dealing with igniting the burner. I would add that I do not ski or any other such life endangering sports. Mr. Swiss forbid it, knowing I am slightly accident prone.

Daily Prompt: Close Call

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