The Lower Strangling Chronicles
“Anything exciting going on in here,” Dave Peterson said as he closed the door to the living room and hurried across the room.
His wife, Sarah, was sprawled on the settee, typing away on her laptop.
Their daughter, Eleanor, sat on the floor, her back propped up against the couch as she stared into her phone.
Her brother, Will, slouched in an armchair adjacent to her, his eyes glued to his phone.
Dave tiptoed over to the window and observed the quaint Gloucestershire countryside beyond.
”The lambs are looking rather cute at the moment,” Dave said.
Eleanor peered over the rim of her phone and gawped at the window.
Dave drew his attention towards a loose thread on the curtains.
He pulled it off the drape and threw it away.
Dave gazed out the window again and watched as a bee pollinated a Foxglove before flying away.
He turned around and made his way towards the sofa, where his wife had sat up to create some space for him to sit.
On his way, he briefly picked up a key in a glass dish and examined it.
”Have you found who this key belongs to yet?” Dave said, flinging the key back in.
”In a word, no,” Sarah said.
Dave plonked himself on the sofa next to Sarah.
”We’ll need to soon before the owner finds us and claims we stole it.”
Sarah nodded, her eyes fixated on the screen in front of her.
Dave scanned the room around him, drumming his fingers on the divan’s arm and listening to the tapping of keyboard keys and the clock ticking.
His eyes fell on a small cupboard next to the TV.
”How about we watch a film,” Dave said as he propelled himself across the room towards it.
”That might be nice, dear,” Sarah said, adding more choice sentences to her Guardian article.
Dave crouched down and analysed the various DVDs and videos in the cupboard.
All of them were gathering dust, as the Petersons tended to watch whatever was on the various streaming services they subscribed to that took their fancy, but Dave had the urge to revert to traditional methods.
His eyes brightened, and his mouth opened into a wide grin as he removed a particularly dusty video from the top shelf.
”Ah, Shadows Over the Trenches,” Dave said as he brushed the dust off the cassette and shuffled over to the VHS player. “I remember watching this with my dad when I was younger.”
Will gave his dad a shrug of indifference.
The cupboard door closed behind Dave as he loaded the video into the player.
Only Dave was engrossed when the film opened with flames flickering in various spots over the muddy fields of France.
A slight smile appeared on his face as he slouched on the sofa.
”Dad often said this was a work of art,” Dave said. “I’m inclined to agree.”
Sarah briefly glanced at the screen. “Yes, I guess you could say that.”
She analysed her laptop screen, reading the draft article by the Guardian’s new journalist who had recently joined as an apprentice.
Dave felt an excited flutter in his belly as some German shoulders waited in the Trenches, singing a lullaby in their language.
He gave a shallow sigh as a young woman appeared on the screen.
”Betsy Palmer,” Dave said. “Dad’s celebrity crush.”
Eleanor glanced at her dad for a moment. “Were celebrity crushes even a thing back then?”
”Oh, you’d be surprised,” Dave said as he gazed at Betsy hiding a letter in her lover’s satchel before he went off to war.
The lover in question, Private James Shearsmith, gazed at the beautiful woman before him, his lips and chin trembling.
”I don’t want to leave,” he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
”Rodney McQueen’s performance still holds up, wouldn’t you say,” Dave said whilst nudging his wife.
Sarah glanced at the screen and nodded.
Having got bored of his phone but had no desire to watch the film either, Will scanned the room instead.
He noticed an empty glass placed on top of an ancient mahogany chest of drawers.
It had been there for some time, but no one ever used it.
He got up and wandered over to the glass.
”Why do we have this, anyway,” Will asked, squinting at the glass.
”No idea,” Dave said as he stared at James, silently making a wish as a shooting star flew overhead. “We just have it.”
Sarah leaned towards her laptop; she tilted her head slightly and nodded, a smile on her face.
”Kate’s really going for it, considering she’s only an apprentice,” Sarah said. “She didn’t need to be homeless for a week, but she did it anyway.”
”She sounds like quite a one,” Dave said.
Sarah winced as she read through Kate’s article. “It sounds quite gruelling. Do you think it’s possible to live like that?”
“It’s not something I would choose to do,” Dave said, “but other people seem to manage it.”
Sarah scowled at her husband before scanning the rest of her apprentice journalist’s draft article.
Dave leaned towards the television, giving his rapt attention to a stunning recreation of the Battle of Gallipoli, with Private James Shearsmith at the forefront.
His attention was broken, however, by the sound of broken glass.
Dave, Eleanor, and Sarah turned towards the location from the sound.
Will stood in the corner of the room, frozen on the spot, as he stared at the shards of glass beneath him with wide eyes.
”I… I didn’t mean to push it over,” Will said. “I just wanted to have a closer look at it.”
Dave’s shoulders drooped to the floor; his head hung low.
”That’s alright,” Dave said. “Just pick up the shards and throw them away.”
Will pressed his chin against his chest, unable to meet his parents’ gaze.
”I’ll do that now,” Will said, gawping at the floor as he skipped out of the room.
Dave adjusted his seat, watching the TV as James Shearsmith climbed a mountain in a dramatic landscape.
Eleanor glanced at her father. “Why was that glass there, anyway?”
Dave shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, that’s probably why I’m not that bothered about it smashing.”
”Your parents didn’t leave it to you in their will, did they?” Sarah said.
“I’m not sure,” Dave said, focusing on the screen before him. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. It’s just a load of pieces of glass, now.”
On the TV, James and his comrades hid behind a rock atop the mountain.
“Don’t make a sound,” the group leader said to the others as he peered around the side of the rock to check if the coast was clear.
Will hurried back into the room with a dustpan and brush.
”This was always Steve’s favourite part of the film,” Dave said, relaxing his posture as he remembered his estranged younger brother he hadn’t heard from in many years.
In Gallipoli, a woman climbed over the mountain and wandered towards the rock where the other soldiers hid.
She appeared forlorn and lost.
James wanted to help her, but his superior told him to stay back if it was a trap.
The woman began to shake and crumpled towards the floor.
James tried hard to resist, but eventually, he had to go and help the woman.
He leaned in towards the woman as he approached her, moving into her personal space.
James crouched down and touched her shoulder.
But as he did so, several enemy soldiers climbed up the mountain and captured him.
As James and his team became prisoners of war, Will swept up the broken pieces of glass and placed them into a plastic bag.
He traipsed out of the room, partially blocking the screen.
On screen, the woman being used as bait glared at the person who had used her.
She struck the man, who recoiled in pain and released James, who ran down the mountain with the woman.
”Good to see the film is somewhat ahead of its time,” Sarah said, putting her laptop away and leaning towards the TV.
”Yeah,” Dave said, nodding. “You can see why our family loved this film, Mum included.”
Will skipped back into the room and sat down beside his sister.
The whole family watched the rest of the film intently, during which James fought through the rest of the war.
After he had returned home, his lover visited his house, but he was exhausted.
”He is still sleeping,” James’ mother said to her, a warm smile on her face.
”Betsy and Ronald were a couple briefly after they did this film,” Dave said. “Dad often liked to remind us.”
”I didn’t think Terrence was one for celebrity gossip,” Sarah said.
“He was when he was young,” Dave said. “Especially when it came to this film.”
The film ended with a shot of Betsy Palmer stepping down an avenue towards a sunset, accompanied by an unnecessarily loud, soaring orchestral piece.
Dave gave the film a thunderous round of applause and a broad grin.
”Wonderful,” Dave said. “Just as good as when I first watched it.”
As he went over to eject the video and put it back into its box, Will saw an old piece of paper on the chest of drawers where the glass was.
He crept over to it and picked it up.
It was an old movie ticket for the film they had just seen.
He glanced up at the rest of his family, a bright gleam in his eyes.
”I think I know why that glass was there now,” Will said.
Dave eyed his son and clocked the ticket in his hand.
He leapt off the sofa and rushed over to Will, snatching the ticket out of his hand.
“Of course,” Dave said. “The glass was just a glass; I put it there to preserve the original ticket Dad left me.”
Sarah and Eleanor stood up and waltzed over to the boys.
”Terrence really did love that film, didn’t he,” Sarah said.
”Yeah, it was his favourite film,” Dave said. “That’s why he insisted my brothers and I watch it.”
Eleanor scrutinised the slip of paper in her father’s hands. “You should probably preserve it better than placing a glass over it.”
”Yeah, you’re right,” Dave said, placing his hand down. “I’ll put it in an album that’s lying around.”
He glanced through the window at the grassy fields glowing a rich, luminous green under the March sun, and a smile appeared on his face.
“And then we can go out into the garden,” Dave said. “The weather’s lovely outside.”
A beaming grin appeared on his wife’s face. “That sounds like a plan to me.”
And so the Peterson family stepped out of their living room to enjoy the early spring sunshine in their garden.
The Robinsonverse 