Barbelith Underground > Conversation > Sad, sad stories that make you weep, or 'Chilli Stories'.

The original Chilli Story:

Once my Dad called us from a photography job in Italy and told us that he'd had a rubbish day because the light was bad and so he got no good pictures even though he spent all day trying. So he went back to his van and made campsite Chilli on a portable stove to cheer himself up because it was his absolute favourite dinner. But he turned around too quickly to get the salt, knocked the pot off the gas onto the ground, spilt the Chilli he was making (and looking forward to) into the grass and was so fed up that he went to bed without any dinner.

That's a Chilli story;-they're stories that make you so sad you want to weep for the person it happened to...

So here's another:

I get a CD in the post today and it's by a band I've never heard of and I know I didn't order it and there's no note or anything but it's from the band's website. So I put it on and it's this beautiful folk band called Show of Hands.

And instantly I know who its from. Because for my birthday I got a card from my Step-Mum (of 22 years) which said she'd bought me a CD in it, but that it would be late arriving.

This is important because we've fallen out over something really quite trivial in the long term scheme of things, yet it was a thing that was vitally emotionally important to me. So we fell out and it's all the worse because my Dad died and so there's no blood-family link between us anymore.

In fact if my Dad hadn't died we wouldn't have fallen out because the book wouldn't have been published and I wouldn't have not been thanked on it and I wouldn't have got upset and...well anyway.

We haven't talked for about a year, except to exchange Christmas book vouchers and birthday cards.

So then I play this CD, and the last song is called this: "Don't be a stranger.'

Here are the lyrics:

We’ve been together 100 nights or more
10,000 miles on the clock
But the year is almost over
And others voices call
And so this journey has to stop

Whatever roads may follow
The parting of the ways
In times of doubt and danger

Think about this moment
Look back on these days
And don’t be a stranger

The spoils have been divided
Numbers exchanged
Promises were make to keep in touch
All the secrets we confided
All the lives we gently changed
The best intentions only mean so much

Whatever roads may follow
The parting of the ways
In times of doubt and danger

Look back on these moments
Think about these days
And don’t be a stranger

Time and space conspire
To gently dowse the fire
Of friendship we fought so hard to light

So pass this way again
Let our laughter fan the flame
It’s embers will warm us through the night

Whatever roads may follow
The parting of the ways
In times of doubt and danger

Think about these moments
Look back upon these days
And don’t be a stranger.

I transcribed them so that I could post them here, because they don't exist on the internet.

And as I looked at the track list I knew why she'd sent it, so I played that track which is the last one on the CD and I listened and I cried, and I cried and I cried.

If it wasn't so late I'd ring her and tell her I'm sorry and I love her, but it is so I won't.

But I will and I do.