There are hundreds of examples of magic spells in literature, and perhaps the most common is the love potion. Apparently, so I’m told, love potions will cause the object of your affection to fall hopelessly in love with the first person they see. Hopefully, if you’re the person paying for the potion, then that will be you!
I was always told I’d know true love when I found it. To hear some people talk, when I met “the one” bells would ring, there’d be fireworks - my heart might even miss a few beats. (The last one made me paranoid for a while, and merely introduced me to the term ‘atrial fibrillation’)
However, as I went through my teens and into my early twenties I never heard bells, saw fireworks and my heartbeat remained stubbornly regular. Perhaps I was expecting too much, because however heady a brew I found the idea of love I was always disappointed with the reality. Love wasn’t a drug - it always promised more than it delivered - a bit like Ferrero Rocher.
So I’d come home from dates and ironically enough console myself with chocolate. Ferrero Rocher aside, I didn’t particularly mind what kind - I loved it all because it never let me down.
I remembered that for a while at infant school I was actually nicknamed ‘The Milky Bar Kid’ - and at the time I thought it was a compliment. So it seemed a natural progression to become Milk Tray Man (minus the James Bond style clothes, good looks or feats of endurance, obviously.)
So now I know that music isn’t the food of love. After years of research, I can state quite categorically that the only love potion I’ve ever found is chocolate.
Thanks Linda - I’ve just read your piece and I see what you mean. A cautionary tale if ever there was one. But I don’t think my willpower would ever be that strong…🙂
We sat somewhere without any light other than star-light. That was deliberate. Even the moon was not to witness what I was going to do. We had chosen the date and the place: the wise one and I.
I wanted the shores but she refused. “The sea catches light,” she said and “plays it back on its own terms and you are too much water, it will trick you.”
For the same reason the high tarns were also discounted no matter how black I told her the water was. And the marshes. And the riverside. And the waterfall.
All of the magical places, she had reason I should not take him there. And the reason was always water. “Likewise, be sure not to carry any with you. Wine or beer or liquor, but no pure water nor anything that is merely water steeped with herbs or grounds.”
All that I had gathered to make the potion, had been gathered at the dark of the moon, in the depths of the forests or on the very near barren tops of the hills or scavenged from smugglers caves where it had lain in the dark for long enough to have evaporated all the salt and the oceans and had been well-sealed against the condensation that dripped from the walls.
The woods might drip with recent rain or melting snow. Even the grass would be tainted by the dew. So she instructed me as we distilled and decanted and evaporated and all the steam rose into her hovel and gathered in the roof beams and dripped down the walls.
And so we found the high plateau, cleft rocks and not even lichen growing. What sandy soil there was blew listless and supported not so much as an insect. So near the sun-line that even at night the temperature did not fall. Nothing breathed but us. Him and me.
And we sat under the starlight, more than a little amazed that we had gotten this far. We had eaten the nuts and washed them down with whiskey and wondered why we weren’t even sweating. The world was so quietly far away.
I couldn’t remember taking the small bottle from my pack, but it was in my hands. I was turning it over and over. I was looking at the stars and wondering how many other worlds there might be out there and whether any of them supported life, whether any of them had water.
“Are you going to drink that or not?” he asked.
I smiled. Nudged him with my shoulder, as we did when we were young and jokes did not need to be explained. He smiled, reached for my hand but then pointed excited as a child. We both caught sight of the same shooting star.
Nine months I’ve watched him from the other side of the classroom.
Nine months and nine attempts at getting him to ask me out.
If it doesn’t work this time, then I swear I’ll give up.
A hair from his head, taken from the comb he’d just used and laid down beside me in class yesterday.
A photograph I’d secretly snapped when he wasn’t looking.
The glass he used at lunch today. I offered to take the whole table’s dishes back to the washing-up area just so I could get it. They all looked at me like I was mad!
A pencil, half-chewed, but the best I could manage in the short space of time I had to grab it.
An old sock he’d thrown away after PE because it had a hole in the toe. Still unwashed seven months later!
Is this enough?
I gather up all my treasures and put them together in a drawer, arranging and rearranging until I get it all just so.
And then I focus, I clear my mind and imagine us together holding hands on the dunes, laughing as we run into the sea.
That’s all it takes isn’t it? At least according to The Secret.
I was always told I’d know true love when I found it. To hear some people talk, when I met “the one” bells would ring, there’d be fireworks - my heart might even miss a few beats. (The last one made me paranoid for a while, and merely introduced me to the term ‘atrial fibrillation’)
However, as I went through my teens and into my early twenties I never heard bells, saw fireworks and my heartbeat remained stubbornly regular. Perhaps I was expecting too much, because however heady a brew I found the idea of love I was always disappointed with the reality. Love wasn’t a drug - it always promised more than it delivered - a bit like Ferrero Rocher.
So I’d come home from dates and ironically enough console myself with chocolate. Ferrero Rocher aside, I didn’t particularly mind what kind - I loved it all because it never let me down.
I remembered that for a while at infant school I was actually nicknamed ‘The Milky Bar Kid’ - and at the time I thought it was a compliment. So it seemed a natural progression to become Milk Tray Man (minus the James Bond style clothes, good looks or feats of endurance, obviously.)
So now I know that music isn’t the food of love. After years of research, I can state quite categorically that the only love potion I’ve ever found is chocolate.
Gosh Iain, that reminds me of a short story I wrote called The Darker Side of Chocolate which was sort of similar, in an offbeat sort of way. You can see it here if you like: https://lindaph.substack.com/p/the-darker-side-of-chocolate-friday-fiction
Thanks Linda - I’ve just read your piece and I see what you mean. A cautionary tale if ever there was one. But I don’t think my willpower would ever be that strong…🙂
Never say never Iain - it might just one happen to you too ... (she says darkly !!!)
A bit of whimsy from me this week....
LOVE POTION
We sat somewhere without any light other than star-light. That was deliberate. Even the moon was not to witness what I was going to do. We had chosen the date and the place: the wise one and I.
I wanted the shores but she refused. “The sea catches light,” she said and “plays it back on its own terms and you are too much water, it will trick you.”
For the same reason the high tarns were also discounted no matter how black I told her the water was. And the marshes. And the riverside. And the waterfall.
All of the magical places, she had reason I should not take him there. And the reason was always water. “Likewise, be sure not to carry any with you. Wine or beer or liquor, but no pure water nor anything that is merely water steeped with herbs or grounds.”
All that I had gathered to make the potion, had been gathered at the dark of the moon, in the depths of the forests or on the very near barren tops of the hills or scavenged from smugglers caves where it had lain in the dark for long enough to have evaporated all the salt and the oceans and had been well-sealed against the condensation that dripped from the walls.
The woods might drip with recent rain or melting snow. Even the grass would be tainted by the dew. So she instructed me as we distilled and decanted and evaporated and all the steam rose into her hovel and gathered in the roof beams and dripped down the walls.
And so we found the high plateau, cleft rocks and not even lichen growing. What sandy soil there was blew listless and supported not so much as an insect. So near the sun-line that even at night the temperature did not fall. Nothing breathed but us. Him and me.
And we sat under the starlight, more than a little amazed that we had gotten this far. We had eaten the nuts and washed them down with whiskey and wondered why we weren’t even sweating. The world was so quietly far away.
I couldn’t remember taking the small bottle from my pack, but it was in my hands. I was turning it over and over. I was looking at the stars and wondering how many other worlds there might be out there and whether any of them supported life, whether any of them had water.
“Are you going to drink that or not?” he asked.
I smiled. Nudged him with my shoulder, as we did when we were young and jokes did not need to be explained. He smiled, reached for my hand but then pointed excited as a child. We both caught sight of the same shooting star.
“I don’t think so. Not now.”
Oooh, it has a flavour of the legends around the Cerne Abbas Giant Lesley ... :-)
There’s a prog rock song in this piece Lesley. Takes me back to the 70’s . 👍
Showing my age, maybe...!
Here's my effort today:
Nine months
Nine months I’ve watched him from the other side of the classroom.
Nine months and nine attempts at getting him to ask me out.
If it doesn’t work this time, then I swear I’ll give up.
A hair from his head, taken from the comb he’d just used and laid down beside me in class yesterday.
A photograph I’d secretly snapped when he wasn’t looking.
The glass he used at lunch today. I offered to take the whole table’s dishes back to the washing-up area just so I could get it. They all looked at me like I was mad!
A pencil, half-chewed, but the best I could manage in the short space of time I had to grab it.
An old sock he’d thrown away after PE because it had a hole in the toe. Still unwashed seven months later!
Is this enough?
I gather up all my treasures and put them together in a drawer, arranging and rearranging until I get it all just so.
And then I focus, I clear my mind and imagine us together holding hands on the dunes, laughing as we run into the sea.
That’s all it takes isn’t it? At least according to The Secret.
Ah Linda - the agony and ecstasy of fancying someone at school! The ultimate in sweet sorrow...
I know, mine was a boy two years above me called Maxie .... I still wonder what might have been Iain ...!
It's a rite of passage for all of us Linda.
I remember a Gavin, and a Geoff, and a Chris, and... yegods I was fickle!
Mmm, I think we all were Lesley - but we always thought we were loyal and it was them that was at fault (at least in my head)