University of Dundee: Creative Practice Anthology 2024

CREATIVE PRACTICE DISSERTATION ANTHOLOGY University of Dundee Class of 2024

Title: University of Dundee: Creative Practice Anthology 2024 Editor(s) and Author(s): James Cano, Flora Colton, Rosie Dean, Ella Ferguson, Callum Gavin, Abby Grubb, Chelsey Hahmann, Clare Havertape, Aly Reed Jamieson, Walter Lambert, Lara Luyts, James McLeish, Sophie Pass, Sofia Pfeil, Catriona Pritchard, Katherine Stewart, Ida Välimäki, & Jo Plumb-Watters School: Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law Publication date: 19 June 2024 Document version: Final published version DOI: https://doi.org/10.20933/100001313 Copyright © 2024 The Authors.

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND). To view licence, visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Citation for this version (MHRA): University of Dundee: Creative Practice Anthology 2024, ed. by James Cano, Flora Colton, Ella Ferguson, Lara Luyts, James McLeish, Sofia Pfeil, Catriona Pritchard, and Ida Välimäki, (University of Dundee, 2024), 654 pages.

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University of Dundee • Dundee, DD1 4HN • Scotland, UK Registered Scottish Charity No: SC015096

website: Discovery - University of Dundee Research Portal

Edited and put together by the 2024 Anthology Team

James Cano Flora Colton Ella Ferguson Lara Luyts James McLeish Sofia Pfeil Catriona Pritchard Ida Välimäki

Thank you to the English and Creative Writing Staff, the Library and Print Unit and everyone who supported us in the first ever publication of these dissertations.

Contents

Foreword by Ella Ferguson……………………………………………………………………7 James Cano As the Earth Turns……………….………………………….…………………………………9 Flora Colton Dichotomy……………………………………………………………………………………23 Rosie Dean Storm in a Teacup……………………………………………………………………….……63 Ella Ferguson Kinderwald…………………………………….………….……………….…………………83 Callum Gavin The Erased………………………………………….……….………………………………113 Abby Grubb The Wizard and the Devil on Kirkcaldy Beach……….……………….……………………145 Chelsey Hahmann Made in Germany………….…………………….……….…………………………………173 Clare Havertape Here Lies Shame…………………….……….……….……….…………………………….209 Aly Reed Jamieson Sìth……………………….……………….……………….………….………….………….259 Walter Lambert The Terror of Swinfell Wood………….…………….……………….……….….……….….277 Lara Luyts B.………………………….……………………………………………………….…….….309 James McLeish Changeling: A Fiction of Reality………………….……………………………….……….371 Sophie Pass On Top of You……………………………………………………………………….………429

Sofia Pfeil The Heart of It All………………………….……………………………………………….475 Catriona Pritchard Anna……………………………………………………….…………….………………….499 Katherine Stewart If You Should Wish to Enter the House……………….…….…….…………………………529 Ida Välimäki Of Feathers and Whispers…………………………………………………………………..575 Jo Plumb-Watters Domestic Testimonies….……………………………………………………………………609

Foreword It is with great pleasure and pride that I introduce the collective works of the 2023/24 Creative Writing cohort. I saw the hard work of my peers and friends during the year that we had to create these pieces of writing, these culminative stories, poems, plays, comics. I worked hard myself, harder than I ever had before. I know I cared more about my dissertation than anything I had written before. We had a few meetings as a whole group, in which we checked in with each other and had the privilege to hear parts of everyone’s writing and what they were working on at each stage. Seeing the birth and growth of all these characters and stories, listening to each other as our words rose from the pages and into the room, it was really a type of magic. Working on a project like this can be fun, full of passion and creativity, but it can also be incredibly lonely. When you write, you exist in an imaginary space, a liminal place that only you can see and feel. That was a really special part of the way this creative writing dissertation process was built – we were all trying new things, challenging ourselves and each other, together. We wanted, with this anthology, to make a tangible form of this magic; something we can all hold, share, show. We wanted everyone’s imaginative ideas and creations to exist outside of their heads for years to come, immortalised in paper (and DOI!). We hope that we have done everyone justice.

To the readers: we hope you enjoy everyone’s writing, and feel an understanding of us, what we were trying to achieve, and how much we care about our stories.

To the writers: be so, so proud of yourself. Congratulations. The world is made better by your words.

Ella Ferguson

Dichotomy

By Flora Colton

Content Warning: Dichotomy is a long poem addressing themes of trauma, grief, and melancholia throughout.

Reader discretion is advised.

The intimacy of atonality

is disjointedness from

the hue of an empty room

exuding some ninth symphony hedonism

to a chord who stirs up the grieving

before the joyous chorus can sing

to bring her cacophony’s bellowing

as tercets shall sing

when harmonising the liminalities

within the mind of a woman is this assertion: it is she who talks of herself within the third person.

Against her will to reflect in observation of silence, she hears her solemn sighs.

To have her heart digress a fickle fatality when divulging the cause, to find complacency in the retraction.

To every villanelle who can adapt to alienate these tercets who whisper elusive longings in threes, alternating the foreshadowing of this next situation.

To wallow under the weight of a waxen winged weakness when waving with weightlessness is freeing after the falling

knowing that this poetry would flow from her lips like horror; when fragility

within prose could bare nothing to offer.

let us look to the mischief of mice who slowly deliberate before they can contemplate in canon

discussing what they should do with the next move of the melancholic black cat who is slumbering

this feline, this eyeless enigma setting sadness to snooze while unduly awaiting, listening

reviving of reason, to wake this melancholy when this little mouse who worries, must justify reason

in ensuing some panic, this one must utter the words, to face the abandonment of bravery when putting themselves forward

who will ring the bell?

who will strike the singular key?

who will take responsibility?

when the comfort of unknowingness waits for wondering woman at a bus stop one-hundred miles away

consider how uncertainty within nausea is a contradiction, this frustration in repetition, she who walks with avoidance of thought.

Thinking of nothing compelling or profound to say when running down the road after a bus yet to arrive, it may have already driven away

feebly chasing all these answers as they drift past, start to hunt for the meaning without knowing if it was ever there

like strangers within cities who float and never stare, to see hordes of affirmations of this unspoken acceptance

when it was all a bit too much, perhaps it was not enough, to ever believe in the responsibility of a mouse who dreams alone thoughts ringing with caution

the unawareness in the face of ex-gorgon girl’s presence, a mutual understanding within the grey-eyed gazing of some wandering woman still dawdling, now lost within her desperation to uncover the answers of the past to see through the eyes of one gorgon girl who climbs through her small living room window back onto the balcony to sip sweetness beneath the masquerade of honey and grape

She speaks same stale taste of a fermented mead, gifts clarity within the pouring when gifting herself a story about what it means to perceive through the eyes of this Gorgon girl who climbs through small living room window onto the balcony early in the morning to sip sweetness within the masquerading of same stale taste within honey & grape or to speak with a fermented uncertainty, when pouring this mead to give herself a story with no audience as it drizzles from her lips lamenting whether the loneliness within the immortality of womanhood is to be apologetic to have

not illustrated the predicament or company,

this gorgon girl who leans over stone balcony and gazing back into the window alone drags herself away from the serenity to dance with the diminuendo beneath despair is an honest, sharp-tongued avoidance in a scrap with embellishment

As desperation within imperfection soon leads to boredom, as wandering woman is unaware, of this gorgon girl who shall live on to declare just how it seems unfair to live under all these refusals within the dismantling of her myth, to be looking within the warmth of an empty house while wishing to burrow away and hide under the bedlinen, while as do they who long to hide away within the warmth within the house, burrow away and hide under the bedlinen, little hopeless hedgehogs in hibernation before the re-birth can happen, must sleep off a hungover feeling, must find acceptance within a selfish sob hidden.

Ex-Gorgon girl climbs back through the window, the sun drifts up from the river with the 7.30am train, before the shadows can proclaim the dénouement of the day, Ex-Gorgon whispers to herself before the little tercets

intercept with a gentle reminder; something they wish to say:

Detach yourself. Ring the Bell. Awaken the Cat. Detach yourself. Ring the Bell. Awaken the Cat. Deta-

detach from the robotic depletion of a song as it fades, resurrect the power within the dismay.

Let canonical two-year old playlist sleep if the battery drains dead & serve it as representative of life’s imperfect cadences.

When ancient chimes start searching, rip the plaster away from this Achilles-heel of an artist’s hidden meaning.

This hatred of conversation is a wallowing within the contemplation of some faceless cries of a musical dedication.

As wandering woman takes her headphones out, biding her time, she doesn’t feel fine at that thought of detaching musicality or living with her thoughts, this unwelcome accompaniment

Now listen, just see the women who long to detach from their sorrow, to unveil the vulnerability of a snared rabbit.

Praise be to she who can walk away from an old, snuffed habit, remaining avoidant of evil, never culling her pride.

But to experience the temptation, in a problem of memory, to walk away from an old, snuffed habit, or float with regret and the salt’s sharpness returning, grit grey slab’s canvas of reality versus dream comes knocking

for these women sat unaware of a wondering woman watching their significance within this predicament so profoundly unpretentious amidst the routine and the habitual

oh-so ceremoniously engulfed in their shared camaraderie, are these women who relish in taking a break from responsibility, this unspoken defiance laughs back in the face of conformity

As the stress of day overcomes her, one wandering woman wonders where consequence may lay in the breaking away from will power at the denouement of the day to take a drag, and feign sickness, take absence within her temporary lapse in resistance, to walk with a lack of thought, to take a step, change it up when tasting the spice of inconsistence

now wandering girl doesn’t wonder, she walks with lack of thought she takes a step towards them, these two cigarette wielding women still sat outside church door as parrhesia’s sincerity ousts the epic lore, a mere moment of ignited conversation for a wandering woman taking time with slight consideration whether she will speak only in timeless philosophies, or ignite this conversation before she shall declare, excuse me, do you have a spare cigarette & lighter?

zero crescendo, the party piece falls flat, all answers lead to no.

Shhh, silence outside this church wandering woman, now withhold your words

While in these whispers otherwise deem acrimonious, is an unkind grand pianissimo so harmonious

when these women turn their back on her, now judge them, scorn them if they choose not to utter a word

So shut your mouth, don’t say it they heard you, didn’t want to listen to the strange misplaced wandering woman

flaming hot temperament beneath the façade of favoured feminine expectation to comply, to smile back and wave, never misbehave

to banish a human feeling of rage, and contain it when opportunistic eidolon comes running before crawling back into the realm of apollo

nyx’s execution within opal crystallisation In the early hours of the day; shadowing the ability to see, what this curiosity borne from familiarity could mean?

When turning her back on the silent women before her, she tries to disconnect, can’t wait for the encore, a G minor chord plays

G

B

D

A chiming so singularly haunting, to a wandering woman longing to evade from the past

She who casts her eyes away again from the melancholy against the monotony of a bustling world around her now freezing

Meandering observances pinpointed memory amidst the naivety, a misguided recognition

To bang the static fist of of melancholia on old television, abandoned comfort with little supervision

A blank spot before life, A chlorinated vision for the singular body who tries swimming through displaced old swimming pool

a warped building, the craftmanship of longing is chaotic, empty, liminal when wondering

whether woman remembers how to swim again as she floats through the vacant, decaying pinnacle beneath church altar’s monochrome hostility

when technicolour insubordination disturbs tranquillity see how she glimmers in grey, this unnamed figure who watches into the water, snakes for hair and a hand of hope which doesn’t drag her out instead this

figure must dive in, as an ex-gorgon girl must shout

are we alone in our liminality?

Say hello to the all-seeing, experientially grey-eyed stare of a mysterious woman with slicked back snake hair, this is ex-gorgon woman

a stiletto footed smiled step says she’s sure you’ve seen her depicted in numerous places, pulling uncompromising faces.

Wandering girl wonders what it means to have your story adapted and dissected.

To be myth’s mother of Pegasus, dubbed to be the villainized queen undeserving of a cruel reputation

in a wonderful mind/wasted with every wrong word/some sobering revelation of meaning/the grasping of unwelcome hands/this gorgon girl declining to comment any further/amongst the stares and slander/unwelcome laughter a misconception/self-isolation in daydreaming lacks openness/consumed by this numbness if survival is not enough/against the desire to blend in when standing out/to keep your head down when drawing your shoulders back/a petrification from non-negotiable outcome/watching through cyclops-eye singular order blinks with both irises/it admits that life is tough with feeling of desire to experience everything gorge on it/restrict it/regret it before you hide away from it/announce this hatred of exposure allegedly a slut for the melodrama/this melancholia according to him/the secret of knowing this truth within grey area/when it’s there in black and white looking upon the memory/granite forgetting affirmative symbolic etching/cranial disillusionment as the epic Grecian chorus sings/somehow the story slips in when the narrative shifts back again leads her in a drunken haze/a punishment for talking to another man/who signs this verbal clause once/she’s entitled to say no if he asks/for the same thing again/to not have to give reason/she takes full responsibility wishing she could time travel/she runs from the past

her eyes now blackened/verbal snake attack running fingers through unbrushed hair the night before/a weapon of their satire/the next morning Tarnishing her history/avoiding words seeing her tattooed on another person’s skin/I want to take their hand say something/when lost for words I understand/it isn’t about me I see you/I don’t think it’s fair to look Wishing for every entitled man/to be turned to stone Now compelled to forgive/forced to forget nuclear weaponisation/to risk his life being ruined?

Oh he’s lovely now/they’re nice guys now Never did anything to me/too trusting Without experience/some lack of understanding She is a Goddess/she pissed her future up the wall Taught tenacity from a young age/adult arrogance in educating/telling children to build their resilience minimisng the causation/diagnosing surficial symptoms a lack of understanding/interruption to the room’s learning so by now the message should sit/but it doesn’t when searching for closure/remembering every bone-chilling name watching them play the game/on facebook twitter or instagram another Poseidon endorsed for integrity fifeteen times on Linkedin/ascertain smug smiles/of professionalism family men/nice guys local small town influence/men taking the discourse to whattsapp ensure the use of encryption/deception of a big shot/mums the word in conversation doubled-head dog/excuse me, my sons a saint

you gossiping little gorgon/oh, you should’ve said no need for oxymoron/infringement of the truth genuinely this man is a good one/several thousand years another day/another fear same old rhetoric/end of story I believe so/I just don’t know

since this excerpt contains two sides/now analyse this sentence things just are what they are/no need for symbolism when open to scrutinisation/within another adaptation/a little benign interpretation/this is an ode to those who question

whether something/someone living in their peaceful/untroubled existence is ever enough

when unravelling the words/after splicing this meaning/to gift yourself this space/minimising language to deflect/from some sense of structure

when building a concept/deconstruct the meaning embracing the liminality/to tear it down again

little architect of words/wishing to demolish this accustomed misconception/gifting her this space

exposing self-consciousness/this voiceless contemplation/waiting for the chiming of an old Grecian water clock/he who cannot set the alarm/without analogue

go snooze/cyclical ideology of a sleeping philosopher/watch water as it goes drip/ drip/drop/robotic depletion within authorial reticence

a predictable allusion this magic/in human confusion/to merge fabrication with furniture as it sticks/form a collage/old shop catalogue

construction of single-story dream-house/fixation of adhesive against paper/peeling PVA from skin wrapping fairy-lights around these limbs

to tell her again/how the predicament is beautiful/when crafting stability/ forming 3 gorgons from clay

finding a story/singing for these skies shifting to heal/with the power to reveal under clouds who congeal/with these words softening/haemorrhaging/from the cerebral poeticisms of prose

watching these women and mice possessed by musicality elevating above the synthesizer screaming

dwindling down within the magic of this score when a deplorable dreamer must open the door

to slam a door back shut again or just to ascertain whether some question lingers amongst this separation

when the understanding of a person is manifested in their words

can it define what happens when they lack the taking of some action?

when strange mischief of mice gather in crowds, this wandering woman wonders what it means if three gorgons must smile but stay looking so sonder, they’re loathing the repetition of tercets, they’re harmonising the cheering

detach yourself ring the bell awaken the cat cat detach yourself ring the bell awaken the cat detach yourself ring the bell awaken the cat

a bene Placito

a deception to shadow

a grey area incognito

a niente

n

a faceless voice

the eulogy

of melancholy

dichotomy.

This is the questioning of fragmenting and fra-

this is Dichotomy you are live on paper please do not swear

Dichotomy asks where are we within liminality?

Dichotomy asks where is there authenticity in this story?

Dichotomy asks whether Conservatism inhibits an approach to creativity?

Dichotomy asks why a shift from concept

albums to poeticism?

Dichotomy connects while it detaches from melancholia within musicality

Dichotomy asks where is the meaning within symbolism?

she declined to comment any further.

Since some choose to dichotomise narrative and poetry/she places herself comfortably against structured rules/against organisation/she opts to embrace the abstract/with the ringing of the bell/while watching black cat who rushes past/one woman shivers/another simply smiles/Her liminality was personal/their experience was shared/she retracts/to replace herself amongst the contradictions/she takes she away/detracting the dash

I dichotomise the contradictions I unify the paradoxical I mourn the end of a friendship I grieve the existence of a dynamic that was never there I canonise a fizzledout memory I wind down the passenger window in the car I scream philosophies to the world I think about what stories mean for other people I cry for your favourite character I cry for it all I get tripped up I let them laugh I get back up I cry in public I laugh in public I dance if the music slaps I don’t dance at all I lay on the floor I listen to the score I let the idea flow I don’t let the music rallentando I slow myself down I embrace every cliché I whisper no I shout an enthusiastic yes I jump in the sea fully clothed I feel the burn of the sand on this skin in summer I break away from petrification within third person I detach from vulnerability I press the big red button on this old television screen I am not watching I am thinking:

I give you fragmenting when I am framing

Dichotomy began as an exploration drawn from a personal interest in music and lyricism. I wanted to explore the relationship between musicality and epic poetry further, my initial questions were:

How has epic poetry influenced the narrative within the concept album to portray an ongoing story while remaining true to a lyrical and poetic style? In what way does a continuing narrative work well against perhaps abstract poetic language?

How could my creative piece narrate a concept to a modern reader/audience while remaining true to a poetic/lyrical style?

When I look back at these questions, it is interesting to identify certain similarities (especially the use of the dash!). And yet, what it is even more intriguing to see is the beginning of a creative journey; where detractions to structure have altered the absurdity of a story, I initially felt compelled to align with a sense of structure and clarity. I present a compelling problem as I conclude working with the abstract and weirdness - rather than against it - has certainly not been linear. I was always under the impression that in poetry, authenticity or the telling of a story is most engaging in the first person. Yet, while drawing back on these provisional questions, I intend to present a problem within this consideration. As Antonio Kieschnick explores concept albums in the context of education, he argued how 'too often it seems that analysis of English literature is defined more by classics than anything else’1. This heightened my understanding issues concerning accessibility and engagement with epic poetry.

Whereas, when Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco explored an interconnection between poetry and musicality. he made this observation:

But it must be added that, as in the folk-story, there are often traits of a very individual character, vigorous and powerful; great artists of all periods (including the moderns) in their happiest expressions have succeeded in assimilating the simple and healthy spirit of the folksong into their own richer and more personal language2

1 Antonio Kieschnik, ‘Add Concept Albums to the Curriculum’ (2021) https://thecampanile.org/8628/opinion/add-concept-

albums-to-english-curriculum> para. 1 of 9 [accessed 26th April 2024].

2 Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario, ‘Music and poetry: Problems of a Song writer’, The Musical Quarterly, 30.1 (1944) 102-11 https://www.jstor.org/stable/739539 [accessed 26th April 2024] (p. 103).

During my first meeting under the guidance of my dissertation supervisor, Dr Heather Yeung, I was presented with a frank statement to Think of the I>you within poetry, and to explore the origins of the ballad and my curiosity was sparked. I needed to return to the basics to develop my knowledge and understanding of what this could mean. As I researched concepts of identity, I uncovered favourable arguments of the sincere relationship between emotion and musical inclinations. I began to look back to memory and experience; considering personal experience and the psyche. I approached the dichotomies between who are truly are as a person, how we present ourselves, and the internal and external factors which influence this. And I asked myself:

While something may seem otherwise simple is there something to take away from it?

Where is the musicality and poeticism?

It is intriguing to rediscover my initial enthusiasm as I experimented writing with the villanelle – as the of this within the piece depicts emotional attachment parallelling disconnection, this unveils the progress I have made to interconnect the two, looking beyond the surface of structure. I expanded on this after earlier considerations of tercets and quintains. In its entirety, my long poem is inspired by two dichotomised sources of characterisation: ancient mythology and the mundanity of modern life. During a simple walk through the city centre, I watched two women hand-rolling cigarettes at an ajar church door. From this otherwise ordinary occurrence, I saw magic. Before I could look back to melancholy, I spent time considering the plot and setting, further research led me towards combining classical studies with contemporary Internet phenomena (Liminal Spaces). I researched the etymological origins of liminality; learning that the word “liminal” derives from the Latin word “Limen”, meaning threshold.3 I read this, and I asked myself:

Where are the limitations? Where are we really amongst liminality?

In a weird way, reading these questions initially evoked a sense of nostalgia and admiration. The epic poem/story begins by referring to the moralities presented within Aesop’s Greek fable ‘Belling the Cat’.4 This allowed for further consideration towards explorations of the epic as a moralistic message of responsibility and the consequence of avoidance or fear. As the mice debate amongst themselves, who must take responsibility first, an underlying sense of danger is presented within their 3

Merriam-Webster, Liminal (2024) < https://www.dictionary.com/browse/liminal> [26th April 2024]. (para 1 of

15).

4

Aesop, Belling the Cat (1867, repr, Library of Congress), Library of Congress eBook.

hesitancy. Additionally, since my poem focuses on womanhood and myth, the mythological and cultural misconceptions surrounding Medusa fascinate me.

I too began my research into Greek Mythology with misguided ideas and knowledge concerning Medusa’s story, and this is something I want to put across within the central character.

Concerning space and emotion, Architecture Newsletters approaches the issue of repeating a concept, or an idea under her assertion of the belief that ‘monotonous regularity is perceived as alien, with reactions ranging from boredom to alarm’.5 I reflect on moments in life which have led to self-consciousness and feeling inhibited. I take a rule, albeit a problem, like repetition in my writing and I try turn it on its head. I must dichotomise this problem before I approach it. I look back to the rules of grammar and punctuation, I return to what I have previously learned, I ask myself, is it okay to start again? Is it okay to do this?

I explore the place of repetition within redaction in poetry. I worry of evoking annoyances under the claustrophobia of an incessant narrative of three tercets who sing. I dive in and drag it all these old habits back out: I take back strength from weakness. I take the dash, the caesura, the symbol, and I manipulate these. I replace words with symbols and musical terminologies. I create immersion within this separation to smoothen the progression of one verse to the next. I hope the characters share an interconnectivity this way – as a mouse contemplates the consequence of avoidance, as woman women waits before she walks, as an ex-gorgon girl lingers observantly. Situationally, throughout this story they alter, their fears manifest themselves in the anticipatory cruelty of the future against the petrification faced with the reflection of experience.6 I argue that while these three circumstances differ, their sentiments are shared amongst fear, misunderstanding and isolation.

I connect these entities together and place them in the liminality of it all.

What does it mean to find inspiration within commonality in a misguidedly perceive shameful occurrence or situation? What can I take away from this?

I look to the dullness of melancholy in water - I recall an old friend who would tell me the greyness in my eyes reminded her of the North Sea. I think of Alice Oswald’s admirable poetic creativity throughout Nobody7 ; how this heightened my understanding of developing a clear narrative when using epic poetry as a source of inspiration. Throughout the poet’s classics-concerned epic poetry collection, Oswald modernised use of language is engaging as she evoked colour and life throughout this.

5

Architecture Newsletters, Why Monotonous Repetition is Unsatisfying (2011) < https://patterns.architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-172605> para 3. of 43 [accessed 26th April 2024].

6

Mike Grindle, ‘Legends, Folktales, and myths about Petrification’, OwlCation, (2023) < https://owlcation.com/humanities/Legends-Folktales-and-Myths-of-Petrification> [Accessed 26/04/2024].

7

Alice Oswald, Nobody (London: Penguin Random House, 2019).

Here, I look back to the past few months: I look back to all creatures as Phoebe Giannisi convicts the connection between the Cicada and the plastic bag8. I draw on the devastations of life within liminality – I reflect on how I was inspired to explore the separation from the omitting of punctuation. I think of how pathetic it is to have the emotion within me to be moved by an insect. I hide behind laughter in public to brush off this connectivity I held towards this literary sadness. I detach myself from the guilt or embarrassment and I embrace it. I think of the personas of strangers. I think of their actions. I wonder what they genuinely think. I switch back to the third person again. I remain observant from within. I align myself with experience. I align myself with never knowing. I consider mythology against reasoning; as Faith Roush considered the notion that 'The myth of Medusa is still important in modern day’.9 within its establishing of ‘twisted repercussions for both the perpetrator and the victim, taking Poseidon’s lack thereof into consideration'.10 I approach consequence in the context of this aspect of ancient. I reflect on the continual modern problem faced in avoidance of discussions surrounding the consequences of trauma and fear felt by many victims. I dichotomise the psyche of a person feeling self-doubt or even denial of the authenticity of their experience to ask:

where does this story end? Does it end?

I grasp at the loopholes in conservative disillusion within speech. I worry about the consequence of pseudo-culture wars. I think of the real monsters who spider-walk themselves amongst these liminalities of memory. I dichotomise fear in disclosure against freedom. I divulge truth amongst fiction. I claw at the worry. I challenge it. I acknowledge I am no longer frozen. This no longer inhibits me. I must look to reality.

I must give this context. I detach myself from everything. I give myself freedom. I ask.

I wonder. I walk back to the beginning with an evolved assertion. I give you this concept.

This is Dichotomy, thank you so much for reading.

8

Phoebe Giannisi, Cicada (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2022), p.88

8 Roush, Faith, ‘Medusa as an example of Female Sexuality in both Ancient and Present times, (2019)

https://oaks.kent.edu/node/8041 [accessed 26th April 2024] (para 1. of 2).

9 Ibid.

Bibliography

Primary Sources Aesop, Belling the Cat (1867, repr, Library of Congress), Library of Congress eBook Architecture Newsletters, Why Monotonous Repetition is Unsatisfying (2011) < https://patterns.architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-172605> [accessed 26th April 2024].

Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario, ‘Music and poetry: Problems of a Song writer’, The Musical Quarterly, 30.1 (1944) 102-11 https://www.jstor.org/stable/739539 [accessed 26th April 2024] Giannisi, Phoebe, Cicada (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2022) Grindle, Mike, ‘Legends, Folktales, and myths about Petrification’, OwlCation, (2023) < https://owlcation.com/humanities/Legends-Folktales-and-Myths-of-Petrification> [Accessed 26/04/2024] Kieschnick, Antonio, ‘Add Concept Albums to the Curriculum’ (2021) https://thecampanile.org/8628/opinion/add-concept-albums-to-english-curriculum [accessed 26th April 2024] Merriam-Webster, Liminal (2024) < https://www.dictionary.com/browse/liminal> [26th April 2024] Oswald, Alice, Nobody (London: Penguin Random House, 2019) Roush, Faith, ‘Medusa as an example of Female Sexuality in both Ancient and Present times, (2019) https://oaks.kent.edu/node/8041 [accessed 26th April 2024]

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Storm in a Teacup Rosie Dean

June 1989 A red car with smoke coughing from beneath its bonnet jaunts over the hill overlooking Inganess Beach.

Unusually hot for early May, the top of the roof is dazzling, and could probably fry an egg. Having quite outdone itself in beetling up the motorway for the better part of seven hours, the tiny red vehicle slows, before decidedly lodging itself, at an awkward angle, into a small sandy ditch, and stopping. For the first time since setting off at five o’clock this morning, the driver’s mind is forced to do the same.

“You just couldn’t have ploughed on another mile…” she chastises. Her head is throbbing. The heals of her hand press into the steering wheel, and she releases a guttural groan. For a moment, she allows her eyes to blur, half-shut. The soft bleat of a curlew cries in the distance. In refocusing her gaze, her eyes latch onto a dark curly thing sitting out on the dark sand. The coiled fronds are whipping in the breeze. What at first looks like the coat of a dog, she realises is the back of someone’s head.

The car has shielded her, but it is time to get out now. Patting the steering wheel by way of a thank you, and an apology for the short outburst a moment ago, she cracks open the door at long last. She thinks about doing something about the smoke emanating from her bonnet. But there’s no point now.

The sea air goes in and out of her without complaint. Her flat shoes rock unsteadily but find their footing, and she slides down the shingle. The curly mane of hair belongs to a young girl, sitting cross-legged, in a windbreaker and jeans. Having had enough of her own thoughts, the woman makes her way over, and sits down: close enough to invite herself, but far enough away to not appear threatening. Especially in light of how flashy her clothes suddenly appear, up to the ridiculously oversized Dior sunglasses on top of her head, a ten-year anniversary present.

It appears the young girl, about eighteen she thinks, had paid witness to the car as it came smoking down the hill, as her opening line, rather flippant is, “Your car’s having a bit of a meltdown, isn’t it.”

Refreshed by the honesty, and the accent, she says, “Royally fed up with me, you’re right.”

“I like your sunglasses,” the girl says; and suddenly the woman’s suspicions of appearing too pretentious are realised. The pair look at each other. What is meant to be a passing acknowledgement fragments falls into a slow game of dot-to-dot. An unbroken study of their facial maps. Sharp chin to large eyes, to crinkled forehead. The girl smiles.

“You must be Chrissie.”

26th November 1988 Ingrid We are soaked through before we even get in. Our belting rendition of Europe’s ‘Carrie’ as we cling to each other becomes a warped, discordant moan in the wind. Heels sinking in the mud, and my fingers numb in the clutch of my Styrofoam chip box, we all practically collapse into the back seat of Nick’s Cavalier.

Breathless and dishevelled, our adrenaline fizzles. The car bumps its way out of the High Street and into the countryside. The twinkle of the main street’s safety bids adieu as we are eclipsed by the dark shell of the small, winding main road. Dee, slippery and soft with rain, dozes like a baby seal on my shoulder as I look out. All the old farmhouses and fields roll past in succession, too stubborn and stolid to be shaken by the elements. The streetlights don’t appear again until my street teeters into view behind the militantly aggressive windshield wipers. The whole clutch of houses is removed from the battered darkness, and glows in its own pod of warmth.

“I’ve had the best birthday ever!” Dee screeches as I am dispensed onto the pavement in front of the house.

“Tell my parents I’ll come and be back to get her, Ingrid,” Nick calls out me before I leg it up the driveway. I dodder back in my mud-speckled stilettos, and bend down to the window. Lovely Nick. All tall and gorgeous, and willing to herd everyone from the Cosmo club into his tiny car. And he’s coming back to get his mum and dad.

“I will,” I say, planting a clumsy kiss on his cheek before scampering up the drive and popping a Polo on my tongue. As per all Friday evenings, mum and dad will have company. I can see them now sitting in the front room with the fire on: Nick’s mum, Evie Linklater, all batting eyes and giggles, is chatting with my mum over some wine. They’re inevitably talking about work; the smarmy Archie what’s-his-name is nursing a Carling on the armchair. Ugh. Dad comes through with a bowl of crisps and plonks himself beside Pip Hurston, a similarly odd but fuzzier man with beady eyes, who is currently laughing himself red in the face. My uncle Roy is tucked in there too beside Bill, watching the television screen.

I have to evade them all. I can’t bear to be the subject of all that cringeworthy ‘oohing’ that parents do at the sight of something vaguely ‘young’. Slipping indoors, I sling the shoes off my feet, toss them in the porch, and dart off to my room upstairs. Before I forget, I yell, “Nick will be back for you soon!”

I must have fallen asleep for longer than I had expected because when I unglue my eyes and roll over (deigning to rouse a slosh of alcohol in my stomach), the house is soundless. A hopeful peer at my chips reveals that they have gone soggy and stale. The thought of having the kitchen to myself lures me out of bed.

“Fancy a jam sandwich?”

I’ve clicked on the kitchen light to find Roy hunched over the countertop with a butter knife and two sad heels of brown bread.

“Why are you here?” I ask. His gangly gait has that slight sway, and his big doe eyes have gone all limp and silly. Seems we’re both scavenging for a little post-drink snack.

“Why am I here? It’s a bit late for such a question, Ingrid,” my uncle tells me, gazing philosophically into the blustery night. I ignore his musing, and pad towards the fridge. “Was that a yes to the jam sandwich?”

“No.” “Good night tonight?” he continues, unphased. “Oh, to be young. I was just like you myself. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your mum you’ve been out. Isn’t it a bit late at night for cornflakes?”

“Isn’t it a bit late to still be here?” I fling back at him. Maybe this is too far, even for Roy. I just can’t stand how he tries to be on my side all the time. Like we’re ‘in cahoots’. We’re not. He just likes to think we’re in the same gang because I’ve mentioned travelling. Taking the silver foil off the milk and chucking it in the bin, I take my cereal over beside the kettle. Running a hand along the cabinet of cups, I reach to the back, finding the dainty porcelain rim of my favourite one. Dad says I shouldn’t use this one, it’s ‘too precious for clumsy hands’. But, he’s not here, and I’m almost completely sober.

“They don’t drink much tea in Australia, you know. Well, they do. Not the proper stuff. I missed it when I was there. Homesick for it the whole time.”

Bingo. We’ve arrived at the Australian portion of the night.

“What do they drink, then?”

“Coffee, mainly.”

I let him descend into a lecture on coffee versus tea, peppered with five long-winded anecdotes. Yet another rehashing of his year-long stint abroad. Indulging Roy doesn’t always hurt. When he’s securely in full flow, I decide to fix him a cup too. Not because I’m particularly relishing in his chat – nor because he was apparently so homesick for it two decades ago. I can just tell he’s dehydrated.

When Roy isn’t hanging around in our house regaling us about his youth exploring the bush, he’s attempting to reclaim it, in his farmhouse up the road. Except, not the glamourous Sydney part, but the younger days he spent here on the island, growing up. I know this because of Sundays. What starts off as our weekly ‘family dinner’ at Roy’s transitions into a night of middle-aged drinking and sing-song. Yippee.

Dinner first though. A ritual as awkward and binding as they come. I’m dragged along on the tradition if I can’t find better plans. It’s all a bit socially fatiguing. We chew through a dry roast. Then, the second our plates hit the basin, guests arrive. Old fogies who never left the island gather in the cloister of the house. Talk turns to bonfires on the beach, or pier jumping, or who got off with who at the Saturday dance. The village’s every farmer and his wife are squashed up on the settee, or in the kitchenette, spitting out peanuts as they laugh raucously at what sounds like fairly pedestrian antics of the fifties. Then somebody gets out a guitar, or worse – a fiddle.

Inevitably, some will nod off, others venture to the pub, and the rest go home. That’s when Roy gets all transcendental and insular and plays Simon and Garfunkel, and usually exclaims something to the effect of, “Now this is culture!”. Our cue to shuffle out. Mum will shake her head. Dad will say something polite but firm, like: “Best be off before things get too… sentimental.”

That’s what dad said last week. A Sunday dinner that I was forced to attend. At that point, I, needing no further prompt, went straight to the door to retrieve our coats. I found a couple of Roy’s slimy pals, Archie and another beetroot-faced character, maybe Erland, loitering in the porch. I beelined for our coats, which were sprawled out on a wicker chair just past where they stood.

“Going home so soon?” one of them exclaimed, utterly gobsmacked and utterly pissed. I said nothing. “Ah, come on, stay a bit longer. We don’t bite. Promise you.”

“Don’t listen to him,” his pal chuckled, voice like tar. “He’s had too much to drink. Can’t keep to himself after a pint.” The man the ruddiness and volume of a man once considered something of a catch, and an annoyingly healthy head of hair which allows him to maintain that he still is one.

I took the coats and left them to it.

As we filed to the door, dad looked back: his brother was reclined on the sofa, (about a foot too short to accommodate him). In his left hand, a brandy, and a cigarette between his fingers. The other hand rhythmically plodded along to Homeward Bound. His eyes were closed in deep melancholic meditation.

“Maybe I’ll keep him company for a bit,” dad pondered.

“Don’t encourage him, Allan,” mum frowned, ushering me to the door. She hates sticking around through all of the old stories and drinking. We ferried into Bill Linklater’s Cavalier outside. The very same one that brought me home tonight, in fact. Besides the fact my mum works with Nick’s mum Evie, his dad Bill also happens to one of Roy’s less slimy school pals. Classic. These kinds of inter-familial ties are a byproduct of a close knit, island community. One man’s best friend is another’s boyfriend’s dad, et cetera et cetera. I can handle Bill’s mildly unorthodox place in my life. He gave us a lift down the hill to the top of the street that night. As we got out, I pinched the packet of Polos Nick keeps in the back seat.

“I’ll see to it that Roy’s alright,” Bill assured dad, before rumbling off back up the hill.

I look at Roy now, standing, tipsy in our kitchen. 6’4”. Rosemary, thyme, and Australia in his eyes. He’s finished whatever he was telling me, and has landed back in the room. Not looking too pleased about it either.

“Why are you here, then, on that farm?” I ask again, this time genuinely a little curious. “You’re always banging on about life in Australia.”

Roy laughs dryly, as if the question were rhetorical.

“You know why we come back, Ingrid. We’re tied to the land, of course.”

“That’s just nonsense, though, isn’t it? All that romantic stuff about the land and the sea and our place on it.” “’S half true,” he says with a shrug, the words slurring together deliciously. I’m not sure he’s convinced by this idealistic proverb though. “That, and your dad was terrible at the farming upkeep. I had to come in and do it myself. You know what he’s like.”

This I can get behind. I can’t deny it, Dad’s all numbers. His farming days were bound to have been disastrous.

“But you’re not tied to the land,” he hastens to add. “You don’t need to come back. Not once you become a bigshot journalist.”

For a moment, there’s a lull. Roy’s long fingers shift towards one of the untouched cups.

“That’s my one!” A yelp comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. Roy retracts. “It’s my favourite.”

“Forgive me,” he says. Then pauses, doing a double-take. “Is it really?”

“It’s a teacup. Am I not allowed to have a favourite teacup?”

“I didn’t picture you the teacup-favouring type. And, as it happens, that’s not yours. It’s Chrissie’s.”

“Who?” For a second, Roy’s fluidity goes all static. I believe I’ve caught him floundering. I’ve never seen a floundering Roy. He stops and starts like a spluttery engine.

“I’m waffling on. Don’t pay any mind to me, Ingrid. That’s just… someone I haven’t seen in a long time.”

“I didn’t picture you the pining type, Roy.” I tease, amused at having provoked him to a fluster. “Who’s this Chrissie you haven’t seen in a long time?”

He won’t appease me, though. Instead, he guzzles the contents of the ugly mug on the draining board, slams it down – sending it to a near shatter – and buttons up his raggedy coat.

“Think I’ll walk myself up the hill. If your mother wakes up, blame me!”

I don’t feel in the mood for cereal once he’s departed. Though, I do take the two heels of bread and make a jam sandwich.

26th November 1951 Chrissie He’s here again. I almost didn’t believe he would be. The sunlight streams in through the stained glass Saint Michael, lighting up the back of his head in green. Watching how his dark hair shines with a touch of Brylcreem I find myself instinctively looking down at my hands, wondering if I washed them. But of course I did.

Remembering myself, I look straight up again. The minister had begun to read.

My feet have turned to ice once the service is finished. I catch a coil of my own breath as we file out from behind the pew. The congregation sift out of the church doors like a colony of fuzzy bees into the chill winter air.

“I’m off to talk to Jean. Find your brother and carry on home,” mum whispers, giving my arm a quick squeeze.

There are heads I recognise – Heather Beake and Barbara Jamison from school. I want to go over, but I was secretly hoping to catch him instead.

“I told you I’d come again, Chrissie,” his familiarly deep voice says from behind me.

“You did,” I concede, biting my lip ferociously so as not to give away how pleased I am. “We’ve been bumping into each other quite a lot lately.” Emboldened by this comment, I look up at him. To my delight, his lips twitch with a glimmer of a smile, but he manages to wrangle it. We walk in synced step until we are quite alone.

“I’m worried we’re not being careful enough, Chrissie.”

“It has been hard keeping it private. Especially with everybody hanging around.”

I try to be on his side, although I feel mouth dry in anticipation of a fall from bliss.

“I’ve thought up an arrangement, you see. I think it would make things…easier. More private, I mean.”

He produces an ear of paper from his pocket, and in a slight of hand, tucks it into mine. The slip of a thing disappears behind the lip of my coat’s baby pink fuzz pocket.

“A date,” he explains. “A time for us be alone, and safe.”

14th January 1989 Ingrid “When you said you wanted to go on a mission, I thought we’d be like Starsky and Hutch. This is a bit…

Cagney and Lacey.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well… I didn’t think you’d drag me to the library.”

“I’m flattered you think libraries are too woman-y for you, Nick. You’d make the suffragettes very proud. And I’m sorry for the lack of bomb diffusing and guns—” “Keep quiet, please!”

Our little cultural dispute is shattered by a bark from the librarian. Fifth one of the night. Nick and I steal ourselves, sharing a discreet look: someone’s got their knickers in a twist.

“I won’t be much longer,” I whisper, shewing him away. He dutifully slumps off, boots dragging on the fuzzy blue carpet, to the comic books, while I go to my old friend, the microfiche.

This ‘mission’, though admittedly falsely advertised to Nick, is all part of some weekly research I’ve taken to lately (Roy’s suggestion; an irritating vouch to appear ‘cool’ no doubt). He did make a fair point though – that if it’s journalism I really want to pursue then I should attempt to forge some connections before braving it “out there”. Well, “in here” in Orkney, the journalistic scene isn’t too lush (the readership is vast, but we only produce two papers across the whole island network) so I imagine getting a foot in the door shouldn’t be too testing.

Despite initial cynicism, I’m starting to think that sauntering down here to the local library and scavenging its shelves will become my new gambit. There’s a buzz up in the lightbulbs which produce a puny but sterile glare over the low-ceilinged space, which, if you stare at a page for two long, becomes headache-inducing; the chairs expulse their sponge filling onto the floor through their open wounds; and there is an annoyingly large collection of cheese plants behind the front desk – but it’s quiet. The faintly musty scent of laminate covers and carpet dust lull my head into a sort of hyper-focused state. And the lovely thing is, nobody can find me either. I am a journalist undisturbed.

Unless we’re counting the librarian, Ms. Beake. Her visits are accompanied by glares, and the occasional, “be careful, now!”. As a solution, I have, naturally, weaponised my boyfriend. I fancied Nick could play my guard dog and stave off her interruptions. He has the right look about him: broad-shouldered, comfortably breezing past the bookshelves by at least a foot, stoic, but ultimately harmless. But I was wrong. Ms. Beake is decidedly sans fear of teenaged boys, and, with ample jowls, makes for a much better guard dog comparison. Nick, by contrast, is just sneaking Refreshers whenever her back is turned, occasionally complaining he’s “bursting for a pee”.

“Careful with that now, it’s delicate!” a bodyless squawk reprimands. I’m inserting my first microfiche panel: a newspaper from the turn of the century. She can eat my shorts.

She’s right though; even through the microfiche, the condition of these old pages is thinning and yellowing by the day. But once I’ve gotten past that, it’s the same sort of stuff we get today – news on the county show; personal adverts taken out by family dairy farms. Nothing enthralling, but charming all the same. Winding a new file into the lens of the machine, I seem to have plucked something from the early fifties. A scroll through and a scan reveals a section vacant from the earlier copies; a column entitled, A Youth’s Perspective.

Investigating the few which hark from the same year, 1952, this appears to have been a series. I read one entitled, A Youth’s Perspective: The Fate of the New Generation.

What will become of us, the new generation? Will we be washed away by bigger and better opportunities, or just dry up, simply too pampered and spoiled in this emerging life without a war to harden us in adulthood? Perhaps I am painting with too broad a brushstroke. Yet this paranoia exists, to some measure, you must admit. But it

does seem quite an ironic invention of outcomes. Let me ask you, parents, which side of your own debate you favour: that we should all exodus this island, leaving you? or stay – and make a terrible job of it?

A smile flashes onto my face in reaching the final sentence. I read the remaining entries of A Youth’s Perspective. The allotted space for it is meagre, yet packed with dry humour, and a candidness on the subjects of, ‘Does The Island Need a Picture House?’, ‘What Do We Want When Rationing is Over?’ (the answers were yes, and more – sweets especially). Sadly, after a month, the section is gone. I’m disappointed, slightly knocked back. But a curiosity to keep digging, to get my foot in the door, supersedes. I believe I have found a columnist with whom I share a kinship.

Ms. Beake and her beady eyes are waiting for me as I approach the front desk.

“I want to know who wrote the Youth Perspective articles from 1952. Do you know who could help me?”

“Have you checked the article?” she hits back with a condescending smile and docile tone. Her pillowy face is framed by the ridiculous cheese plants. I would quite like to punch it. Resisting, and feeling dim, I go back to the image.

“Christine McCormack,” I report. “Does she still live on the island?”

“You of all people would know the answer, I should think,” Ms. Beake answers with a snort of laughter. I stare at her, not ‘in’ on this particular dig. Though, judging by the blankness of her own eyes, I think she might be serious. “You are Ingrid McCormack?” she verifies.

“Yes—” “Christine doesn’t live here,” Ms. Beake jumps in, as if a pin had just pricked and thus prompted her. “Not since the fifties.”

Before she can finish the penny has already dropped.

“Are you talking about Chrissie?”

“So you do know her! Oh, thank goodness.” The haughtiness that had defined Ms. Beake’s way with me up until now dissolves into a fidgety, overly-bright demeanour. Spurred on by a mixture of social awkwardness and relief, she goes on. “Yes, I suppose we did call her Chrissie, you’re right. I thought they might never have told you, but then she would be your aunt, at the end of the day. And, of course, that kind of thing isn’t uncommon anymore, and it’s probably all water under the bridge. Even still, I’m sure most of the stuff they say isn’t true.”

Ms. Beake sighs, then nods. “Is that the infamous 1952 issue you’ve got there? Are you doing a school project on the storm, then?”

I know I should not ask another question. I’ve turned on a tap that, if I admit to needing more answers, will only turn off. And I’ve already made her so knotted up in foisting this subject into the light. I’ve seen this reaction before, with Roy; it’s like bringing on a social rash.

So, before my silence grows a bit too suspicious, I cling to the threads of what she has just told me, and inscribe each piece into my brain. I wrap up our conversation, pull Nick away from the comic books, and exit into the rain. When sequestered and sealed safely in the car, I crack open the glove compartment. My little green notebook from Woolworths is tucked where I left it.

“Have you had been struck by some divine inspiration?” Nick chuckles.

“Not sure…” I mumble. Understatement massive, my hand is scribbling furiously under the line where, ‘Chrissie…?’ was lazily scrawled.

A mix of vindication and epinephrine is shimmering through my limbs. I knew my instinct to keep a hold of her name was worth something. When Roy drunkenly dropped her into our conversation weeks ago, I chalked it up to some vague recollection of an Australian ex-girlfriend he never got over. I imagined I was on my way to pulling a Cilla Black and uncovering an old flame. But Roy has never been the girlfriend type. And even then, why we would have a stranger’s favourite teacup in our house? That false note never escaped me. I still put her

name along with all my would-be stories, or my ‘curiosities’, as Nick calls them. I only wonder why I’ve never heard that name before.

14th January 1952 Chrissie “On your way out?” mum calls. I find her sat at the dinky kitchen table amongst the room’s trinkets, darning one of my brother’s socks. With a sliver of a cigarette peeping out from her thin lips and a coil of kettle steam behind her head, it makes a nice picture.

“Yes, Barbara Jamison’s waiting for me,” I tell her, “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

She doesn’t look up from her fastidious hands.

“Close the hen houses before you go!” she croaks, but I’m already out the door and scuttling down the path, passed Roy and Allan, who are heading out with the dog. The guilt of my lie swells in my stomach before drying out into a fizzy excitement. Both the strong north winds and my own adrenalin carry me out of Birsay and into the next town. When I reach the little white cottage, it is nestled firmly in the wind’s grasp. The unflowered gorse plant trembles by the window. I am leaflike to the touch when he opens the door; I was hoping it wouldn’t be too obvious, but he remarks on it with a low beat of laughter as he takes my pink coat and hangs it up.

I begin to rattle off small talk in lieu of the silence of the place. Without his parents or my brothers clanking around, I have to admit that the atmosphere is a bit stiff. Still, this is what I wanted. And I should be grateful to him for honouring my conditions. He doesn’t say too much, but fiddles around tuning into a Nat King Cole song on the radio. The crackling croon and the trembling violins calm me. He comes and clasps me into his arms, and we rock back and forth. Finally alone. He feels for my hand and laces his fingers in mine. And suddenly we’re floating out of the room. He leads me to his room and closes the door. *** The gorse scrapes me awake. I don’t even realise I’m bleeding until I hear the wailing. It’s more of a lament, like a pained sob, out in the distance. It’s the shriek of the wind. My eyes open to see a fresh graze on my arm, stippled with blood, being gnawed at by the prickly green limb of gorse that has invaded through the open window. It saws back and forth on my arm to the rhythm of the gale. I hear the moaning wind coming towards us, pummelling the ground in search of something to break.

Then it finds me. The gust hits the window first, spitting out glass onto the bed with its force. I can’t hide.

Pinning the nearest thing I can to my flesh, the gale pelts me, little flecks of rain hitting my cheek. The shield is faulty. The pillow I am clutching has been ripped by a piece of the broken glass, and, in the urges of the wind, releases all of its delicate feathers. Wrapped in the wet flurry, I surrender myself. The feathers whip around me, turning me into one of those helpless, wobbling figurines in some bizarre snow globe. As the feathers come down in damp droves This is what I feared would happen; what I’ve been warned against in church. Only, I thought if we did it this way He wouldn’t think of it as a sin; that if He knew I loved him; and if He knew that I hadn’t done anything to tempt him, at least not that I was aware of.

The gale releases me. In my minutes of reprieve, I dress myself, wilted in the corner of the room. My clothes sag and lump over my frame. In the brief stillness, I hear him grunt awake. He curses then calls out for me, but I’m gone before he can get to me.

Within minutes, I am bound in the clutch of the current, and travelling back through the town. Through the driving rain, I struggle to spot our little home stitched into its hill. I’m too late. The house has already been struck; the kitchen pillaged, and splintered into. From far away, I notice a dusting of snow skirting the place. Yet the closer I get, the more disturbed the picture becomes.

My shoes edge into a sea of kitchen debris. Mum’s trinkets; a thimble, the kettle lid. But most of it is the broken white porcelain of cups and plates. A sea of broken white. Scattered among them are the mangled white feathers of the hens.

24th April 1989 Ingrid “All done!” Evie Linklater’s tuneful voice trills. She hands me the last plate to dry, dripping with bubbles, then retrieves a packet of custard creams from the top cupboard. “For us girls to share,” she says with a wink, her blue eyeshadow catching the light and shimmering.

“What about me?” Nick protests. “I’m putting everything away.”

“Or me?” Bill chimes in, who is decked out on the lino floor, fixing a loose screw in the cupboard.

“Oh, shush, we did all the heavy lifting,” she tuts, letting forth an infectious giggle.

What a congenial family scene I’ve found myself acting in. Washing up together and laughing about biscuits.

Nick’s house is just like that though. Whenever I can prise my way into having my dinner here, instead of the insipid family affair at Roy’s, Evie always cooks up something nostalgic and tasty. Tonight, for example, was fish finger sandwiches with gravy. Over dinner, we watched Top of the Pops with our plates on our knees. As Evie and I dig into a whole sleeve of Custard Creams, feeling smug, the powers of karma come to thwart us. A glass slips right through Nick’s fingers, which shatters, and he cuts his index finger. Little fragments of glass mix in with the tiny little metal screws Bill has arranged on the floor.

“Not—to—panic everyone! Ingrid, love, if you run up to my bedroom and look in my bedside drawer, you’ll find a little stack of plasters in there. In the meantime, Nick, get that finger under the tap, it’s running like a rabbit.”

I do as I’m asked, and efficiently retrieve a plaster from the drawer. Their bedroom smells of the potpourri we keep in the downstairs bathroom; over-perfumy. When Nick’s finger is safely enclosed, we are reprieved of our kitchen duties and go to switch on the telly. Nick wants to put on Only Fools and Horses; I don’t complain, although I usually can’t stand the humour. I have better things to occupy myself with anyway.

“Christ, Ingrid, not that again,” he sighs, as I take out a book from my bag. Since Ms. Beake’s inadvertent assumption that I was studying ‘the storm’, I sought out more information on the subject, in a book called ‘The Orkneys in Post-War’. I almost wish we had done a school project on it now; it sounds brutal. “What’s the point in reading about an old storm, anyway?” he asks, as I flip through some monochrome snapshots of ‘Farm Life’, a fairly banal series of squat houses with quern-stones featured outside.

“That storm tore up the island, Nick, took houses. You should read about it yourself, learn about local history for once,” Evie answers for me, plonking herself down on the sofa beside us and clicking the channel over to Dallas. God, the woman is a dream. “Saying that, I was only six when it happened. Tell you what, Ingrid, you should ask your dad and Roy about it. I think their house got a fair battering.”

“That it did,” seconds Bill, bringing his wife a cup of tea and kissing her head. “We were patching the place up for months.” As he says it, I’m more aware than ever that Evie is quite a bit younger than Bill and my parents.

Despite it, or maybe because of it, Evie and Bill go together. She’s zesty, he’s modest. She looks like a model, he a whiskery spaniel.

“I don’t know,” I say, “Dad isn’t the memory lane type.”

Truthfully, there’s a little more to it than that. I’ve realised I have to be careful about which information I go digging for with my family. If they have kept something as simple and monumental as an aunt from me for this long, God only knows what they’ll lie about next.

Call it a writer’s hunch, but I have a feeling the 1952 storm is part of the mystery of Chrissie; or it at least took place very close to her leaving the island. For example, Chrissie’s last entry of ‘A Youth’s Perspective’ was just before the storm occurred. And, in her haste, Ms. Beake had alluded to something ‘not being uncommon anymore’, and I’ve read about how in the early fifties, a lot of serious illnesses either couldn’t be treated in Orkney, or there wasn’t enough research to detect them early. Maybe she left to be treated, and the rumours were about what happened to her. But why my family would hide that from me I don’t know.

“I thought it had snowed.” Bill piped up. Our blank faces urge an explanation from him. “The storm had torn into their kitchen. All the broken plates and cups were smashed up and lying about in the grass. And the broken eggshells from the hens houses strewn and upturned. Seriously, I remember walking up to the place and thinking that it had snowed. Talk about walking on eggshells.”

“How… biblical,” Evie muses, filling our collective silence.

While Bill is describing this scene at the farm, I have reached a section in the book dedicated to our village.

There is a wholesomeness to these photographs. The more I sift though, the more I liked: plain photographs of the broch; one amusing shot of a cat peeping at the photographer in a wheat field; I even recognised Sinclair’s sweet shop, which still stands. And then, without warning, I turn the page, and am looking at a picture of me, and my mum. Only, I have blonde hair and a rounder chin, and we are both young kids. We’re sitting on the palace ruins by the sea, smiling. Obviously, this black-and-white girl can’t be me. It is when I realise who I am looking at that Bill delivers the line, “miraculously, one teacup survived the wreckage.”

If anything could be described as biblical, I think it might be this serendipitous godsend. All those years that my dad kept me from using the cup suddenly make sense. My body is struck up again by adrenaline. How I hadn’t thought to ask Bill about any of this before is beyond me. I have to take my chance.

In true bumbling middle-aged-man style, Bill’s recollection of Chrissie is relayed through fairly short, unromantic spurts of slowly-delivered information (complete with an extensive preamble about the land the farm sat on, and who owned it, so it takes a while for him to arrive at my chosen subject). He tells me that she and my mum had been best friends at one point, just as he has always been Roy’s. This he says without even a glance at the photographic evidence that is sitting on my knee, so I know I can trust him. However, the slow, monotone drawl completely disarms me for what he says next: “I’d been mending Roy and Allen’s roof from that mess with the storm when word got out about Chrissie expecting a baby.” The last phrase is delivered with particular haste and hush; as if the past is listening in on him, and the scandal was reborn. “Then, well, she was off to the mainland, running away with some hoi polloi.

We tried to contact her, but never heard from her again. Rumour has it she’s some fancy journalist now. About fifteen years ago, she reached back out. I remember your mum wasn’t keen on it, though. Nothing came of it in the end.”

“Chrissie got all posh,” Evie swooped in, undercutting the gravity of the moment a little. “But even I heard about her. She was quite nice, before all the mess with the baby and rolling over to the bloke from Aberdeen and eloped with him.” Bill pointed out that was maybe a bit too far, given that I had only just learned of this delicate news. But I don’t care.

An hour later, I am clicking my key into our front door. I can hear mum’s latex washing up gloves squeaking against crockery, and follow it.

24th April 1952 Chrissie The air smells of battered haddock rather than smoked salmon. That’s what I always fancied at my wedding.

And a white dress, and peonies for the bridesmaids. But I’m wearing my best blue dress and a nice pinkie lipstick, and tomorrow we’ll share a fish supper as our wedding meal and go home, back to Orkney.

He’s meeting me here tomorrow; coming down on the boat in the morning, then we’ll have a private ceremony.

I think it could be romantic, in spite of what they say. We were going to get married anyway. This just speeds things along a bit. I suggested we could have something small in the Italian Chapel, but he insisted that it would be better away from Orkney; more private, no fuss. I understand.

It will be nice when things don’t have to be private anymore, or secret. We can be a normal couple. And can have a house of our own, and I could maybe even keep writing in the paper, if he lets me. We can have Sunday roasts at home with Roy, and Allan and mum and dad.

I hear someone else across the street leave the chip shop, bringing another round of oily air with them. I close the window, wipe off the lippy, and get into bed. The hotel bed springs screech under me. The thin bedsheets scratch my leg. Not the most glamorous way to spend my wedding eve, at the Lybster Inn. Still, he’s coming tomorrow, and everything will be fixed.

24th January 1989 Ingrid “Cooey! I’ve got a Bourbon biscuit and a cup of tea with your name on it.”

Evie Linklater pops her head round Nick’s bedroom door. She has light blue shadow shimmering on her lids and her red hair looks like the fur of an Irish setter. Since my outburst last week, Nick’s house has been one of the less spikey places to situate myself. Evie and Bill have been fairly charitable, letting me hang around here while Nick works. When I do go home mum has that crosshatched scowl above her nose and her eyes look all freshly panged with pain.

“Thanks, Evie,” I smile weakly as she sets a tray down with a touching assortment of my favourite biscuit and a steaming cup of tea. I think she might try out a comforting phrase on me, but she steals herself, and leaves me in peace. On my lap is ‘The Orkney’s in Post War’, open on the page with the photograph my mother and Chrissie.

I blame it for catalysing my current situation. That night last week, snuggled up with Nick and his family with their biscuits and fish fingers, I was lured into such a sense of security. I saw the photograph, looked at Bill across the room, and grabbed my chance to get some answers.

I can still replay it all in my head, confronting mum afterwards.

“Just because Chrissie got pregnant doesn’t mean I should be denied knowledge of her,” I said. I thought this a fairly good opening line. I watched as the sentence unlaced the glare in her eyes as she scrubbed, and for a moment, the girl from the photograph beside her best friend was in front of me. She stopped what she was doing and stepped back. My mum crackled back into being, and with that, I persisted. “Bill told me she’s a journalist now. Do you know how helpful that could be right now?”

“I didn’t even know she was a journalist, Ingrid,” mum said in a whisper that depletes into a sigh. Despite the fact she conveniently skipped over taking ownership for the first part, which annoyed me, I hadn’t expected her to droop quite so defencelessly. But I spoke too soon. A furious shake of her mousy brown hair and her words came out with calamitous, pent-up irritation: “Anyway, you don’t understand! The father, whoever the slimy bloke may have been, never owned up to it.

Soon, there were theories that there were several men. The shame that brought on your dad’s family, Ingrid.

And—” at this stage, mum was gasping for air, tripping over her own words. “And, when Chrissie left, she never wrote to any of us ever again! Just forgot all about us, and moved on and up. And that was… not. Nice.”

“Because you were her best friend,” I finished for her. “I saw a picture of you both.”

“She looks like you quite a bit,” mum whispered, “minus that awful dark perm of yours.” I think she was trying to make herself laugh, which lasted for a second, a lapse of concentration, before she was hurling back into the same directionless tizzy. “We didn’t want you growing up associated with all the rumours and the shame of it!”

For the first time in that whole surreal exchange, her eyes managed to fully pin me, and in them, she handed back all the guilt that was somewhere in the ether between us. “Just because she left of her own will means you have to drag her back – or drag the subject us for any of us!”

“But Chrissie did try to come back, only Bill told me you were having none of it!”

I think she might try and throw her sudsy pink glove at me. But the stormy glare dissolves.

“I did what I had to do, Ingrid. Stop asking questions.”

So, here I am. Extricated. My mum avoids me, dad is even quieter than usual, and Roy – who started this whole ordeal – has stayed tucked away on the farm.

I’d assumed it was the writer in me, the journalistic hunger, that kept bringing me back to Chrissie. But maybe I was trying to get someone in my life who I share some common ground with. Chrissie seemed a funny writer, and we have the same taste in teacups. Maybe I am grasping at straws a little, but I thought there was something there, a piece of glitter.

The moping goes on for a few more silent hours, until I hear the Cavalier rolling up into the driveway, and decide to take a peek at civilisation. I expect to see my boyfriend, only my heart does a little leap of shock as I look down from the landing and see my uncle coming through the door. He’s cradling a finger that is spilling with blood. In his wake come Roy and Bill, obviously merry with pints, all jolly and windswept in spite of the obvious injury.

Evie calls up to me, but I’m already on the case, making my way to the bedside drawer for the plasters. My heart pounds under my jumper. I whack the drawer open in slight panic. Where I expect there to be a plaster, I see a half-sucked Murray Mint that is stuck to the back of a sad, brown envelope, unsent. Not Evie’s side of the bed, it seems. I’m about to close the drawer, when my eye latches onto the address written on the back of the envelope, stamped out in block-letter biro. I have to be careful not to tear the envelope in my rush to unfurl the contents.

Chrissie, I hope you are keeping alright. I know that you probably were not expecting to hear from me of all people. I remember we agreed to burn these letters, so if you want to do the same with this one, be my guest. I only ask that you don’t think of this as charity. I was rather hoping you might start to consider forgiving me for how I handled things. It was over thirty years ago. I was twenty and if memory serves, you were eighteen seventeen. Practically kids! You were my best friend’s little sister, and I think we know that you and I both got carried away.

I did seriously think about consider marrying you, Chrissie. At the end of the day I think we can both agree that me not turning up was, in a way, for the best. I’ll admit, it was a poor decision, suggesting we marry on the mainland. Writing to tell you I couldn’t do it once you were already there was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I don’t like to think of myself as a jilter, and I only hope that the substantial money I sent over the subsequent years was of some help and comfort. It was not a perfect arrangement. But, I’m sure you would agree that my insistence to keep this between us only made it easier to lead our separate lives. The rumours that went round for a while were difficult, but for you, I did not say a thing. I found it especially hard when you wanted to get in touch some years ago. It just wasn’t the right time for me. I had a young marriage and a new baby boy. I needed stability and couldn’t risk losing my family.

Let’s remember the good times. That night before the storm we shared was sweet. I still think of it sometimes and laugh. I’m sure you do too.

All the best to you and to our son, Bill

Framing Essay Storm in a Teacup is an excerpt of a longer story of the same name. That said, it functions on its own as a complete short story – with a twist at the end. Within the full piece, the story would continue, and see the two women get in touch with each other before meeting on the beach. This excerpt is just the starting point of their journey, so to speak.

This journey takes place almost entirely on the Mainland of Orkney, whereon two young women live. Through flashes back and forth in time, we learn they are living three decades apart, and they are in the same family. In terms of structure, I wanted Ingrid, living in the late ‘80s, to be in the company of the reader the most. Her selfassuredness and blunt humour put the reader at ease. To further this, I wanted her character to be associated with fun, colourful pop references of the ‘80s, like stiletto Heels and Top of the Pops, along with some comforting homely references like Custard Creams, Cilla Black and cornflakes. These little references helped to distance Ingrid from the more sombre tone of Chrissie’s perspective. So as to separate her from the enmeshment of the Chrissie’s scandal, establishing this unbiased, brazen confidence in her was crucial. This confidence gives her motivation to look for Chrissie, while making her more aligned with the comparatively progressive era of the late 1980s.

When in the company of Chrissie, however, I wanted the tone of the writing to darken, as I delved into the ideological concerns of sex and religion against the grimmer, post-war backdrop of the early fifties. Her sections include a lot of religious and sexual metaphors. For example, the gorse bush outside the house is unflowered to connote her virginity. Yet moments after she has had sex, there is an ambiguous reference to her bleeding, which is followed by the gorse bush itself protruding through the window cutting her. More obvious religious pervasions are shown in the scene where Chrissie believes she has brought the storm on the island because she ‘sinned’ for having sex. I used the name Chrissie, as it was close to Christianity. I also repeatedly used the colour pink around her, and stripped it away from her. For example, the man takes her pink coat from her before coming into his house to have sex. Also, she wipes off the pink lipstick she wants to wear at her wedding, but the wedding day never arrives. I also made added pink roses to her favourite teacup, to repurpose the colour pink, but make an associate her with the ‘English rose’ stereotype of prudishness. These little attributes to her character amplify how her sheltered innocence in contrast to the feistiness of Ingrid.

To that end, dating each section, and setting each one exactly thirty years apart, was important. For example, the first date given is 26th of November; the second is the 14th of January, and so forth. This allowed me to build up to the pivotal night of the storm, but more broadly this allowed me to synchronise the characters in a way that made the two perspectives were in conversation with each other. It allows the reader to remark on the cultural changes through the decades. On the day that Chrissie is in Church with her mother, Ingrid is coming home in her boyfriend’s car after a night of partying. This represents how life had physically and culturally moved on, and yet, in terms of the attitude towards Chrissie, an almost stifling stigma still remains.

The opening section of the story, however, is told from neither woman’s perspective. In a story of masked truths and fragmented answers, opening with their meeting serves to add some poignancy and closure to what is about to unfold. Narrated in the third person, this piece of the story is intended to be unclouded by bias, and free from chaos. I chose to place it at the beginning because it establishes a sense of calm before derailing into the relative ‘noise’ of the rest of the piece; it also adds a circular feel to the piece, as right when the story finishes, we know that, whatever happens next, there is some kind of a resolution. It offers us hope and security before giving us all of the context leading up to the moment. I also chose to centre it on a beach because Orkney is home to some famously gorgeous beaches – which you wouldn’t glean from the rest of the story. The remainer of the piece depicts the island’s landscape in terms of the wild weather and dark countryside; but the beach offers a place of calm and contemplation.

While writing this, someone asked me why I did not want to write in the Orcadian dialect. A lot of stories and poems I have read or encountered about Orkney feature the island’s unique dialect, but I consciously avoided this. I have a lot of respect for the Orcadian vernacular its cultural heritage, and it’s because of this that I did not want to approach it myself. As someone who did not grow up there, I wanted to avoid appropriating the dialect, or risking using it in a way that could come across too ‘twee’ or awkward. I also intentionally avoided using too many Orcadian landmarks or discourse around being Orcadian for a similar reason; I, as someone who has Orcadian heritage but did not grow up there, did not want to over-confidently insert an interpretation of a place that isn’t ‘mine’. Similarly, I did not want the story’s sole focus to be Orkney, either, and I thought that if speech

was inflected in such a way, that it would distract into idealising or romanticising the actual content of conversation.

A concern of mine in tackling the piece was striking the balance between dealing with the characters while painting them within the Orcadian setting. I often find that a lot of books based in Scotland are seen as inherently charming because of their ‘Scottishness’. Whereas a book set in London, for example, (unless explicitly stating otherwise) seems to be able to exist as a neutral place, and the story is accepted simply as a narrative that incidentally occurs in London. This tendency for a book of Scottish origin to be othered for its Scottishness often irks me. As, I wonder why such a story is inherently expected to make a comment on Scottish life. This is a generalisation, but one that seeped into how I thought about presenting Orkney in a story that, ironically, focuses a lot on the island being ‘home’.

In the process of trying to detach my story from this trope, I realised that it was not at all easy to simply cast off a place’s identity. Orkney is not mainstream, which naturally sets it apart, and it is deserving of a spotlight, and so using it as a setting affected how I wrote. In fact, it’s a place that many would say is more Scandi-leaning than Scottish. It also occurred to me that in trying to ‘hide’ parts of Orkney’s identity (originally, I didn’t even include its name) I was denying myself and the reader of the rich, challenging, and unique historical context surround the islands. This seemed particularly pertinent given that Chrissie’s whole character arc hinges on a storm – a storm that did in fact take place in the early hours of 15th January 1952. It didn’t make sense to keep the place ambiguous if something as pivotal as the storm was real. So, in the interest of showing glimmers of Orkney’s own identity, I used some popular Orcadian Norse names, like Ingrid and Erland. Most of the last names too, like Jamison and Linklater, are very popular family names in Orkney. Place names like Birsay, Inganess Beach, and the Italian Chapel, are real also.

Experiences as general as Roy taking on the family farm and having travelled to Australia are embedded in truth too. Custom dictated (and to some extent still does) that family farms were taken on by the next generation.

Plus, Scotland has a history of emigrants moving abroad, mostly to Canada, Australia and America. For the character of Roy, however, this does not work out, and he was obligated to come back home.

As the story is fictional but based on true historical events, factual references were key. But beyond that, I wanted the accuracy to extend to my treatment of broader ‘culture’. I wanted to think about not just big-picture cultural cornerstones, like popular singers over the years, but small everyday-level details. For example, I wanted to glean a sense of what an average Scottish family was eating for dinner, or what brand of coffee was available and popular. Even though a lot of these smaller touches didn’t make their way to the end piece, learning about these things ensured I stayed grounded to the idea of ‘normal’ and everyday life, without getting carried away and overly-caricaturing the cultural feel of the writing. Before putting pen to paper, books on British interior design formed my foundational pieces of research. Of particular interest were more academic sources detailing Britain’s relationship with the birth of the teenager, Christianity, and sex. This was particularly useful in developing Chrissie’s arc: a sheltered young woman with quite dangerously literal ideas on religion and ‘sin’.

On the subject of Chrissie, giving only snapshots into her life was a conscious choice. A lot happens to her, and I realised that these concentrated bursts of insight kept the build-up of drama both concise but intense; so, while we do not share her perspective for long, what we do see is heavily steeped in religious and sexual symbolism. I also wanted the reader to have access to Chrissie that Ingrid doesn’t have I liked the idea of carefully constructing a plotline that simmers in the background while Ingrid is picking up pieces of hearsay, and not getting the full picture.

In that vein, word-of-mouth is a big theme in Ingrid’s ‘journey’ to Chrissie. Yes, Ingrid finds newspaper articles and a picture of her aunt, but her biggest breakthroughs came from conversation. Given that there are so many allusions to rumours around Chrissie, I wanted the words that Ingrid receives about Chrissie to be just as unreliable as the nature of gossip itself. Everything that Roy, Ms. Beake and Bill tell Ingrid masks or obstructs some iteration of the truth, but nobody gives her a straightforward, factual account of what happened. The concept of oral history in itself precipitated this focus on hearsay. Especially in small communities, word travels fast, and scandals can get burned into its collective memory. Using not just the remote Mainland of Orkney, but a tiny town inside it, was the perfect place (or indeed worst place) to situate a pregnancy scandal of the early 1950s.

There is a recurrence to breakage throughout the story. The recurrent theme of breakages – Ingrid’s father worries she will break the teacup; Nick shatters a glass; Roy almost breaks his teacup on the draining board; and of course, the storm leaves broken crockery strewn across the farm. This idea is symbolic of the fractured nature of Chrissie’s passages, as they are only tiny fragments of a bigger story; a story to which we don’t know the exact ending. These instances also symbolise Ingrid’s lack of compliance with keeping Chrissie hidden, and that she threatens the precarious nature of the lies and silence that have long been built around her. Similarly, she poses as a threat to Bill’s cover as an innocent fuddy-duddy for almost the entire story. Just as Ingrid is ‘chipping away’ at the mystery of her aunt.

Equally, the use of feathers carries symbolic weight. Historically, feathers have been attributed to men who are presumed to be ‘cowards’, and women supposed to be ‘gossips’. In that sense, when feathers are flying around the storm-filled room at Bill’s, they foreshadow what befall the community: Bill is a coward for not owning up for jilting and leaving Chrissie; and the social fallout of that precipitates gossip and shame projected from other people. There is also an old allegory about feathers being let out of a pillowcase, which symbolise harsh words which cannot be taken back; again, this taps into the same idea. And of course, the hen feathers Chrissie finds add to her guilty conscious, as she did not close the hen houses on her way out to Bill’s house.

In the interest of concealing the truth, I kept Bill’s identity as Chrissie’s love interest hidden, until the final word of the story unmasks him. This gives him the ultimate power, in a sense, because even to the reader, he gets away with everything up until the last moment. Early on in the story, Ingrid says she can handle Bill’s ‘mildly unorthodox’ place in her life; but at the last second, this adds an uncomfortable twist to their relationship. And for us, in learning his part in Chrissie’s story, it reframes him completely in our minds.

Bibliography

‘1952 Hurricane’, About Orkney, (Living Orkney, 2012): https://www.aboutorkney.com/the-wey-hid-wis/the1952-hurricane/ [accessed 11/12/2023].

‘Microfiche, Microfilm and Other Minutiae’, IU Libraries Moving Image Archive, Online Video Recording, 24/03/2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6P9FhSkd0I&t=244s (timestamp 4:10) [accessed 01/02/2024] ‘The Orkney Islands suffer drastic hurricane damage (1952)’, British Pathé, Online Video Recording, 12/12/2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lqUmDj8u-o [accessed 10/02/2024] George Mackay Brown, The Storm and Other Poems (Gallileo Publishing, 2017).

Laura Beer, “Both Feminist and Practical Politics: The Incorporation of Infertility Treatment into Family Planning in Britain, 1930s–1950s”, Journal of British Studies 60, (Cambridge University Press, 2021), S0021937121000575jra 563..584 (cambridge.org), [accessed 03/11/2023] Liat Savin Ben Shoshan, architecture-cinema-and-images-of-childhood-in-1950s-britain.pdf (cambridge.org), “Architecture, cinema, and images of childhood in 1950s Britain” Nathan Klaus, “‘All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go’? Spaces and Conventions of Youth in 1950s Britain”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft (2015), https://www.jstor.org/stable/24368726?sid=primo, [accessed 21/01/2024].

Orkney Image Library: https://photos.orkneycommunities.co.uk/ Selina Todd, Hilary Young, ‘Baby-Boomers to Beanstalkers’, Making the Modern Teenager in Post War Britian Baby-Boomers to ‘Beanstalkers’: Making the Modern Teenager in Post-War Britain: Cultural and Social History: Vol 9, No 3 (tandfonline.com), (Cambridge University Press, 2018), [accessed 21/01/2024] Sian Edwards, “‘Nothing Gets her Goat!’ The Farmer’s Wife and the Duality of Rural Femininity in 1950s Britain”, Women’s History Review, (Routledge, 2017), ‘Nothing gets her goat!’ The Farmer's Wife and the Duality of Rural Femininity in the Young Farmers’ Club Movement in 1950s Britain (dundee.ac.uk), [accessed 03/11/2023] The British Newspaper Archive, Results | From 2nd Feb 1901 | Orcadian | Publication | Orkney, Scotland | Location | British Newspaper Archive (an account with the archive is needed to access records through this link).

kinderwald.

Ella Ferguson

kinderwald.

pt. roots

A tree falls.

This is an old story. Older than us.

Agnes took the shortcut through the woods on her way home from school. Pigeons called in soft hoots above her, hopping from branch to branch in the drips of sunlight that reached them through the thick canopy of leaves. When she walked this way she felt like Gretel, or Red Riding Hood, from the fairy tales she liked to read. Her hands grazed the trunks around her and sometimes she felt the urge to spin around them, a little elf dancing with her roots. She knew her parents would rather she walked around the forest along the side of the road so she couldn’t get lost, but she felt safer under the shade of the grandfather trees. They asked nothing of her. When she walked by the country roads, people would always stop to offer her lifts home, so she rehearsed her repeated script under her breath: ‘no thank you, I’m okay, I know my way home, thank you but I will walk.’ She felt more uncomfortable under their gaze than under the rustling leaves. She needed no excuse to walk by the trees.

The sun trickled through the leaves quietly. She warmed them in a morning embrace, a reminder that she would not leave them as long as she burned. They kissed the light back in a promise of growth. They had been there since the planets exploded into being and the rains began to pour for the first time, and they would remain as long as the sun loved them with her golden rays.

They withstood everything that hit them; crawling back out of the depths of roots and moss, every time they were cut back, twisting like snakes into their own garden of Eden. What nobody ever seems to think about is the idea that perhaps the vines and the snakes would have existed in perfect harmony with no concept of evil, if all the Adams and Eves had simply never joined them. You see, the trees whisper, we do not need you. You need us.

Agnes woke to the sound of birdsong. Flat on her back, her eyes opened slowly as they adjusted to the sunlight. The canopy of leaves seemed to crane over her as if to check that she was awake, waiting for her. She became aware that she lay on soft moss, and a stream trickled past her on

her left. Her mouth felt very dry as she looked at the running water and so she cupped her hand into it, taking gulps of the crisp liquid. It was cold on her palm, but in a way that cooled her down from a heat she had not been aware of feeling until then. Sitting up properly, she looked around in confusion. It wasn’t unlike her brain to build a world like this to escape into for the hours she slept. Surely it was a dream, or else how on earth had she ended up here? She could not see anyone else around her, nor could she hear anything but the rustling breeze on the foliage and the calling of creatures that spoke in tongues she could not really hear, let alone understand.

And yet, somehow, she did not feel fear.

Thabo had never gotten used to how surreal the forest felt. To gaze ahead of you and see the trees line your vision as far as it reached was overwhelming. He wasn’t sure how far he was from where he lived but he felt as though he had been brought here for a reason. His mother would definitely tell him he was. He tried to think about what she would say. Some sort of proverb from her mother or her grandmother. He was probably meant to be there. Maybe it was a curse. Maybe he was in trouble for some reason he had not known about.

He was crowded around by all different types of trees. He felt as if he was being observed by hundreds of people, all stranger looking than the next, and they were peering down at him like they all agreed he was the strange looking one. Some, the shorter ones, he recognised as those that grew mango fruits, but some he had never seen before. Those dark trunks sped up into the sky as he gulped in the view. He was still waiting for his growth spurt, finishing every meal and taking any extra in the hopes of growing, but under these trees, he realised how small he really was.

He called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?” Nobody responded, at least not in a language he could speak. Cacophonous birds squawked above his head. But there were no other humans as far out as this.

Walking as straight as he could, not knowing right from left or north from south in the depths of this rainforest, the air stung his lips and tongue with its vibrancy, with its heat and humidity.

He reached a tree that looked like a map

on a wall.

A condensed throng of branches tangled themselves over each other, stemming widely from a huge root that stood knowingly in the centre of the crowd. It fought the thick air, climbing invisible ladders up and out like a spreading fungus.

Thabo knew from stories that it was a fig, a strangler, but he couldn’t take his eyes from this creature now that it didn’t just exist in the confines of his own imagination. The longer he watched it exist, the more convinced he was that it was breathing, its many limbs dipping and rising with sweat from the atmosphere. It spread itself out so confidently, it was like it held the heart of the whole rainforest in its twined body, sending out instructions from within its heaving, twisting, throbbing hivemind. It was a god, a forest god.

He knelt down on the earth in front of it. Soil warmed his bare shins, crawling with insects. They scuttled towards and around him, welcomed him to their holy ground. He looked up.

The boy and the tree stared at each other, roped in, connected now by more than simple eyes or human senses.

The algae tendrils wavered in the waters. Lichens crept up trunks and the fungi grew in the crevices that humans would not see closely enough to understand. The symbiosis transcends human comprehension because there is no consciousness in it. We would be scorned by the plants that we live among, if they had the ability or the need for scorn, for our discussions and debates, our weighing up of pros and cons, our pride in doing something helpful for another and genuinely believing that a simple act of generosity swells us, makes us automatically better than everyone else around us. There is no selfless act when everything is about leaps and bounds and climbing out of where you currently exist and fighting your way to the next level. When the easiest thing to do is to bribe and to make connections that give you a hole to worm your way through to reach the top of a structure that was entirely made up by those who came before. It is not selfless or selfish for a plant to grow; and perhaps in argument you might name the fig, the giant creature that reaches past its neighbours and swallows stolen nutrients whole – but that is to look at it through human eyes, posit emotions on a being that does not have them. There is no consciousness in that. It is simply the existence of a species. A fig does not choose to grow

across the paths of others; in the same way that a Venus fly trap did not choose a diet of flying insects. But humans? We choose. Consciously.

The trees have had hundreds of thousands of years to watch us as we bumbled about, puffing our chests out like frogs that think they are tigers, hopping around, trying to prove that we were bigger and more important than other creatures, and other humans. But they are patient, and they had more faith in us than they should have. It took generations of wired children with glazed eyes to be released into the less wild and much narrower world for the trees to come to terms with the fact that humans do not have the self-awareness to turn around and look at the path of destruction behind us. These were organisms that required stability, and when the planet quivered beneath their roots, they had to act.

Liam wandered through the orange trees, calling out for anyone who might be there. Confusion slowed him down. The trees sunk low with bunches of fruit, heavy with the lack of picking. At this end of the giant grove, the rows you would see as you drove past the farms wiggled out of place. Down here they roamed like animals. Liam was grateful for their shade over his shoulders; it was even warmer than usual for the time of year.

He kept thinking about how strange it was that something could look so organised, so structured, from the car window, but so unruly in the midst of it. His neighbour’s family planted out here, picking and handing out the glistening fruits in April, gifting baskets of the Valencias to the street. Liam could still recall the first time he ate one from his neighbour’s farm, the spring he moved there, and how they were so different from store-bought, how as he squeezed the segment between his tongue and his teeth it burst into his mouth with tangy, honeyed juice that he thought was more delicious than anything else he’d eaten before. He remembered peeling the pith away, tossing it into the grass as he and his friends sat on the lawn every harvest season and laughed at their fingers staining orange.

It was June now, and they had stopped picking. But wherever he was, far out of any grove he recognised, nobody had seemed bothered to bring in the sweet gifts of their labour.

It was only a tiny whisper at first, a breath. Something fluttered across his eyelids like a breeze.

Then, so quietly he could barely make it out, he heard his name.

she heard her name.

Kaia awoke under glittering sunlight through the frosted needles of the spruce above her. The light seemed to bounce through the gathered points and catkins in water-like threads. She inhaled through her nose, filling her body with the rich smell. Her skin prickled with the cold of the lingering air. Pushing her hands into her fleeced pockets, she exhaled silver mist.

You are safe now.

Getting up and walking around a little, turning in every direction, absorbing everything she could, Agnes tried her best to remember if she had been here before. There were pockets of forest land that surrounded her town, and sometimes her parents would take her camping and walking in places similar, but not quite the same as this. If this was a dream, then surely she would have built the space from a memory of her own and so she would be able to place it, but she couldn’t yet.

Agnes became aware of her stomach’s emptiness. As if it heard the rumbling, a bush covered in brambles dipped in the wind in front of her, presenting blackberries that shone with ripe juice.

She scrambled over and picked a few, popping them into her mouth where they burst with a pleasing feeling, coating her tongue with a slightly tart taste. She thought she had never tasted anything so delicious in all her thirteen years. The berries only dreams could create. She ate another, and another, until her stomach felt satiated, and then she went and sat back down on her moss patch bed, leaning back on a rock. ‘This is strange,’ she said to herself, with a slight surprise at the sound of her own voice being sent out into the air that seemed so at peace. ‘I do feel like I’ve been here, or that I know this place, but I can’t remember why.’

Liam stared into the sky above him, taking it in. He had picked some oranges and he peeled them now, absent-mindedly, enjoying the tickling sensation of the grass and the earth beneath his feet.

Shoes seemed pointless out in this expansive grove. The segments of oranges seemed to remind

him how lonely he was. Usually, he would peel them out and share them, but there was no one here to share with. He didn’t understand why. Though he walked for hours at a time, he felt he was just going round in circles, never finding any sort of path out or sign of civilisation. It could have been days, or weeks, he had no idea. He was trying to ignore a nagging feeling that he wasn’t in the fields of his friends’ farm.

You are safe here. With us.

Kaia nodded.

She rolled a pinecone between her hands. She had seen it fall beside her, as the tree had wobbled in the wind, and she felt an affinity with the little thing, only a baby cone, not fully grown. She felt as if it had fallen to join her there, under the trees instead of in them. They were friends. She had had mittens on but removed them to feel the roughness of the pinecone against her skin. It caught her fingers in tiny scratchy pricks as she pressed it between her hands, but she liked it. It was real. She and her cone explored the forest. She put it in her pocket so as to pick others up, stroking them, adding her favourites to her pockets that sagged more and more as she collected.

Her mother would be pleased. She always asked Kaia to come out into the forest with her to walk and look at birds but it she had never been able to stand how long they would stand still, her mother shushing her every few minutes, just watching, waiting for nothing, waiting, breathing as quietly as they could. They wouldn’t speak to each other; they would just wait in silence. Here, with nobody to tell her what to do, Kaia sung hymns up into the trees, whispered an ode to the cones and catkins.

One of these little catkins rested in the cold earth in front of her feet. She knelt down to it, stroking it with her forefinger. It was spindly, crimson and damp from overnight rain.

Bury me in the earth, it told her.

Sat in the rays of the sun, Agnes felt warm enough to discard her worn red pakamac, folding it up and placing it on the rock behind her as if it furnished her own studio apartment within this forest clearing. Her cream knitted jumper would be fine – of course, her mother would tell her to keep the coat on to protect the nice pale fabric, even if she was too hot. But this place she was in

seemed devoid of pressure and she felt no judgement from the creatures around her, even the ones whose whorls of bark gathered into eyes, peering out at her. Looking around at them she noticed that the gnarls of a nearby tree looked perfect for climbing, and she had always loved the feeling of being up high and surrounded by leaves, so she hoisted herself up and began to clamber into the twists of branches. Her mother would have told her to get down. But she had a feeling that the plot of this dream lay somewhere up there, above her. The tree was a giant, for decades simply growing and growing, lifting itself into the sun and unfolding its arms as wide as it could. Agnes stilled herself on a branch considerably high enough from the ground that her mother would be screaming at her, as a blackbird landed feet from her. A tiny, muddy worm squirmed in his beak, and he swallowed it down whole in front of her. She gasped. Then she watched as he preened his feathers and pecked at the bark by his tiny feet. Agnes had never seen a real bird so close to her before, and her eyes stayed transfixed on the little creature as he hopped from one claw to the other. She held her breath, trying to make as little noise as physically possible so he would stay. It was as if he could hear her thoughts because he stood there on the branch to ruffle his feathers. When he stopped, he faced to the left as a human would see it, so Agnes wouldn’t have known that he was staring right at her.

‘I have never seen a bird this close,’ she whispered under her breath. She felt like she was admitting this to the blackbird like a failing. Not sure how her brain could have built this creature from imagination, she started to feel a little on edge. She climbed back down from the tree, thinking that the next thing to do was walk through the forest away from the clearing she had woken up in. The more boring a dream gets, she decided, the quicker you wake up from them.

So she went back to get her coat and then she walked. She did her best, the best a child with no orienteering skills could do, to keep her path straight.

‘I’m walking hooo-ome,’ she sang to herself.

You are home.

She walked for several minutes, taking care to step over roots and mushroom formations in the earth. Then she came to what could only be described as the largest, most gnarled tree she had ever seen in her life. It stretched itself to the top of the canopy where its tallest leaves bathed in the sunlight in the full, catching it, sending the sweet nectar into its branches and down the trunk.

No questions rose to Kaia’s mind anymore. This was her place, her home. She took the whispering catkin up in her left hand, knelt down and used her fingers to claw a hole in the soil.

Dirt crawled under her fingertips and across her trousers. She placed the little seed in the cavity and covered it over again, patting the surface flat. She thought she heard a sigh of relief.

Under Agnes’s feet the roots drank with glee.

She stared up into the branches for several minutes, barely blinking, soaking in the sight and the sunspots on her face. The longer she observed it the more focused her eyes could become, and soon she could see each leaf as a hand, reaching down to her, beckoning her into the sky. They were a mottled greenish brown, and each curved in lobes that made them appear finger like, tickling the air. As she stood still her skin tingled as if some kind of magic drifted around her in the scent of falling leaves. It was then that she knew she would not walk any further.

You don’t want to leave, do you?

No, he said.

❃❃

Agnes’s father had read the local news story over and over until his eyes went glassy.

Missing thirteen-year-old girl.

“It’s not like her to run away.” His wife had been repeating, for days now.

It’s not like her.

Not like them.

Tonight, another search party would roll out across the neighbourhood, the fields and the forest just outside the town. The forest that had been rolled back piece by piece to make way for the new-borns and the new builds.

❃❃

This was where he was from, he realised. In his efforts to find a way out of the trees Liam realised that even if he found one, at this point he wasn’t sure if he would be able to leave.

Maybe he belonged here, with them. With the oldest ancestors he could know.

Agnes had begun to come to terms with her new home. They had reached an agreement, she and her father-tree, that transcended words, and coats, and routes home from school.

‘My fathertree and me,’ she sang as she returned to her spot where she’d left her coat. She took her shoes off and placed them neatly together beside the dresser-rock like it was obvious that they went there; and tucked her socks inside them too. She was warm and comfortable enough without them and she had been feeling the weight of them dragging along the forest floor as she walked, pulling her down from the branches of the climbing tree.

‘My fathertree and me, What is it we will be Growing up together My fathertree and me.’

The huge tree played in her mind. He had told her more than anyone had ever told her before, trusted her with honesty not often given to children. When she went back to her mossy bed as the sun set that evening, she whispered her little song about him to herself, a lullaby that flew around the forest in wisps. He whispered back, although it was not quite intelligible to her ears. She slept easier that night. Somehow she was not afraid of being in this place. The questioning nature of

humanity had started to drift away from her mind and what was replacing it was an ability to simply exist and accept what was in front of her. She didn’t dream any more. Rest came to her naturally, as a necessity, not something to reach for through a smog of screens and rumbling roads. The body she inhabited had begun to mimic the forest around her – acting in ways that were unconscious.

Birdsong awoke her again. This was her routine now, and she preferred it to the sharp ring of her alarm before school, and the forced bowls of cereal under the painfully bright kitchen lights.

Agnes had been sleeping on her side, so she turned onto her back to drink the sun excitedly. Her eyes no longer hurt when she stared at it, the giver of everything, and all she wondered was how she could’ve gone this long without seeing it for all that it was. Why on earth would she sit in the living room for all those long hours with the curtains drawn over the windows, obscuring access to this giant orb of life? What was even the point of a ‘living room’ anyway, when all the living she ever needed to do was out here, free, with everything she could ever desire available to her everywhere she looked, everywhere she lay?

When Kaia’s pockets had filled too much and she had to empty them, she found dozens of tiny little seeds that had fallen out of the dry cones. She ran to her clearing where the crimson catkin lay beneath the earth and scraped more holes in a row beside it, walking three paces between each, imagining them bursting up and holding hands. At each hole she pushed a tiny token underground and patted their head.

She buried them all, one by one, carefully.

A phantom forest grew around her as she looked over her work. It fed her, nourished her. The knowledge that she was raising them like children of her own, that these trees would grow from her fingers, it satiated a hunger in her soul.

Agnes went back to her fathertree and lay at his feet. Unbeknownst to her he smiled down at her.

Each leaf that fell was a drop of love, cast by the wind, sent to her. She let them lie on her, around her, circling her like a cast of her body. They would not remain there of course, for they were to be carried much farther to fulfil themselves, but for now a silhouette of a girl lay at the foot of the great tree.

‘My fathertree and me Show me, show me What I can do’ Anything, everything.

When this is yours, it is all yours, and you all of it.

Agnes traced the creases in the aging bark with her delicate fingers. Her eyes had begun to see deeper than she was used to and she could feel more than before. It was inexplicable, the sensations of a forest so teeming, so stuffed full of life. The miniscule insects that scurried up and down the trunk and over the roots seemed far busier than any human she had ever known.

She thought of her mother, so clean and easily alarmed, and she knew that she would pull her up and away from the tree if she could see this scene, her lying in the earth, getting specks of dirt in the folds of her clothes. She just wouldn’t understand.

Agnes almost felt guilty for not missing her.

It wasn’t that she had hated her family, or hated her life, far from it, but this was the most peaceful her mind had ever been. All she could remember was buzzing, spinning, trying. Life just seemed to be one big push. Out here, in the quiet, she felt protected, she felt safe. There were no narrowed eyes on her, not a single word of judgment, and nobody expected her to be anything that she wasn’t.

Bellowing treefrogs echoed all around the forest in a rounding choir, above Thabo’s head.

The incessant pressure of thinking of what was next and how could you better and how could you be more popular or prettier or smarter or louder or happier, it was always there, a voice whispering in the depths of your mind. She had banished it somehow. Here, the only voice she had heard was her own – when she had still felt the need to speak. She didn’t feel that anymore.

The fulfilment of quiet was enough.

❃❃

You have only just begun to exist, my dear. We have been here since the earliest moments of time and simply continued to grow, against all the destruction and instability that time brings. That means we have never been still, Agnes, never been able to be still. You see us as unmoving creatures, I know, to you we are solid statues. You see me as an individual too. But I must tell you, child, that we are separated by nothing more than your vision. By your eyes that sadly do not have the ability to see it. We are all one, attached by more than closeness. Under your feet we are joined together. I grow, we grow, out in all directions, consistently, we always have done, and we will always do so.

A surge of wind sent tiny birds flapping out of the branches of the trees above her and she gazed at them, unmoving, her eyes following them unconsciously.

But your kind, not you, I know, my dear, your kind, have lost their connection to us, and cut their ties with each other, too. Your roots lie in the paths of your ancestors, who, once upon a time, lay with us, among us, and never questioned our growth. At some point, it seems, they left us behind, reaching for something intangible. That word, child, means they could not explain what it was that they were looking for, it is not something they can touch or show you. You see, we the trees reach only for the sun. Our expansion is for the continuation of our lives, all we do is exist, and secure a new century with the growth of our reproduction. We ask only for the sun to keep looking down on us, casting its gaze, and we do not need anything more. Humanity, your kind, seems to have never stopped asking for more. People have forgotten how to share.

I want to share, Thabo thought.

I know you do, my child. This is why we knew we could bring you here and you would understand. You are different. We see in you something that brings us hope for our future. You would join us, would you not?

I would, she thought. I want to.

We see it in you. But you can understand our worries, can’t you, that perhaps others like you would not be so willing? That they would not understand why?

Yes, Kaia told him.

We only want to restore this world to what it once was. To what it should be. A shared space. Do you know what the word symbiosis means, child?

No, Liam thought, and he acknowledged him with sympathy permitted only for someone as young as he was.

It means to live together in harmony, in a relationship that is most often beneficial for everyone.

Once, we had a relationship like this, you and I, and we will again, I believe. The roots that came before these which I take on, and those who started your race, we each enjoyed this peace, this harmony that I speak of. It is how this place was intended to work. It is, quite simply, the only way that we can all continue to coexist, to live together. If we do not find this again, I fear, and sadly I know all too well, that humanity will be lost forever.

Will you die? Agnes asked.

I am both dead and alive at once, child, and this is one thing that you cannot begin to understand. These trees, which I am, which are all me, will remain in some form until the sun can no longer burn. This will be long after you go, my dear. So no, I will not die. And you, child, you are here to live.

I can stay? They gazed into the branches.

Yes. You will stay.

❃❃

They had walked through the trees for hours, and it felt like they were spinning. As if the globe had been rolling under them, twisting like the roots they stepped over time and time again, stepping, tripping, losing their way, partial remembrance of momentary scenes but not quite recollecting their last visit. The trees danced around them, not letting them through, it seemed.

The birch barks were flecked with the horizontal lines that, when they all blurred together, looked like comical speed lines. As if the lost girl had run this way, then that way. She evaded them, clambered out of their memories branch by branch. She was not sure herself if she climbed or if she had been pulled.

The trees seemed to get thicker as they came across a part of the forest that was noticeably quieter and cooler. The sun had been swallowed up by the tallest leaves and all that was left by the time the air reached the forest floor was the coldness of a stare. They were intruders here.

Leave this place, the leaves rustled.

They kept walking. Gnarled fingers crept across the ground after them, trying desperately to grow at the pace these creatures crossed swathes of land. They simply moved too fast for any other species to keep up, or to run away before being trampled.

A wall faced them.

Trees, all in a line, but a wall nonetheless. The branches held each other and twisted together as if to twine a fence. Hawthorne prickled up from the earth and engulfed the feet of the trunks, clouding upwards like rising smoke.

They were keeping something shut in. Keeping the rest of them out.

The search party exchanged glances, left to right and back to the centre where the father stood.

He began to run around the perimeter.

None of the men were small enough the fit through the gaps between the individual trees, and as they moved along the edge around them, they met either side. A circular wall stood there, inexplicable, impenetrable. Stay out, it said. They ran, leaping and roaring. Something about this

simple barricade infuriated them. A defiance emanated from the earth beneath their feet so strongly, perhaps they could smell it, a pheromone message that they would be incapable of understanding now that they had evolved to a point so far away from the other species that they could barely remember where they came from. Their overwhelming anger and indignance and arrogance and righteousness, they could no longer comprehend the response, to them it all was met with an insentient silence.

A lighter, a simple plastic tube yanked from a pocket, the metal scraping with a thumb, and a blaze went screeching up into the air above them. Heat rises. In moments almost imperceivable, several trees in front of them glowed red. The men helped it travel around the circle. The fire beat its hot fists on the trunks and choked the branches till they collapsed to the ground. Carbon gasped out of the cracks in the timber.

A few of them managed to hop over fallen trunks and soon the search party were advancing like a militia against this forest. The trees had seemed to disperse in front of them and the space was clear. Agnes’s father ran into the centre of the strange snow-globe of nature, and as he stopped, a loud, choked noise escaped his throat. A pair of tiny shoes sat beneath a rock, left on the left and right on the right, with her coat, her red pakamac, folded on the rock. Neat. Almost like she had placed them there herself.

And then, as their eyes adjusted, the other men began to realise.

At the root of the largest tree in their eyeline lay some of a girl’s body. All eyes span to her father, who staggered forwards to her. She was wrapped in roots. In the arms of the tree she looked so small, so frail. They had snaked through her ribs and curled down her spine, drinking her. And oh, the eyes. They seemed to be protruding from the skull, but at closer look, they were grown over with fungus. Mushrooms unfurled out of the cavities where her eyes had been. Time had overcome her, reached into the future and decayed her years longer than she had really been in this place. Her back arched over the ground roots, her feet already being absorbed into the earth, moss crawling over her toes. A blanket.

The moss was beginning to form a blanket. It was going to cover her, keep her safe.

They would use her. She would not go to waste. New things would come out of her giving of life, as it was meant to be. This was how it should be, how it should have stayed. A cyclical, symbiotic, unspoken bond between all creatures, none more deserving than the other.

But of course, people.

Her father roared. A haze seemed to cloud him, wrap him, until he leapt forward in a fight with the air. The blaze continued behind them, and he looked around him, drugged with fury.

“An axe,” he shouted. “I need an axe!”

The men had lowered their heads in mourning, a silence hanging round their necks. A collective breath followed his call, and they cast glances to each other with wide eyes, not understanding at first.

“Somebody give me a fucking axe!”

A man who lived two streets away from Agnes’ family muttered admission and his axe was passed through the crowd quickly, and the father took it with a kind of resolve congruent with a long period of mourning. Time worked strangely in his personal circle of hell. He began to chop.

The axe crashed again and again against the side of the tree, eventually starting to make a dent.

Some of the men left, a sombre procession of them making their way back through the forest to the houses on the edge of the field. They could go home to their children. They would press the radiator to warm their hands from the shock. Put the kettle on and make a mug of tea. Tell their wives what they had seen. If you walked down the street and looked through each window a flipbook of sinking wives would play for you as they heard the news of poor neighbour Agnes.

But will they learn?

Will they take anything from what has happened here?

An hour later, the father still hacked messily through the tree. It began to creak. Agnes remained motionless with her forest jewellery decorating what was left of her skin. His tears of grief and exertion dripped down the bark and pooled on her torn stomach. They trickled one by one into her ribcage that opened like a window up to the canopy.

The tree fell. Slowly at first, toppling, like a drunk, and then all at once. It crushed everything in its path as it came down, taking branches off its fellows, sending leaves everywhere, the wind spraying them out as if they were flying in desperation, trying not to get crushed.

The fresh stump sat there, jagged and naked. The splinters stuck out like tiny fingers. The man swept away the bark dust and pulled his daughter’s body out from underneath the roots that were severed now, like thick ropes. He had to turn and vomit as her ribs hit a snagging one, the knocking noise playing out, kerplunking like a bizarre ivory piano.

Gathering her up into his arms, he walked in a daze. He would bury his daughter. She would not rest there. Even as she sunk over his arms, dragging him down, reaching to the earth as a fish would cry out for water, he walked. He stared straight ahead, trying not to notice as pieces of her fell to his feet and became lost in the detritus.

She is ours now, as will you be.

Remember where you come from.

Remember?

He stumbled. Fell.

Her body escaped his arms and rolled backwards slightly with the impact. Then he heard his daughter’s voice, light in the air like falling leaves, mingling with the forest choir around him: I am returned to the earth. We live in death here.

“Agnes!” He roared into the canopy, looking around desperately.

Understand. Please. Listen and understand.

“Listen to- Agnes! Listen to what? Please!”

But she did not speak again. All that he could hear was a shushing, a whispering of wind playing with the low hanging branches and spinning around him. It was a language he could not comprehend. He stood and turned wildly, round and round like a little girl playing ring-a-ring of roses. The surrounding trees sent out their signals and circled him in the sounds of nature. But it was a frequency inaudible to his ears, evolved to tune out the calls of creatures like these.

He stooped over what was left of his little girl, already beginning to sink back into the soil, and in her ghostly face saw more wildness than humanity. The father left the forest, not hearing the trees calling out to him as he passed each of them, singing a slow march for the girl who listened, who understood, all too late. ❃❃

The tree’s hacked trunk sits solidly where it always did. Just days after the mourning attackers leave, a shoot pushes up through a crack in the centre.

kinderwald

pt. seeds

Our story begins, happily, with the Overstory. 1 It begins with a young girl, given a novel by her father, trying desperately to read the book he raved about, but not understanding it. Feeling disappointed that she didn’t feel attached to the characters and that she let down her dad when he had hoped she would join him in discussion over the pages of the book.

It continues when she picks it up again, a few years later. When suddenly what previously flew over her head sits down and makes sense. Each character tells her a different thing, but the girl speaks the loudest. That girl, the one with the burning passion, the one who runs from her life to create a new one, not for herself but for the trees. The trees that are telling her they need her.

They ask for her help, and she runs to them.

The girl who read the book studied many different things, across different disciplines, reaching the conclusion that she was on the earth for the plants, for the quiet creatures, where she could feel them, listen to them, feel the softness of the air they produced. She wanted to speak to them, find a way back to some ancient, lost version of herself that might have heard their signals.2

1

The book mentioned is Richard Powers’ novel, The Overstory, which I devoured at a time in my life that I felt like I really needed it, and which inspired this whole piece as I explored a newly found area of my passion for the environment and the world around me. I realised that I could communicate my wish for action through writing creatively, without scientific jargon, and reach a whole new audience. As I read it, I thought of all the things I could write in a similar vein, within the genre of cli-fi, (climate fiction) and realised that maybe this was my calling. I had not known previously where I sat in the world of creative writing; where my voice belonged. But reading The Overstory, and following it up with titles like The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin, Green Rising by Lauren James, and others, I finally thought that perhaps there was a whole genre that I had not realised was out there, waiting for me to hear, waiting for me to explore – much like the forests that wait for us to understand what they are trying to communicate to us. I realised that this piece of work was meant to bridge the gap between humans and forests. I wanted to try and use my voice to fill some of that space.

2 To discover that the walking you have done all your life has been research for your culminative work of an entire degree is extremely rewarding and quite a point to find yourself at. Being told that research is not simply trawling the internet for people who back up your arguments is incredibly validating – those mountaintops with my father were research. The campsites in the forests and by lochs were research. The ticked off Munros and the watching of birds, it was all a kind of creative practice. These things made me into the writer I am as I present this work to you.

Walking amongst the Grimm3 and ancient trees all her life, the girl in the story with all the stories in her head gazed upon many an inspiration. Apples and pennies and wishes4 grew in bunches above her, dangling and jingling in her wake. She had never really been sure of her journey’s end, or of why she set out in the first place, but she was sure she knew her purpose, her source, the beating heart that reverberates in each step she takes.

Because through the fog of forgotten places, a voice rings out. Miles back over the hills already climbed, a little bearded creature stands on a sad, dry stump, watching her go. He claps his hands with desperate glee and he calls after her, making sure she will hear for years to come: “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”5

3

Other texts that inspired the writing of this story were the Grimm fairy tales, for example and in particular Philip Pullman’s versions of The Juniper Tree, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. The elements that these stories used in their original tellings were of great use to me in terms of inspiration and learning what trees have represented throughout the years. The Brothers’ Grimm Cinderella story, with all its blood and eyeball extraction, was one of my favourite stories because of the symbolism of the bond between the birth parents and their daughter through a tree. The idea that a tree could be looking after a human always stuck with me in a way that even I did not fully comprehend until beginning to write Kinderwald. (It is also worth noting that I did take the name of a forest in Germany, Der Kinderwald, for this story, because of my love for the Grimm tales, as well as the fact that they always implied clear moral meanings, which I would be depending on when writing this work.)

4 I have always loved concepts surrounding luck and wishes in fairy tales or stories, things like money trees and wishing wells. I am an intensely nostalgic person too, so tokens of places visited and people remembered are scattered throughout every room I exist in, all of my bags and pockets of favourite coats. There are tiny stones and shells on every surface of my childhood bedroom. I wanted to inject some of this nostalgia and luck from these stories and from my own life into Kinderwald, in the seeds planted by Kaia or the wishing-type song that Agnes sings. The seeds were wishes in themselves, manifesting for the forest in ways the characters were not aware of. It was important to me that I had little pockets of symbolism like these throughout my work as I do my best to keep a mindset of hope about the dark future that may await humanity if we do not stop what we have been doing for centuries now, and listen to what the trees have been trying to tell us.

5 This is of course in reference to and quoting Dr Seuss’s The Lorax, a tale that I had read to me before I could read myself, and then I heard it again, and again, until I could read along, following with a little finger, then again until I could read it by myself, then again, we read it until I could recite it all from memory. Every page. I would go on to joke about this work, in every group setting, calling it the ‘gothic Lorax’, but the more I said it as I developed the project, the more relevance it had. I realised I had actually been carrying the strange looking fellow on my shoulders for two decades, and that he would be there, echoing, in the pages of this piece. Kinderwald is for the Lorax. It is to reach into my early childhood with words I did not have then, and show him that we are not all the Once-ler.

And like some sort of pilgrim, she walked and she walked, for she and that Lorax, they talked and they talked.

They looked at the world ‘til she knew what to do, and as soon as she could, she flew and she flew.

All through her life, she thought about it, she remembered what he had said.

Day after day she took on his words and recited them all in her head.

It struck a nerve, in her human heart To think that the trees could not shout So she hoped one day she’d reach into the trees And be able to pull their words out.6 The girl wondered who would listen to the creatures that could not speak, or at least did not communicate like humans did. She considered that there was a chance they would live and die without ever being understood. But she would. If it was possible, she would find out how.

Then one day they sat everyone down, the teachers, the tellers, the writers, and they asked what she would write.

They told her it’s time to show everyone what you have to say.

6

Just simply to give credit where it is due, this is in the rhyming system and structure of Dr Seuss’s stories.

You have this many words and you better make them count.

So, she dove into the library and the bookshop she worked in, she read any recommendations she was told7, she scrolled online through page after page of the most obscure websites, in corners of the internet that you could only really end up in by accident, and still those old words rang in her head: Speak for the trees I speak for the trees speak for trees the trees I speak I speak for the trees.

She would understand – take every word read, every gust of wind blown, every frame gazed upon and compile them, entrust them to the pages. She would do as the Lorax did. She would speak for the trees.

She would listen and then she would speak.

7

Some other titles I scoured for research were the British Library’s Evil Roots compilation of short stories and Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee. (I was actually lucky enough to receive a copy from the publishers of the latter – it will only be published the day before this work’s submission date comes around, but I was able to read it early, and I am all the better for having done so.) Both of these titles were compilations, Dispersals being a collection of essays, and so they assisted my search for how to create a small world in a short story that could be encased in the word allowance. I was particularly affected by Lee’s discussion of history, mangoes and the nature of weeds; what is actually invasive, and what do people just not like? I was taken by these conversations – where are these creatures from, why should they be in certain places and not in others, how can we begin to understand them and their origins? I asked the pages these questions. They answered with what you have read. In Evil Roots I found writhing wistaria and ancient trees, chunks of gothic that wound into vines and leeched into my Kinderwald. In Professor Jonkin’s Cannibal Plant, included in the Evil Roots collection, the professor says he would choose what Agnes’s father will not: to die for nature rather than kill it, even when it asks for his life itself. This was a great source of inspiration for me as I knew I wanted the plants in my story to show the ignorance of humanity where Professor Jonkin had accepted his place as part of an ecosystem, in a way. This was massively striking for me and had an ongoing influence in my writing.

Seeds Citations (in order of appearance)

Footnote 1

Powers, Richard, The Overstory, (Vintage, 2018).

Guin, Ursula K. Le, The Word for World is Forest, (Orion, Masterworks, 2022).

James, Lauren, Green Rising, (Walker, 2021).

Footnote 3

Pullman, Philip, ‘The Juniper Tree’, in Grimm Tales for Young and Old, (Penguin, 2012), pp.

187-199.

Pullman, Philip, ‘Cinderella’, in Grimm Tales for Young and Old, (Penguin, 2012), pp. 116-127 Pullman, Philip, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, in Grimm Tales for Young and Old, (Penguin, 2012), pp.

75-85.

‘Kinderwald Children’s Forest’, Brandenburg Tourism, <https://www.brandenburgtourism.com/poi/dahme-seenland/theme-parks-and-adventure-exhibitions/kinderwald-childrensforest/>, [accessed 2 October 2023].

Footnote 5

Dr Seuss, ‘The Lorax’, in Your Favorite Seuss, compiled by Janet Schulman and Cathy Goldsmith, (Random House, 2004), pp. 305-336.

Footnote 7

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic, ed. by Daisy Butcher, (British Library, 2019).

Lee, Jessica J., Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging, (Hamish Hamilton, 2024).

Garis, Howard R., ‘Professor Jonkin’s Cannibal Plant’, in Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic, ed. by Daisy Butcher, (British Library, 2019), pp. 149-159.

Bibliography and Relevant Reading

Agnes Bovalino, Tori, My Throat an Open Grave, (Titan, 2024).

Fry, Carolyn, Trees: 10 things you should know, (Orion, 2023).

Piotrowski, Janis, ‘Staying Alive: Plants supply essential elements for human survival’, Tallahassee Democrat, <https://eu.tallahassee.com/story/life/home-garden/2022/09/23/how-plants-supply-essentialingredients-human-life/8080380001/>, [accessed 21 January 2024].

Shonna, ‘Lessons from Grimm: Trees in a Fairy Tale Orchard’, Shonna Slayton blog, 3 August 2019, <https://shonnaslayton.com/lessons-from-grimm-trees-in-a-fairy-tale-orchard/>, [accessed 5 April 2024].

‘The first trees’, Trees Inside Out, <https://www.aucoeurdelarbre.ca/en/the-tree-story/tree-on-earth/firsttrees.php>, [accessed 13 February 2024].

Kaia ‘Spruce, Norway’, Woodland Trust, <https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/britishtrees/a-z-of-british-trees/norway-spruce/>, [accessed 16 March].

Daven, Lars Sandved, ‘Trees Top 10’, The Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, <https://partner.sciencenorway.no/agriculture--fisheries-forest-forskningno/trees-top-10/1379723>, [accessed 14 March].

Liu, Dr Udayangani et al., ‘The tale of the sleeping beauties unveiled’, Kew, 28 June 2018, <https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/people/udayangani-liu>, [accessed 20 March].

Thabo Brewer, Grace, ‘Strangler figs: Killers or bodyguards?’, Kew, 29 May 2019, <https://www.kew.org/readand-watch/strangler-figs-killers-or-bodyguards>, [accessed 27 February 2024].

Njabo, Kevin Yana, ‘Megabiodiversity in the Congo Basin rainforest’, Central African Forests Forever, <https://www.centralafricanforests.org/wpcontent/uploads/CAFF_14_Megabiodiversity_by_Meindert_Brouwer_2.pdf>, [accessed 3 March].

Wiese, Bernd Michael and others, ‘Democratic Republic of the Congo’, Britannica Geography, <https://www.britannica.com/place/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo>, [accessed 2 March]

Liam ‘Florida Citrus Harvesting Season’, from USDA, <https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Florida/Publications/Annual_Statistical_Bulletin/2016/B 1thru14Cit-2016.pdf>, [accessed 27 March 2024].

‘Everything you Need to Know About Florida Citrus’, Visit Florida, <https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/faq-everything-you-need-to-know-about-floridacitrus/>, [accessed 26 March 2024].

The Erased

By Callum Gavin

The Erased

I

Blinding darkness. The frame consumes the abyss of night, as the spectral shapes and patterns of his surroundings are reflected back at him in a restless shimmer, aglow with unreality. He corrected his eyes, tried to find his image in the black screen and couldn’t.

The arrhythmic rhythm of clicks and scrolls awaken his world.

Silo says welcome back.

A forward looping arrow, curving towards itself, as if time were not an irrevocable line and, if you travel long enough and far enough, you can break through the terminus, returning to the origin. A moment; a glance; a touch; a kiss.

It takes away what can never be returned, but he won’t stop clicking, won’t stop subtracting the scattered remnants of a life at once achingly distant and seemingly more violently present than when he breathed it. He clicks and it’s as if the screen strobes in lockstep with his quickening pulse as another batch of moments, hemmed in by digital boxes and cradled upon waves, fade restlessly into nonexistence. Navigating away to a hidden album of his own, he scrolls fast generating a blurred deluge of shape, colour, and body parts, fearful in his perplexing desire to only find her in fragments. Ceasing the rhythm of his swiping fingers and allowing his hand to hover, her eyes gaze out at him from the crimson red room they had called their own, but not the eyes he remembers anymore; his melancholy and repeated mantra of ‘no hard feelings’ suddenly ignited by possessiveness and pettiness. His sorrow was the oxygen, invisible and everywhere, circling the tiniest spark of blind, irrational fury.

Unknown I know how to find you anytime I wa...

More moments erased; an absence that cuts and gouges. The hand moves independently as if to grant his mind a respite it is unwilling to provide itself. Another page with different boxes and divergent lives. He hits ‘play’ on one of those boxes, triggering the strangled staccato rhythms of overlapping voices, traffic, wind and other things. The video freezes, a circle of smaller circles melt and rematerialise at the centre, capturing her in motion, a ghostly after-image of her face superimposed on a cleaner image of that same face. The video trembles to life, as the spectral appearance is absorbed in an instant and she stares point blank at the camera. The video is dated today, but these eyes look more like the ones in the photograph, and he knows her eyes do not look like that anymore. People with faces he doesn’t care about walk behind her holding signs that he doesn’t read, but she flashes a smile to someone off camera as his stomach churns what his mind wills away. Leaning in and raising her voice above a clamorous swell, with terse indignation, she says, “this town is normally much sleepier than this... but we’re bringing all our noise here for the right reasons. Down here,” she lifts her phone up momentarily to catch a glimpse of the banks of the loch above the bobbing heads and floating banners, continuing, “is where I learned to swim – I was mad at my dad for weeks for throwing me in that ice water, but still. Over there, that’s the second oldest post office, not just in Scotland, not just in the UK, but in the world, and if you squint through those trees beyond, you can just about see one of the oldest churches in this country built over 1500 years ago.” Her cardigan leapt from her right shoulder, retreating from the wind, revealing a new tattoo caressing her collarbone. It was a bell he thought, but not pretty like her other tattoos, rather a lumpen, cracked, faded bronze husk; he doodled it on the reverse of a nearby receipt. “That is the house of the last person who was pressured relentlessly to sell up, and that pub over there is apparently where Burns wrote Address to the Devil. Now, they can’t mess with the church, but all the rest of this will be gone and only certain kids will be permitted to freeze in the loch. We’re making our own address to the devil, to not turn this place into a grotesque playground for the ultrawealthy at the end of history...” She trails off for a second as she flashes another smile at someone out of frame and he smashes the space bar with performative force in his room, alone. He clicks on the tiny red heart in the corner and writes a message of support so thuddingly generic and insincere he forgets it as he types; he couldn’t find the loch on a map. As he vanishes the page with a click, there is an after image burned into his retinas,

one in which only her mouth was smiling, her eyes were in fact seized with fear, and a shadow of something he hadn’t noticed before drowned her.

Calendar reminder: Project proposal due in 7 days

Back in the crimson room, comforted and sullen, he luxuriates in the warmth of an ancient smile that never fades. She sits on the edge of the bed, gazing off to the side, perfectly centred in the frame amid that violent, overwhelming red.

II Silo says Aurora’s new Citadel is the final word in home security guaranteed to...

Silo says captured on camera: protestor Wallace Bryant suffocated by three...

Silo says ‘The Erased Woman’ nominated for record...

Silo says Rose Mercer claims explicit tape is the work of deepfake...

Silo says unpopular opinion: oviously Wallace Bryant didnt deserve to die but the police were in a tricky...

He stops the relentless rhythm of the scroll on a still frame of a house. Pristine and breathtakingly grand, with large arch windows, ornate stonework, and a roof pitch so sharp it appears as if it wants to break away and leave the house behind. The structure is perched on a hill, surrounded by verdant green and trees which seem to lurch towards it as if beckoned. To the right side, four large headstones sit uniform and perfectly spaced and, beyond them, a town below in which the only signs of life are tiny specks of light which may have swooned down from the starless dusk above. An indescribable sense of alien familiarity gnaws somewhere in his skull; it looks like a gingerbread house version of his childhood home, but it did not sit atop a hill, or overlook a cemetery. His fingers manoeuvre

to open the link. Days melt into nights with furious frequency; the sun begins to singe the greenest blades of grass before the last snowflake has finished its descent; one headstone sinks to the right as another sinks to the left and another seems to snap in half without cause; ivy ascends, and bricks fall; cranes below the hill appear and reappear just long enough to help taller buildings materialise. In a blink, the heavy wooden door disappears and for three or four seconds, which he presumes is maybe a decade within the time lapse, a darkened figure lurches in and out of the door frame more slowly than it takes the seasons to complete a full cycle. Becoming clearer on its final appearance in the doorway, an eyeless face smiles at him just before the video cuts to black. He attempts to click on the URL, but it is empty and there is no option to replay the clip. As he is about to navigate away, he notices almost illegible red writing strobe subliminally in the centre of the black screen.

Amber Ashton? He thinks that’s what it said. He opens a new tab and begins typing, A-M-B-, but his eyes dart to the top right of the screen with the chime of a sudden, sharp ping. All that is visible of her text is, Lux Hi, I need to talk to you. Can you p...

The flutter of happiness that arouses extinguished quickly when he reads the remaining, ‘Can you please send over the rest of the money you’re still owe me?’ ‘Sorry, slipped my mind, I’ll send it now’ he replies, then sends an additional ‘x’ with a wince. Closing the text box, he erases ‘AMB’ and logs into online banking.

III

He asks Silo, ‘does anyone recognise this bell, or have any idea what it could represent?’ and attaches a photo of his crude sketch.

He finishes typing ‘Amber Ashton’ into the search bar this time, but the instant he hits return, the tiny green light on his webcam flares up, followed by a blinding white flash that lingers behind his eyelids for a few seconds. Readjusting his focus, he first perceives the colours then the shapes on the screen. A photograph of him from a few seconds ago, his face turned away in blur and eyes scrunched closed, shrouded in a pale light fighting the darkness at the edges of the frame. There’s something in the light, a darker patch. Zooming in, its unmistakable, a figure darkening the light just over his right shoulder where the doorway should be. Forgetting to breathe, he reaches behind his laptop to the lamp and switches it on, blinding himself momentarily once more, and aims it behind himself. Still staring at the shape in the picture, he cannot bring himself to turn around, counting the thumps of his pulse. Bringing his trembling hand over to the keyboard, he turns on the webcam, revealing nothing behind him but the closed door.

Darting through the first three pages of search results for Amber Ashton and finding nothing and no one of note, he feels his eyes heavy, cursing his tiredness and cruel tricks of the light for his near heart-attack. He stands to walk the three feet to his unmade single bed, ripping a small piece of blu-tack off and placing it gently over the webcam lens on his way.

user-samuraidemon replies it could be the liberty bell in Philadelphia, shape is a bit off though. It represents, well, clue is in the name.

IV

Silo asks everyone, what is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you?

He remembered where the African blackwood cabinet used to be at the top of the stairs on the third floor, that his father just about threw his back out insisting that he and Uncle Max could manage to heave it down those tightly coiled stairs between them. He remembered that the photo albums had been removed from the top drawer and thrown, literally thrown, into a ragged old shoebox without being leafed through. He remembered the ghost of where the cabinet had been, where the wall had darkened, and the raise of the grey carpet had not been flattened and faded by trampling feet. Most of all, he remembered the door.

Even then, standing knee-high to a grasshopper as Uncle Max would say, he would have to duck to go through it. The doorway is a connection, a threshold, the door itself only a temporary measure to allow you to project the other side before you see it. What made his heart skip a beat and his lungs delay the exhale wasn’t the discovery of the door so much as the knowledge it had always been there. A door that never opened and a room that was never seen was like having a mouth that never spoke what the mind sent forth. He always thought he would like to live in a glass house, a world of open windows and perpetual day, but the darkness he knew lay at the other side of the door beckoned him all the same. He had known where the keys were; his father kept a huge ring of keys like the ones the warden would swing around his knuckles in an old prison movie. He hadn’t the faintest clue what half of those keys opened. He had heard his father down the stairs growling at Max to turn it this way and lift it that, with Max’s apology barely audible; in his father’s company, his uncle’s voice sounded like distant footsteps in the vast of night. Jenny was her own stampede, laughing at the men’s compromised show of strength and stubborn refusal to accept her help, she said she could have talked the cabinet downstairs by now. The keys weighed a million pounds and his blood whipped round his body so fast that he had to use both hands to fumble them in the vague direction of the lock. One slides in effortlessly as the pins and levers reposition themselves in cavernous, deafening clangs and scrapes, and his hand takes the full weight of the bolt’s rusty manoeuvres.

Silo says leaked video and images of Rose Mercer are 100% authentic.

The thumbnail cocoons her face only, eyes wide, tongue studded, and strawberry waves colliding with the edges of the frame.

I’ll send it now x Not delivered

The small yet incongruously cumbersome door dredged up lumps of carpet fibre and now that he was looking closely, he could see the indented curvature of repeated openings in the grey body. It had been opened since the cabinet had been placed in front of it. There were strange marks on the other side of the door, at one side there were four parallel scratches and at the other, only three. The keyhole on that side of the door had been filled with something like liquid metal with a distorted reflective sheen, so as not even pinpoint of light would steal in if it were closed. The darkness inside was all-consuming, as if even the unadorned bulb in the hallway’s emanation was prohibited from crossing this mysterious threshold. It was only when he saw, or rather did not see, the complete absence of light, that he considered foolish the starry nights and shape-filled bedrooms he had once called darkness. Glancing over the banister, his father and uncle had taken a silent, still break on the first-floor landing. He crept. He remembered that when he picked up his uncle’s packet of matches, he noticed there were only two cigarettes left even though he had a full pack that morning. Striking the match against the jagged wood of the door frame and forming a vanishing amber orb around himself, he took tentative steps inwards. Something toward the far wall caught his eye, an amorphous white mass no longer obliterated by absence, and his feet almost floated. The trance lifted by the searing, momentary pain in his fingertips, as the blackened, crooked matchstick cascaded to the floorboards, illuminating less and less until it was claimed by the void. He felt fully aware, perhaps for the first time in his life, of his surging blood as he became the room’s heartbeat.

Silo says Jack Wilder faces backlash over statements made in leaked voicemails comparing asylum seekers to flesh-eating bacteria. The thumbnail is an overcrowded dingy, a sea of faceless faces.

He remembered his stomach remaining in the secret room as his body plummeted through the soggy floorboards and arrived somewhere in the crawlspace with miraculously little pain. He remembered crying out only after realising he would never be able to clamber out.

The heartbeat of the whole house now, throbbing in frozen and immovable darkness so absolute he ceased to believe in anything outside of it. His rapid breathing and thunderous pulse were the only things reminding him he was still alive, just as they announced a sudden, tangible understanding that life can be snatched away. He imagined that this was death, something he had never been able to conceptualise prior, just darkness without end, absence as presence.

The next thing he remembers is his face wet and his throat hoarse. He could hear Uncle Max hitting something against the wall, saying “don’t worry, kiddo, can’t leave you in the wall, you’ll stink up the joint more than you normally do.” Jenny’s crying was loud, and his father’s silence was louder still. He could hear them perfectly, every word, but they couldn’t hear him. His throat felt lined with tree bark as he shrieked into nothingness; not shrieking for help, but so he knew he was still there, still in the house, still able to be helped. Shifting his weight uncomfortably in the two or three inches he had to manoeuvre, he felt a corner dig into and crumple against his thigh, and promptly plunged his hand frantically into his pocket for the forgotten matches. He detected there were two remaining but had been in such a hysterical rush for light, the first one splintered to shreds as he struck it, illuminating nothing but his hands for no more than a second. Hyperventilating as the darkness strobed with his heartbeat, he had steadied his hands as best he could and struck the final match firmly but cautiously as a crackling of amber sparks erupted and his pupils contracted so violently it felt as if his eyeballs were being wrested from within. As the matchstick continued its irrevocable decline, there was something, not six feet away from him, wrapped in a white sheet and bound in black electrical tape. He forgot to breathe and forgot to flinch when the blue flame choked against his fingertips. A jagged beam of light appeared to the other side of him as Uncle Max succeeded in breaking through the wall.

Silo says there is only one exercise you need to know for perfectly defined

abs. The thumbnail is a man’s glistening, fat-free torso.

Silo says acid-attack survivor speaks out for the first time following ex-husband’s lenient sentencing. The thumbnail is an ordinary man outside a courthouse in a nice suit. He is smiling.

user-theoneandonlybrendan4 replies the tsar bell? Famous for never being rung

That evening, Uncle Max had taken him to the pictures and out for ice cream. He forgets which film they saw but it was always the latest comedy. The best ice cream in the whole country was Vitti’s which was about an hour’s drive from the cinema and was famous for carrying one-hundred-and-thirty-six different flavours. He used to love these trips for movies and ice cream with his uncle but that night, in the neon-lit parlour, something inarticulable was communicated across the rickety aluminium table with their rapidly melting deserts. Max did not make his usual jokes, or talk about the movie, or tell him about the trouble his father would get him into when they were kids; his uncle’s mouth moved silently like the body wouldn’t let the words take flight, and his shoulders were hunched and crooked like he had his own unique and oppressive gravitational field. He usually slept on the drive home but that night he just pretended to and counted the headlights breaking the dusk. He didn’t like Jenny any more or any less than his father’s other friends over the years, but for some reason felt sadder knowing she would be gone when he got home. He stopped learning their names after that.

V

Neon hot pink cursive adorns the back wall, but the positioning of the webcam obscures the word; the rest of the room appears drowned in blacklight, like a crime scene. The icons and emojis littering the borders are violently animated but the centre holds still for a beat or two. Feeling the sweat secreting through his palms smear across the keyboard, he wipes both hands on his best shirt, unbuttoning the top button as he does so, then quickly

rethinking and putting it back the way it was. He ruffles his hair into the exact same position and flips the webcam to ‘on’.

He turns the webcam to ‘off’, without having to move his hand, and connects.

“Hi baby, I can’t see you,” the voice trembles, lagging the movement of her mouth by an infinitesimal fragment of time. Her accent is Scottish, though impossible to localise, with a faint but unmistakable Californian lilt. What Californians sound like on television at least.

“My webcam is bust, sorry.”

“Oh no, baby, you look so handsome in your profile pic. I’ll just need to imagine your eyes on me... and your hands,” she giggles with practised coyness, biting her lip. He struggled to recall what the young man in the stock photo he used for his profile looked like.

“You don’t have to do that, call me baby, or any of that stuff. I’m not like a lot of those other guys who come on here, I promise. I just wanna do the, eh, what I sent you if that’s ok with you. Did you get it?”

“Sure did, ba... I got it right here,” she says as she reaches somewhere beyond his view, drawing back a sheet of paper, heavy with his own words. There’s something in the physicality, in the crisp sound and definite edges, that causes his stomach to churn with anxiety. “I’ve never acted before,” she beams, flicking her copper blonde hair behind her and clearing her throat with theatrical vigour, “I’m usually just lil’ ol’ me.”

“Kind of a strange request I suppose. You never got asked to play a role?”

“Well, not with a script; I’ve had far stranger requests though.”

Staring directly into the dormant camera, like a peephole on a door through which you can only behold your own gaze, he says, “there’s just something broken, something fundamental missing, not in you, but in the spaces between us and in the silences.”

“Oh, uh, sorry, I thought I was reading that part,” she rapidly scans the paper, “how can there be anything missing from space? From silence?”

“That’s where it all happens. A touch can only ever be as good as the anticipation of touch; the space between skin and skin is not simply negative space. When our eyes would meet, I could see everything mapped out between us, like a million little stitches in some tapestry tracing our whole lives. Looking at you, I saw you for the first time again, and the last. Now, I don’t recognise your eyes, they don’t see into me anymore but only through me. They look like new eyes, and I just can’t find you anymore, I can’t find you across this distance between us.” He pauses, touching the texture free screen, “I miss what we had, and I miss the future desperately.”

“Maybe it’s your eyes that have changed; not that they look different but that they see different.” Looking up from the sheet of paper and placing it beneath his view, she gazes deeply into him and he into her. Her gaze fixed on that one-way peephole, fixed on flared glass twelve inches and a thousand miles away from him, space she will permeate with her own history. Love and loss he knows do not belong to him but he will voraciously consume anyway. “All I ever wanted was you. I longed to grow old together and leave something of us behind, something that said we were here and, if only for a moment, like a solitary bolt of lightning splitting an endless expanse of night, that we mattered. At least to each other.

We’re just another ruin now.”

Unknown you can’t get away from it, it goes...

He sits frozen, watching a single tear roll from her left eye, neglecting to wipe away the one rolling from his right and wishing he had turned on his camera. He opens his mouth to speak, but the words do not exist for him anymore, those same words he pored over and over and over.

Instinctually, she skips to the end, “I love you. I will always love you.”

“Can you try that line again?”

“I love you. I will always love you,” her eyes seeming to swell with every syllable.

Quieter this time, “and again.”

“I love you. I will always love you.”

A whisper, “again.”

“I love you. I will always love you.”

Moving his lips, the sting of salt so unfamiliar now, he says nothing.

“I love you, baby. I will always love you.” There’s a silence, comforting at first but eventually compelling him to avert his eyes from the screen and letting them settle on a photograph of happier times on his back wall, static and crystalised. He hears, “you can’t get away from it, it goes wherever you go.”

Snapping his eyes back to where the image is framed with pulsing emojis and a newly strobing dollar sign in the bottom right corner, he stutters, “wh-what did you say?”

“I said, you wanna get away from this? Do. Whatever. You. Want.” He clicks on the dollar sign and tips twenty-five pounds, and she drops the strap from her dress off her right shoulder slightly revealing the top of what looks like a birthmark, saying, “you wanna have some fun?”

“No, I mean yeah, but not...”

She extends her arm towards him, and in one nimble movement, swings her chair and her webcam off to the side, materialising a small piano next to her desk. “You wanna hear some music?”

Smiling an authentic smile, he briefly catches in the glare of the screen, he says, “acting and music? What other talents you hiding?”

“You can see me dance another day,” she smiles, and he wonders if it is authentic too.

“Music is just a hobby; I would have loved to be an actress though. Some people say I look like Rose Mercer you know?” She hits the first key and something instantly transportive happens as she tears recklessly yet gracefully through renditions of Mr. Brightside, Umbrella, Video Games, Ms. Jackson, Time to Pretend, and a dozen others, never lingering on one for any more than a few seconds longer than it takes him to recognise it. “I wrote that,” she chimes with another giggle.

Near the dollar symbol, there is a button that says, ‘delete account’. The stream of emojis, pop-ups, and transactions, the sight of which was suddenly sickening to him, inflamed his senses and he pressed.

The site offered him a free fourteen-day period in which he could change his mind about deleting the account. He agreed, knowing he would not use it.

VI

He forces his hands to do the thing he is supposed to be doing, knowing his brain will just have to catch up. Hitting play on the audiobook he had been trying to listen to for at least a week, he hovered his hand over the ‘x’ to close his other tabs but settled for minimising them.

“... from the majestic mountains and dense woodlands to the witches, faeries and changelings that dwell within...”

Silo says there is now an affordable, reliable way to test for micro-plastics in your bloodstream.

“... government policies eroding not only the language, but the proud mythology and folklore...”

Silo says eighteen children and three British aid workers die in drone strike just outside of...

“... oral tradition, something is irretrievably lost...”

Silo says ‘The Erased Woman’: Aurora respond to criticisms of show’s depiction of gendered violence, historical inaccuracies, and ‘aggressive’ viral-marketing techniques.

“... it courses through our veins; we can’t get away from it...”

Silo says ‘eco-terrorist’ attack sends shockwaves through Scottish lakeside community.

Pausing the dulcet tones of the extremely eager, and extremely Scottish, audiobook narrator, he opens the link.

Emergency services responded to reports of a fire at a construction site near St Fillans in Perthshire in the early hours of Friday morning.

Nearby roads have been closed and residents have been advised to keep their windows and doors closed as a precaution.

Tayside Police have commended the first responders for tackling the blaze quickly, and have confirmed that the fire was an act of arson, as captured by on-site security footage (see below).

Police have declined to speculate on the identity of the arsonists, but property developer Travis Cole has claimed it was “clearly an act of eco-terrorism.” The development has been targeted by protestors since its commencement.

Footage courtesy of Citadel Securities.

The night vision feels, paradoxically, as clear as day. Individual blades of green sway and glitch in the breeze, and beyond them the skeleton of a building not yet filled with places to

hide. A future ruin without history other than that which it takes from the soil without asking, and with expansive absences between the beams through which he can still see a facsimile of the night sky with its swirling pinpoints of light. Glancing out of his bedroom window, he finds the stars underwhelming.

Two figures cut across the screen, ghouls or apparitions breaking the night. The shape is human, but there is something strange and singular in their gait, something so minor it could never be articulated sufficiently through language even as it is so vividly absorbed by the eyes. Like photographs collapsed together in sequence to replicate motion. The camera zooms in slowly on the figures, too slowly, as if the lens is intent on creating atmosphere rather than identifying the individuals. The two figures now fill the frame, with their backs to the camera. The one to the left crouches down and twists and mangles something with a perverse delicacy and affixes it to a shape – perhaps a vehicle or other piece of large machinery - slightly in the foreground of the skeleton structure. The crouching shadow hands something to the standing shadow, as the latter weaves among the stars caged within the structure. The crouching shadow swings around, eyes obscured by darkness and the faintest flash of a smile; the grass glitches once more and the shadow’s clothing briefly falls from their right shoulder. He squints his eyes at a dark splodge on the exposed flesh for a split second before an incandescent spark from the machinery rapidly expands, rupturing the image and eradicating the swirl of stars.

Unknown Anyone can just disappear like she ...

VII

Zia holds her phone low, towering above him as he adjusts his posture towards the upper limit of the webcam frame. The motion of her body and the descending droplets of rain melt the streetlights into a jetstream of pale yellow above her. “--- dude, the --- fucking train was --- I’m not fo --- am --- bur --- ash --- tone --- making me na --- soaked to the bo ---,” come the scattered, staccato remnants of her voice. He thought about watching static on the television when he was a kid, or the bleeps and grinds of dial-up internet; there was

something comforting in the gnarled interference, the ghost in the signal that could still be heard and felt.

“You’re cutting out, dude, can’t hear ya.” He knocks up the volume as Zia fidgets with her earphones, “did you say Amber Ashton just then?”

“That better? Did I say what?”

“Yeah, I got you now. It’s.... don’t worry about it. How’s life? I feel like I haven’t seen you for aaaaaaaages.” As he prolongs the vowels in an insincere performance of levity, he perceives a stillness in her, only broken by the click-clack of her vape pen as she inhales, an acknowledgement of his artifice. He smiles and it fits like a death mask.

“Can’t complain, man. You?” Her voice echoes flatly as the giant plume of vapor denies him the ability to read her face.

Pushing his knuckles into his other palm, he says, “yeah, not bad.... not great. How’s your project coming along? Are you finished it yet?”

She shakes her head through another vanishing plume, “mmm, not even close to finished, it’s changed a lot since I last saw you, moving away from the folk-tale stuff a little bit, you know.” Her silence broken by his nodding head encouraging her to continue. “Basically, we got this recording of a cardinal grouse, the last cardinal grouse just a couple of days before she died, and they went extinct. It’s birdsong, but there’s these gaps in the audio where she’s waiting for another bird to call back to her, but it never happens obviously. She keeps singing and singing, and it gets more and more distant, and the silences get longer until that’s all that’s left. I kept listening, you know, turning up the volume, almost praying just one more note into existence.” Another plume breaks through the jetstream. “That was it though, the last song. There was something so haunting and beautiful about it you know, so I’m thinking of being in conversation with your history and what happens when one side of that conversation ceases to be. Reaching a point where there’s nothing left to be known but so much left to be understood.”

“Can I listen to it?”

“I can’t send you it yet, only six people in the world have actually heard it so far but, yeah, it’ll be getting shared soon for anyone who wants to listen.”

“Can’t you give me a sneak peak,” he laughs.

“It’s not mine to give.”

“Fair enough. I guess it must be nice to be one of the very few who’s heard it, to feel like it’s just for you. I don’t even know if I’d want to share it if I was you, honestly. It becomes less special, right? Like, it gets copied and reproduced and degraded, and it’s not the final song lost to time anymore, it’s just another thing people can listen to whenever they want but they won’t because they can. A crackle in the static; a raindrop in a thunderstorm.”

Unknown You can’t imagine what a dark place...

“Nah, it has to be for everyone, even if most people don’t care, even if it becomes less poignant, it has to be for everyone. It’s not just about feeling sad for what’s been lost, it’s about what can still be lost. If one in every thousand listens to it and thinks about that, it’s worth it.”

“I guess I’m extra sensitive right now to.... something being made for everyone,” his strangled laugh pinballing between their frames in scratchy echoes. He hesitates between words, “did you watch it, then?”

A notably deeper exhale as the vapor mist glides on the darkness, the stream of streetlights left behind somewhere. “Just the first episode. Sorry, if felt weird, Mica was at me to watch it, but that last scene – I never saw blood so red – this kid was sitting in it, and I never even made the connection until he looked up at the camera. I swear, the air left the room, his eyes.... he looked just like you.”

“They stole that shit from Dexter, I was never in a blood room. Like, surely a human body doesn’t produce that much blood” Sinking into his chair, looking up now at the screen, he rambles a few stray vowels before continuing, “I’ve had to change my number twice, just deleted my e-mail account completely, they still slip through though.”

“Oh shit, I didn’t know, what are people saying?”

“Depends. People telling me I’m brave; people telling me I’m scum; people telling me I knew; people telling me I couldn’t have known; people want to pay me for interviews; one person asked me out on a date. Mostly about her though,” half-heartedly doing air-quotes with one hand, “”the erased woman,” this one freak keeps getting my number, the second I change it, telling me that I can just disappear too, that she shouldn’t leave without a name. I replied at first, y’know, said I didn’t know her name, said I was sorry like I was talking to a relative or something.”

“That’s rough, dude. Do you remember her at all?”

Adjusting himself again to consume the frame, “I didn’t meet them all! She was a pile of bones! It’s not like they have a photo or anything, that’s the whole point!” Regulating his tone as he untensed his shoulders, he continued, “they showed me one of those, like, artist renderings, using the bone structure or whatever, but it looked like everyone. Like no one.

Dead eyes.” Barely whispering now, “if I knew, I’d tell.”

“Fuck ‘em, seriously. It’ll die away, it’s the thing everyone’s talking about today, but it’ll be something else tomorrow, and there’ll be another show about murdered women along by the end of the week,” she sighed without an accompanying mist, just the faintest wisp of breath crystalising in the cold night air. “It’s a, what did you say, a raindrop in a thunderstorm. Keep your head up, no sane person would hold this against you. You were nine.”

“I’m not anymore though, and he’s not around to take the hits. There were guys too.”

“Hm?”

“You said ‘murdered women’, there were men too. They just aren’t in the show.”

“Less men though, right? Like, a lot less.”

“Fewer. It doesn’t mean they don’t matter.”

“Never said they didn’t. If anything, whoever made it.... look, I’m just saying what sells and they’ll vomit out another one, prop up some more corpses for a week’s worth of online discourse and forget them by the next week. They’ll forget even the names they knew,” Zia intones, eyes flitting restlessly.

“Have you seen Lux?” he asks, catching even himself off guard with how abrupt and graceless it sounds, and catching a glimmer of recognition in the glass that Zia knew the rest of the conversation was grimly circuitous. “I mean, I think the show kinda put her on edge, just waiting for it to drop, I wonder if that’s why she...”

“She never cared about it, no one thinks you’re him. You know that’s not why she left.

C’mon, man,” Zia interjected, engulfed by the night now, with the tiny, amber light of the vape pen illuminating the lower half of her face only. “I haven’t seen her for a few weeks though, month maybe, seems like she’s doing good. She’s out at the loch a lot I think.”

You know that’s not why she left c’mon man looped through his head. “Did you see that video? The explosion?”

“Yeah, stupid bastards could have set the whole place on fire. Turn everyone against the right thing, it’s that easy,” Zia snaps her fingers without pausing for emphasis, “and for what? Bring more police down? Wreck a few bits of equipment worth a few grand? That’s like someone coming to my house and burning the money down the side of my couch,” another burst of mist, “and the money in my couch was insured.”

“It looked like her, right? In the video?”

“Lux?? Nah, she wouldn’t do that. Didn’t look like anyone to me; looked like ghosts.”

“I swear I could see that new tattoo she has.”

“You must have better resolution than me, I can’t make out a face let alone a tattoo.”

“Do you know what that tattoo is?”

“I thought you were the Perth history guy. Pretty sure it’s the Bernane.”

He works hard to only move his right hand slowly around the keyboard, drawing out the words he murmurs, “sorry you cut out there, what did you say?” An image search returns countless photographs of an American politician named Ben Berkane and nothing more.

“The Bernane. The St. Fillans bell. I can’t be sure, but that’s what it looks like and she’s out that way, so...”

Deciding that’s too much to type through silence, he says, “eh, it rings a bell,” with one side of his mouth smiling, “what is it?”

“I don’t remember the full deal with it, but back then they thought it could cure madness, so you’d get strapped down and have this huge bell put on your head and if you were free in the morning you were cured. The English tried to steal it once, but it had, uh, magical powers I guess, would always find its way back home, and when it was flying away, they shot it with a bow and arrow.” The vape pen crackles as she inhales, mist flying out with her words jumbled inside, “that’s why it’s got that scar, that crack, ‘cause of the arrow.”

“I hope she’s doing ok. Getting a tattoo of something that’s meant to cure madness is, I dunno, I mean, you know she was having those difficulties with her mental health.”

The amber orb that had been cradling her mouth and nose sentenced to death with a click, and the dissipating layer of mist rides the night wind beyond the frame, leaving the glass mottled with dim shards of light. The specks of light fill the screen, everywhere but where Zia is, or was; a human-shaped absence swallowed by the cosmos. “I know you told me she was,” came the voice, in echoes and waves and pulses.

VIII

He missed the beginning of old camcorder home movies. The crackle and distortion orienting you to the inherent pastness of the footage, like a clear dividing line between then and now. Hitting play on the still image of her, there is no grain or hiss, he is transported too cleanly into his better world. As the video begins, he is already half-way through rambling, “... six-point-two K at thirty frames per second, this is the X-mount lens, which is what professionals use.” Still admiring the newly decorated bedroom with her back to the camera, she says, “mm-hm, mm-hm, I don’t believe for a second you know what any of that stuff means.” “Maybe so, but you look more real through this than you do in real life. I might just strap this to my face, so I never have to look at the real world again, honestly.”

“Plus, the rest of the world wouldn’t have to look at your face, so it’s a real win-win,” she laughs, with those old eyes and a smile that still melts him. “Actually, it is pretty cool, let me see it,” she says, leaning her face in so close the entire room is drowned out. “Ok, just be careful with the...” he begins as her outstretched tongue attacks the screen, followed by a laugh at once playful and maniacal. He struggles to suppress his own laugh, letting it sneak out between the words, “you are the worst person on the planet,” followed by strobes of light and darkness rippling across the screen as he cleans her saliva off the lens with his tshirt. “Sorry, that was mean,” a beat, a laugh, and she lurches at the screen again, but he whips the camera round out of her reach. The screen just holds a corner of the newly painted room now, a loud but somehow calming magenta she had chosen. A collapse of laughter and a deafening “I’ll punch you and it’ll be your own fault, do not tickle me. Truce!

Truce! I’m sorry I licked your precious little camera!” More laughter and unintelligible whispering. He asks, “you love me, huh?” “Meh, you’ll do... don’t you dare!” More laughter

at nothing, a comfort he had forgotten. “Of course I love you, always will.” He reaches for the backward looping arrow, curving towards itself, “of course I love you always will of course I love you always will of course I love you always will of course I love you always course I love you always will.” Ceasing the tap, a few seconds of simply the vague sounds of movement, as an item of clothing hurtles towards the screen, knocking the camera round, now filming its own shadow against the wall, and turning the magenta a deep, dark crimson.

He stares at the red screen until it envelopes him, dropping his hands to his sides he allows himself to stare, carried ceaselessly forward from the moment happening in front of him.

“I just... it’s not over, we can’t be ruined like this,” he murmurs, shell-shocked in the corner.

From the bed, which may as well be in another room, another house, another life, she says, “I don’t see any kind of future anymore, don’t see what we can possibly build. There’s something fundamental missing between us, just this gaping void that grew so slowly that I didn’t realise it was consuming everything of us. Everything of me, of you, of what’s been, and of whatever we used to believe was going to be. It’s like you want to disappear into me, like you want to be a part rather than your own person. There’s an anger in you sometimes and I can’t erase that for you, that’s not my responsibility.”

“Anyone can disappear.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she exasperatedly spits out. He sits in the anger for a few seconds too long, and she says, “I think you should go.”

“We have something together.”

“We did. We don’t anymore.”

“You can’t get away from it, it goes wherever you go.”

“Watch me. I preserve what’s worth preserving, and if you keep speaking in enigmatic, unhinged, bullshit threats like that, you won’t be,” she said, ushering him impatiently and nervously towards the front door.

“All I ever wanted was you, you can’t imagine what a dark place this is putting me in.”

“I’m sorry, that isn’t my problem,” she says, as he takes a few steps out the door into the pouring rain. “Look, we can talk soon, once you’ve... collected your thoughts, but maybe not for a while.”

He turns back to face her, already soaked to the bone as a crack of thunder echoes overhead and within; holding his hand out in the deluge, he watches the raindrops explode and vanish on his palm. “I know how to find you any time I want.”

The hurt in her eyes melts into resolve in an instant and he knew he’d never see her old eyes again. Watching her framed in the doorway, the light behind her appears to recede as the door closes on him and he knew he’d never see the other side of the door or her old eyes again.

The end of the video is signalled only when the audio drops out, the shot still fixed on that crimson stretch of wall. He clicks onto the next one, this time with the whole room in frame, but after ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, nothing moves or makes a sound, and it keeps playing silence and space no matter how long he watches it. Leaning in, strangely transfixed by nothingness, he finds himself within the frame, faded and duplicated, surrounded by the relics of his past and the ephemera of a moment in time granted eternal half-life by the permanence of the captured image. He stays there, in the red room, as his immediate surroundings are absorbed into it in fragments and somewhere in the blur, there is a shape, a figure. Standing in front of him by the bed or standing behind him in the doorway.

“Hello?”

Framing Essay

When I first conceived of this piece, I had two strong notions of the direction I wanted to take. I wished to expand upon the themes of erasure and preservation present in my thirdyear project, ‘The ‘Witch’ and the Boatman’, and explore how a community, city or nation’s cultural identity was forged in vanishing myths and traditions, and I wanted to examine how individuals interact with their histories and how the means with which they interact with these histories affects their perception and experience.

From these rather amorphous beginnings, I began to consider how we confront these considerations when they become inextricably entwined with and eclipsed by other aspects of our identity, including personal traumas, interpersonal connections, looming existential threats, and trivial distractions. How does one hold on to the past when, as Mark Fisher writes, “culture has lost the ability to grasp and articulate the present”?1 How can one still properly experience the authentic culture of one’s own corner of the world when the broader culture feels increasingly globalized and homogenized? Why does this increased connectivity leave so many feeling a sense of alienation or atomization? At what point does attempting to propel the past into the future become self-serving or self-defeating? How can one achieve a strong sense of cultural, national, or local identity if one’s sense of self is under threat, either from within or from external forces? These were some of the questions rattling around my brain when I set out to write this piece, questions which, for longer than I would care to admit, felt untethered from any kind of overarching narrative structure.

Ripping through novels, literary theory, journals, films, podcasts, news stories and YouTube videos, the ebb and flow of inspiration and distraction pulling me up to moments of epiphany and dragging me down to dead-ends. I had ventured out to find culture – visiting museums and theatres, and making a trip to Kenmore, the village which formed a loose basis for the ‘eco-terrorism’ subplot – but mostly I was absorbed in the glow of the screen, imbibing information on my own culture through sixteen inches of glass. I realised I had my protagonist. A nameless young man, less a fully formed person than a collection of frayed nerves, fried dopamine receptors and self-serving pursuits, a man for whom cultural

1

Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, (Hampshire: Zero Books, 2014), p. 9

engagement seems to come a distant fourth to the ghosts of his past, the instant gratification of his present, and his inability to construct a future. Through this character, and those who exist in his orbit, I wanted to explore erasure and loss as it is experienced by various individuals, communities, nations and beyond, as if reflected infinitely through some grotesque funhouse mirror.

This character is not so much intended as a direct representation of how culture is experienced in the modern age, but as an exaggeration of a terminally online world, one which encourages self-othering, paranoia, solipsism, artifice and disconnection, and the ripple effects of that world colliding with tangible, objective reality. The challenge of this piece lay in the tacit appeal to my reader to be invested in the life of a static, problematic character, one who has very little agency beyond wallowing in his past, restructuring his own narrative, and occasionally trying to track down his ex-girlfriend, who may or may not have been ensnared in a conspiracy and subsequently vanished. One of the aims of this piece is, in the absence of much direct access to his emotional terrain, to reveal character through action (and inaction). Through the third person limited omniscient narration, there are occasional insights into how he feels, but I primarily wanted to allude to his emotional state in bodily terms, his hands, stomach, or eyes often physically manifesting emotional depths he has distanced himself from. Additionally, I placed a lot of emphasis on sight to reflect his voyeuristic tendencies, to reflect his anxieties regarding how and when he is perceived, to explore the flaws in subjective experience, and to capture the blurring of reality and fiction which arises both from that flawed subjectivity and the easily manipulated means through which he experiences the world.

As I wrote, the Gothic began to announce itself more and more assertively as the decaying mansion which would shelter these ideas. A guilt-ridden protagonist, a ‘damsel in distress’, haunted spaces, the uncanny, the monster inside, dark reflections, bodies in the walls, an unsolved mystery, waking nightmares and a pervasive sense of dread are all present in this story of a culture eating away at itself, and refracted through modern technology. While discussing the chain of tradition and the impermanence of history as it makes way for the future in his philosophical text, Against Pure Reason, Johann Gottfried Herder writes, “it is a dreadful prospect to behold nothing in the earth’s revolutions except ruins upon ruins,

eternal beginnings without end, radical changes of fate without an enduring purpose,”2 and I wanted to capture the acceleration of that process in the modern age. On one hand, the story is dealing with what Lux refers to as “the end of history” in the opening chapter, a time when much of tradition and culture is being erased to make way for a bland, homogenized landscape. This can be more directly applied to the Scottish gothic traditions this piece is operating within when considering David Punter’s assertion that Scotland’s ruins, “point us toward the “uncanny,” in that they speak always of history, but of a history that is constantly under the threat of erasure. They speak of history not as a living presence nor yet as an irrevocable absence, but as inevitably involved in specific modes of ghostly persistence.”3 The protagonist experiences this only through the glare of the screen. When he watches the video of the protest, he is witnessing the fight to preserve traditions, but ones which are already in the process of being erased. Later, when he watches the arson video, viewing the in-progress real-estate development as just a skeletal structure, a ruin of the future built upon pre-existing history. In both instances, he finds something spectral and uncanny within the frame; a dissonance created between these eternal documents and the things which they document already feeling consigned to the past. The third video he watches – the time lapse of a Gothic home like the one he grew up in – depicts something more explicitly supernatural and unexplainable, later hinted at as merely being a viralmarketing commercial for a television show based on the serial murders committed by the protagonist’s father. There is a juxtaposition between the protestor’s potentially futile efforts to preserve an authentic piece of history in the face of extreme wealth and the artificially uncanny recreation of the past for lucrative violent entertainment.

Discussing the escape to the countryside at the end of Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, Maximillian E. Novak notes, “the excitement of the conclusion is generated by the continuation of past institutions of pain and torture into a period proud of its enlightenment,”4 which is echoed in Zia’s assertion that the media landscape is still saturated with depictions of violence against women in our current enlightened times. The protagonist is shown to have some unhealthy attitudes towards women throughout, from

2 Johann Gottfried Herder, Against Pure Reason: Writings on Religion, Language, and History, (Ausberg: Fortress Press, 1993), p.54 3 David Punter, ‘Scottish and Irish Gothic’, in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, ed. by Jerrold E. Hogle, (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2002), pp. 105 – 123, (p. 105) 4 Maximillian E. Novak, ‘Gothic Fiction and the Grotesque’, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 13, 1, (1979), pp. 50-67, (p. 55)

the barely suppressed confrontational, condescending tone he takes with Zia, to his obsession with tracking Lux’s movements, and the failed attempt to possibly gaslight the latter with the former. In the case of Lux, he is infatuated not so much with her as a person but with the way she looked at him before they separated. Reflected in the way the television show captures the past for not entirely good reasons, the protagonist wants to keep Lux in a kind of stasis in the red room, an allusion to Jane Eyre, but with modern technology utilised to keep her in the room in a less literal sense. The real-estate development and the television show represent people’s real histories being replaced with commodities, and this is mirrored in the protagonist transitioning from a messy human relationship to a transactional one with the webcam model in which he can maintain the illusion of being in control. In chapter five, he takes the opportunity to impose his own interpretation on the splintering of his relationship, while also being looked at in the way he desires yet, ironically, remaining completely unseen.

Fred Botting writes, “the Gothic heroine, passive and persecuted, is presented as an image of loss and suffering, especially when seen through the eyes of that new Victorian hero, the amateur detective,”5 and the protagonist would like to think of Lux as damsel in distress and himself as hero. However, I kept it ambiguous whether she was in any danger – raising the possibility she is being framed for a crime using deepfake technology while also tempering that possibility through Zia – and he almost completely ineffectual in his sleuthing if she is. I wanted to create a tension within his motivations, having him attempt unearned redemption for his treatment of Lux while also, perhaps understandably, being legitimately frightened of people in his life disappearing. I tried to create echoes of another Gothic tradition, the sins of the father being visited upon the son, through the protagonist’s distress at his father’s crimes and his fears he has inherited his darkness. I thought of the destruction of Manfred’s family in The Castle of Otranto and the creature’s abandonment by his father/creator in Frankenstein. I also considered other amateur detectives in the work of paranoid, post-modern American fiction of the 1960s and 1970s when writing the protagonist’s determination to decipher various clues leading him down rabbit holes. The line, “at some point she went into the bathroom, tried to find her image in the mirror and

5

Fred Botting, Gothic, (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 131

couldn’t,”6 from Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, is directly referenced, with the mirror replaced by a computer screen as the source of self-othering. The decision to include connective tissue between the Gothic and the postmodern was to show that, as Christopher Palmer writes of Philip K. Dick’s work, “the individual’s illness consists in the fact that he takes upon himself the condition of society as a whole.”7 The protagonist is constantly absorbing the horrors of the world as an endless stream of information devoid of context or feeling. However, I did not want to absolve the protagonist of any complicity in this societal condition, such as in the moment of dramatic irony in which he keeps his webcam model account while claiming no intention to use it. In this moment, I wanted to circle back to the notion of a Gothic ‘hero’ as architect of their own downfall, such as when Victor is shown cleaning his utensils, “the sight of which was sickening”8 to him mere moments before in Frankenstein, or when Dr Jekyll mentions that Hyde’s clothes “still lay ready in my cabinet.”9 Through hyper-modern means, the protagonist enters, what Punter calls, “a world of the ancient, of indecipherable signs from the past, of something which once might have been understood but whose meaning now eludes us,”10 echoed in Zia’s fears of a vanishing history, of a world where there is “nothing left to be known but so much left to be understood.” I made a conscious decision not to engage with literature focusing on modern technology, as I wanted the protagonist to feel lost in a labyrinth with only a basic understanding of the forces that stir his fears. The inspiration for the sections in which reality appears to distort in some way was largely found in the aesthetics of cinema, most notably Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse.

My initial intention was for this piece was as a short story comprised of interconnected vignettes, a kind of mosaic of digital alienation and how history and culture filters through it.

In the writing process, it became more focused on the protagonist as a consistent throughline, and I began to amass enough material for a longer piece. I hope this still functions as a compelling short story, but it is worth noting I excised several sections for length, including more interactions between the protagonist and Lux earlier in the story,

6 Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, (Dublin: Penguin Random House, 2022), p. 27 7

Christopher Palmer, Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), p. 39

8 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, (London: Penguin Group, 2003), p. 175 9 Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, (London: HarperCollins, 2019), p. 77 10 David Punter, ‘The Uncanny’ in The Routledge Companion to Gothic, ed. by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy, (New York:

Routledge, 2007), pp. 129-136, (p. 129)

more fleshed-out character development for Jenny and Max, and more material regarding the unseen ‘character’, Amber Ashton. The first two sections were removed as I felt the flow, structure and atmosphere were not compromised by their absence, and the latter was - with some pain – removed to keep the mystery more ambiguous.

Bibliography

Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, (London: Penguin, 2008) Botting, Fred, Gothic, (London: Routledge, 2002) Brontë, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, (London: William Collins, 2021) Carter, Angela, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, (London: Vintage, 1995) Derrida, Jacques, Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International, (London: Routledge, 2006) Dick, Philip K., A Scanner Darkly, (London: Gollancz, 1999) Donoho, Emily, ‘The Madman amongst the Ruins: The Oral History and Folklore of Traditional Insanity Cures in the Scottish Highlands’, Folklore, 125, 1, (2014), pp. 22-39 Fisher, Mark, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, (Hampshire: Zero Books, 2014) Fisher, Mark, The Weird and The Eerie, (London: Repeater, 2016) Gibb, Lindsey and C.A. Hope, Perthshire Folk Tales, (Gloustershire: The History Press, 2018) Heiland, Donna, Gothic & Gender: An Introduction, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004) Herder, Johann Gottfried, Against Pure Reason: Writings on Religion, Language, and History, (Augsburg: Fortress Press, 1993) Kafka, Franz, The Trial, (London: Penguin Random House, 2019) Lovecraft, H.P., The Lurking Fear, (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 2013) Makinen, Merja, ‘Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” and the Decolonization of Feminine Sexuality’, Feminist Review, 42, (1992), pp. 2-15 Novak, Maximillian E., ‘Gothic Fiction and the Grotesque’, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 13, 1, (1979), pp. 50-67 Livingston, Eve, ‘It’s all for the rich’: anger in Scotland over huge lochside gated community’, The Guardian, 16 July 2023 Palmer, Christopher, Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003)

Poe, Edgar Allan, The Fall of The House of Usher and Other Writings, (London: Penguin, 2003) Punter, David, ‘Scottish and Irish Gothic, in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, ed.

by Jerrold E. Hogle, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 105 – 223 Punter, David, ‘The Uncanny’ in The Routledge Companion to Gothic, ed. by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy, (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 129-136 Pynchon, Thomas, The Bleeding Edge, (London: Vintage, 2014) Pynchon, Thomas, The Crying of Lot 49, (Dublin: Penguin Random House, 2022) Radcliffe, Ann, The Italian, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, (London: Penguin Group, 2003) Stevenson, Robert Louis, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, (London: HarperCollins, 2019) Walpole, Horace, The Castle of Otranto, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) Wright, Angela, ‘Scottish Gothic’, in The Routledge Companion to Gothic, ed. by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy, (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 73-82

Filmography

Cam, dir. by Daniel Goldhaber, (Netflix, 2018) [Motion Picture] Demonlover, dir. by Olivier Assayas, (SND Films, 2002) [Motion Picture] The Empty Man, dir. by David Prior, (20th Century Fox, 2020) [Motion Picture] Pulse, dir. by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, (Toho, 2001) [Motion Picture] Under the Silver Lake, dir. by David Robert Mitchell, (A24, 2018) [Motion Picture] We’re All Going to The World’s Fair, dir. by Jane Schoenbrun, (Utopia, 2021) [Motion Picture]

The Wizard and the Devil on Kirkcaldy Beach

By Abby Grubb

Figure 1 (above): Balwearie Tower

Figure 3 (above): Pathhead Sands

Figure 2 (above): Ravenscraig Castle

Figure 4 (above): Ravenscraig Castle.

“The wife of a rich man fell sick, and as she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, ‘Dear child, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect thee, and I will look down on thee from Heaven and be near thee.’ Thereupon she closed her eyes and departed.”1

“Good heavens, don’t bore the poor mites with that claptrap!”

The narrator looks up from the book in his hands. A man is standing nearby, observing him and his young charges with interest. He is a finely-dressed gentleman who looks to be in his thirties.

“Do you not approve of Children’s and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm, Sir?”

“There are no morals to the stories. What use are they to intellectual teaching men such as yourself?”

“This is an excursion, a break from our regular schedule. They like to hear such frivolous tales of whimsy.”

“Frivolous is certainly the correct word for the book you’re holding.”

“What do you suggest I read to them while they are eating their lunch?”

The man surveys the group of children who are sitting cross-legged in a circle around their professor.

“Have any of you heard about the fairy-tale which occurred on this very beach that we’re on?”

The children all shake their heads and look to their professor to see if he has heard of the tale.

1 Brothers Grimm, Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2012),

p. 74.

“What fairy-tale might that be, Sir?” The man strides to the centre of the circle so that he is standing beside the professor.

“It’s called The Wizard and the Devil on Kirkcaldy Beach. Don’t tell me that locals such as yourselves are unaware of this tale?”

Again, the children fervently shake their heads. The professor looks curiously at the gentleman.

“I am afraid that we are unaware of such a tale, my good fellow.”

“Good heavens. I am a foreigner to these shores, and even I have heard the tale overseas.”

“Where are you from exactly? That accent is difficult to place.”

“That is of no importance. Would you like to hear this local fairytale, or would you prefer for your professor here to continue reading Cinderella?”

The children all start to speak at once and it is impossible to tell what they are saying.

“One at a time, please.”

The smallest boy in the group speaks. “We’ve heard Cinderella a million times before, Sir. We want to hear this fairytale especially since it happened on this beach.”

“Are you all in agreement with Theodore, children?”

A chorus of yes and nods.

“Very well. Then I shall let this gentleman be the narrator of this fairytale since he seems to know it so well.”

“I’m glad to hear it. If you’re all sitting comfortably, shall I begin?”

“Before you do, may I know your name, my good Sir?”

The man shakes his head. “Later, perhaps, Sir. For now, I shall regale your curious young charges with a tale of wonder and amazement.”

Once upon a time, there was a renowned powerful wizard who lived in Scotland. He was known by the locals as the Wizard of the North. His name was Michael Scott and he lived in Balwearie Tower. He was both revered and feared by his neighbours.

He accomplished many incredible and seemingly impossible feats during his lifetime.

These feats amazed and terrified the townsfolk in equal measure. He was an alchemist, an astronomer, a man of medicine, a scientist, a seer, and a sorcerer. In the eyes of the locals, he was a wizard and he wielded supernatural dark magic.

After his training in Oxford, he studied mathematics in Paris. He was nicknamed Michael Mathematicus or Michael the Mathematician. He had a student called Leonardo Bonacci (better known as Fibonacci) in Padua during his time travelling around the world. Fibonacci authored Liber Abaci or Book of the Abacus. The book included a famous series of numbers. This book was dedicated to the wizard. This would later be known as the Fibonacci Sequence where each number is the sum of the two previous numbers.

Sir Water Scott was fascinated by the wizard and tried to make him famous many centuries after his death. He even claimed to be a descendant of the great wizard himself, but these claims could never be proved. He wrote about him in his poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel in 1805. When the hero of Scott’s poem requires magic, a kind monk leads him to the wizard’s tomb in Melrose Abbey, where his preserved body still clutched his Book of Might. Scott spread the belief that the statue of a turbaned figure at Melrose Abbey was the wizard.

He cleaved the Eildon Hills into three. He flew off on his black steed to Paris and back in a single night. He locked the plague in a vault of Glenluce Castle. He witnessed the transformation of copper into silver. He turned a coven of witches to stone. He used his staff to change the course of the river Tweed. He foresaw that he would die after being struck on the head by a rock. He wore an iron helmet, but one day he took it off entering a church, and a stone fell and struck his head, killing him.

This tale isn’t about those feats. This tale is about how he summoned the Devil and made a deal with him. The wizard challenged the Devil to achieve an impossible

feat, to weave the sands of Kirkcaldy Beach together. If he failed, the Devil had to admit that the wizard was the most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist of his time. If the Devil was successful, the wizard’s soul would be promised to the Devil upon his demise, and he would be damned to the pits of Hell for eternity. The stakes were high on a dark winter’s evening.

A storm is brewing in the quiet town of Kirkcaldy. The wizard has insomnia and is talking to his wife in Balwearie tower.

The wizard glides over, his robes billowing out behind him like a flag. “My dearest wife, this is my chance to show the world how truly powerful I am.”

His wife sighs. He is the reason why she is scrubbing his clothes at this hour. “You have already shown the entire town how powerful your magic is, dear. Why do you insist on proving yourself to the world?”

The wizard waves his arms dramatically. “The world needs to know how great I am. I want to be remembered centuries from now as the most powerful sorcerer of my time.”

His wife pauses, putting down her scrub brush. “Michael, how can you think so far ahead? You should be concerned about the present, not of the future which we will never live to see. Before you do something dangerous, please think about me and your children, our family.”

“Our family can wait. If I want to be remembered, I must do something so incredible that I will be remembered! Something so powerful that no mortal man has ever done before.”

His wife continues her task, she is accustomed to her husband’s ego. “What might that be?”

“I will summon the Devil on the beach!”

His wife shakes her head in disbelief. “What has possessed you to think of such a foolish thing? You never mess with evil forces. It is not something to be trifled with and it is dangerous. You could get yourself hurt or killed.”

The wizard grabs her scrub brush with a manic grin. “Exactly! No mortal would ever dare summon Satan because they are afraid of the consequences.”

His wife sighs fed up. “Why are you summoning the Devil?”

The wizard strokes his long white beard, deep in thought. “I will… challenge him to a duel!”

His wife grabs the scrub brush back and resumes her task, violently scrubbing her husband’s robes. “Not even a sorcerer as powerful as you claim to be could defeat the Devil himself in a duel, dear.”

The wizard tuts. “You doubt my immense power. I could easily win in a duel with Satan.”

His wife looks up at his doubtful face. “No, that will not do. If you are serious about summoning him, then you must do something more creative and cleverer than challenging him to a duel. Something that no mortal man has ever done before, remember?”

The wizard leaves her to her task and flounces to the centre of the room. “I have it! I will challenge him to complete an impossible task that not even he can achieve.”

His wife smiles. “Yes, it must be something truly impossible. Think long and hard before you decide on it.”

The wizard ignores her remark. “I will challenge him to weave the sands of the beach together. Not even Satan himself can do that. It is impossible! I will make a deal, so he has to agree.”

His wife pauses and sighs. “You are a fool, but if you insist.”

The wizard has concocted a fool-proof plan. He is going to summon the Devil and propose a deal to him. If the devil can weave the sands of the beach together, then the wizard’s soul will be promised to the devil when he dies. However, if the Devil fails, he will have to admit that the wizard is the most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist of his time. The wizard is confident that he is going to outsmart the Devil with his cunning plan. Nobody can complete this impossible feat. Not even a sorcerer as powerful as himself could.

The wizard’s wife has reluctantly helped him gather the necessary materials required for the summoning ritual. The candles, the ritualistic dagger, the incense, the blindfold, and her husband’s ceremonial robes.

The wizard smiles, pleased with his wife’s efforts. “Do you also have the chalk for the pentagram, dear?”

His wife nods and hands it to him with a doubtful look.

The wizard rubs his hands together. “This will ensure that I am remembered for a long time to come. Stand back and don’t interrupt the ritual.”

His wife sighs. “I hope you know what you are doing, Michael.”

The wizard ignores her and starts chanting, “Gloria autem Satanas in actum. Gloria autem Satanas in sopore iacent. Oceanum est anima mea. Cor meum flamma infernalis. Ignis in aqua ut una gloria. Evocatio Satanae.”2

He begins to light the incense sticks and carefully places them all around the space they have cleared in the centre of the tower.

His wife is anxiously watching him from the far corner of the room, and he feels her eyes on him as he starts to draw the blood red pentagram on the floor. Satisfied with the pentagram, he draws the magical circle around it and steps back to admire his handiwork.

The wizard mutters to himself, “Not too bad.”

He proceeds to light the candles and places them around the pentagram. It is important that they are in the correct positions, or the consequences would be fatal.

The wizard stands in the centre of the pentagram. He takes the ritualistic dagger and starts focusing his energy on each point.

2 Translated from Latin, “But glory to Satan in action. But the glory of Satan lies in

slumber. The ocean is my soul. My heart is an infernal flame. Fire in water as one glory. Evocation of Satan.”

The wizard takes a deep breath with each point. “Satanas ab occidente... Satanam aquilone tellus... Satanas orientis... Satanas a meridie... Satanas de internus regiones...”3

The wizard can feel his magical energy charging the pentagram. He blindfolds himself and sits in the middle of the pentagram. The energy around him is building up inside the circle. He can feel the crackling energy encircling and dancing around him.

The wizard chants, “Iam non sum in lumine...”4

He repeats this chant over and over again.

The energy is growing stronger and stronger around him. Until at long last, an unnatural red light appears, and a deep voice echoes around the tower. “Who dares summon me to this Earthly plane?”

The wizard exclaims, “I, Michael Scott of Balwearie summon thee to make a deal with you, mighty Satan!”

The energy in the pentagram is steadily growing even stronger. It is slowly engulfing the wizard, and he can feel a blistering heat pumping through the blood in his veins.

The Devil manifests himself and the energy in the pentagram immediately decreases to a steady thrum. The wizard’s blindfold flutters to the floor, and he is staring up into the Devil’s dark pupils. Towering over the wizard, the Devil is a monstrous sight to behold. He is taller than the highest mountain. He is covered from head to toe in black, bristly fur. Wickedly sharp horns on his head, cloven hooves like a goat and a long-forked tail. Enough to scare the wits out of any mortal, but not the wizard.

The Devil demands, “How dare you speak to me in such a manner, insolent, puny human!”

3 Translated from Latin, “Satan from the west... Satan from the north... Satan from

the east... Satan from the south… Satan from the inner regions...”

4 Translated from Latin, “I am no longer in the light…”

The wizard is calm as he replies, “I am no weak human, Lucifer. I am a powerful wizard of great renown.”

The Devil grunts. “Did you say wizard? I have never heard of you, Michael Scott of Balwearie.”

The wizard scowls. “Perhaps you might know me as the Wizard of the North or the Scottish Wizard. I am the greatest sorcerer of this century and this part of the world.”

The Devil smirks. “I have been summoned by the almighty wizard who cleaved the Eildon Hills. I do apologise for the disrespect, oh great sorcerer.”

The wizard sighs, not picking up on the sarcasm. “My reputation proceeds me, it would seem. I suppose that is to be expected of such a strong and powerful sorcerer such as myself.”

The Devil tuts. “Vanity is a deadly sin.”

The wizard ignores the remark. “Silence, Nickie-Ben!5 I summoned you here to make a deal with you.”

The Devil’s interest has been caught. He sneers. “You wish to make a deal with me, sorcerer. What are the terms of this deal?”

The wizard states, “I challenge you to weave the sands of the beach together. If you succeed, I promise my soul to you upon my demise, and I will be damned for all eternity. If you fail, you have to admit defeat to me and declare me to be the most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist of my time.”

The Devil quietly asks, “If I can achieve this impossible feat, your soul will be mine…

Is that correct, sorcerer?”

The wizard nods. “That is correct. If you fail, you have to admit that I bested you with my cunning and that I am the greatest sorcerer to ever live.”

5 Nickie-Ben is a variation on the nickname old Nick and is another name for the

Devil.

The Devil snorts derisively. “I believe the exact phrase was the most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist of your time. Was it not?”

The wizard says, “Yes, that is correct. Do you accept these terms?”

The Devil grins showing sharp and pointed teeth. “I agree to your terms, sorcerer.

We seal the deal with your blood. Understood?”

The wizard cuts open his palm. He places it in the Devil’s hoof, and they shake on the deal.

The wizard pulls his hand away. Instead of a wound, there is a peculiar red sigil engraved into his palm.

The wizard, his wife and the Devil leave Balwearie tower. The wizard and his wife mount his steed. The Devil shapeshifts into a monstrous-looking midnight black stallion that has eyes like a bottomless abyss and cloven hooves that match his own.

They set out, the Devil in the lead and the wizard and his wife following closely behind him. They will be travelling over farmland to get to the beach.

As they begin their journey, the wizard’s wife asks, “Will this plan of yours work?”

The wizard reassures her, “Trust me, dear. No mortal, angel or demon can manage to weave sand together. It is impossible. He will be forced to admit defeat and I will be declared the most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist of our time. It is as simple as that.”

His wife replies, “He is the Devil, Michael. He can cheat to beat us. He will do anything and everything in his power to ensure your soul belongs to him.”

The wizard tuts. “Do not doubt my ingenious plan. This deal will work out in our favour. You need to have faith and trust that I will emerge victorious.”

His wife shakes her head. “This deal is insanity. You cannot prevent him from cheating.”

The wizard mutters, “He has to complete the task or fail for the deal to be completed.

No amount of deviousness or trickery will aid him. He has to weave the sand together or the deal has been broken.”

“Trickery and deception are how he operates. Oh, Michael, I do not want you to be eternally damned to the pits of Hell.”

The wizard says, “You have nothing to fear. He will not succeed. Nobody, not even Satan himself can weave sand together.”

His wife sighs. “Can you do such an impossible task?”

The wizard scoffs. “I am the Wizard of the North; I can do anything.”

His wife inquires, “How do you know he will not succeed?”

The wizard chuckles. “Dearest, you seem to have forgotten that I am a talented seer.”

His wife smiles. “Have you seen what will happen tonight?”

The wizard mumbles. “I cannot share such details. You know that better than anyone. For if I do, what will happen?”

His wife frowns. “What you have seen will never come to pass.”

The wizard nods. “That is correct. I have seen glimpses of what might happen, but my visons are never set in stone.”

His wife stares at the Devil’s back. “Michael, your visions have not always been accurate. He could still use his wiles to ensure his victory.”

The wizard exclaims, “Balderdash! I am the almighty Scottish Wizard. Nobody can outsmart me. Not man, not angel, and most certainly not Satan.”

The Devil’s ears prick up. Without turning to look at him, he laughs. “You are too vain for your own good, sorcerer. It will be your undoing someday.”

“Be quiet, Hell spawn. You should be thinking about the impossible task which lies ahead of you. My vanity or lack thereof is of no significance to our deal.”

The wizard, his wife and the Devil arrive at the beach about twenty minutes later.

The Devil shape-shifts back into his previous form. The wizard and his wife dismount.

The Devil states, “You must give me three attempts to complete your task.”

The wizard scowls. “That was not our deal.”

The Devil replies, “Think of how entertaining it will be if I fail to accomplish your task three times.”

The wizard nods. “You shall be allowed three attempts. You may begin your first attempt, Satan.”

The Devil says, “How courteous of you to give me your permission.”

The wizard ignores the sarcastic remark and turns to his wife with a smug look. “The beast shall never accomplish my impossible task.”

His wife asks, “What will you be doing?”

The wizard grins. “I shall stand here and watch him fail.”

His wife mutters, “Michael, don’t be so sure that he will fail.”

The wizard laughs. “Nonsense, it would take a miracle for him to complete the task.

Miracles are not his forte, my love.”

The Devil sets to work on his first attempt. He strides across the beach and surveys the expanse of sand with interest in his beady eyes.

When he is a safe distance away, he mutters, “The foolish sorcerer. He never said anything about trickery in his silly little deal. I shall do whatever it takes to ensure his soul is mine.”

As the wizard’s wife had told her husband, the Devil is a cunning beast and the master of trickery and deception. When the deal was sealed in blood, he made sure that there were no specific terms regarding cheating. So, his first attempt will be to distract the wizard long enough to summon one of his minions to complete the task for him.

The Devil smirks. “The conceited fool will never know what hit him.”

The wizard has caught up to the Devil and scoffs. “When does this first attempt begin, Auld Clootie?6”

The Devil turns towards him and sighs. “I fear that I cannot complete such an impossible task, sorcerer.”

The wizard tuts. “Get on with it, foul beast.”

The Devil has been discretely observing the wizard’s wife who is standing further away, keeping a close eye on her husband. He clicks his hooves together and one of his demonic underlings appears behind the wizard’s wife, ready to pounce at their master’s command.

The wizard’s wife becomes aware of the demon’s presence and shouts, “Michael, he’s trying to distract you!”

The wizard turns towards her and inquires, “What do you mean, dear?”

His wife spins around and effortlessly seizes the demon. “This demon was about to harm or kidnap me to distract you long enough for him to cheat.”

6 Auld Clootie is a Scottish nickname for the Devil which derives from cloot, meaning

‘he of the cloven hoof’.

The wizard laughs. “You have underestimated my wife’s intelligence, Satan.”

The Devil clicks his hooves again and the demon disappears.

The wizard’s wife comes over and tells him, “That counts as your first attempt at the task.”

The wizard remarks. “How cunning, but you will need more than wiles to deceive us.”

The Devil says, “I see that now. This shall be my second attempt.”

The wizard nods. “My wife will be keeping a close eye on you, Satan.”

The Devil had underestimated the wizard’s wife’s intelligence, but now he knew that his first plan was far too simple. If he is going to beat the wizard by deception, then he has to have a convoluted plan that not even the wizard’s perceptive wife will see coming. So, his second attempt will be to start to weave the sands together in such a way that the wizard will believe he isn’t taking the task seriously. Then he will seize the wizard when he is close enough and take his soul right then and there. Forget about the deal, the Devil can do whatever he pleases, and no one can stop him from claiming a soul. Not puny mankind and certainly not a vain sorcerer who is nothing more than a scholar with a reputation for meddling with dark magic. His soul will be his and he will condemn him for eternity.

The Devil sighs dramatically. “I cannot complete this task, sorcerer.”

The wizard smirks. “Giving up already, Mahoun?7 You still have two more attempts.”

The Devil responds, “No number of attempts will be enough. Not even someone as powerful and almighty as you could complete such an impossible task.”

The wizard shrugs. “Perhaps, but it is too late to back out of the deal. We sealed it with blood, remember?”

7 Mahoun is another Scottish nickname for the Devil originating from Robert Burns’

poem The Deil’s Awa Wi’ The Exciseman.

The Devil nods. “I understand. The second attempt begins now.”

The Devil summons a needle and thread. To the wizard’s amusement, he makes an act of trying to pick up grains of sand in an attempt to weave them together like thread. As he expected, the sand is impossible to grasp and falls back to the ground time and time again.

The wizard chuckles. “How mundane, such a trivial human tactic. I expected so much more from you, oh great and mighty Satan.”

The Devil pauses and turns towards him with a resigned look. “I realise that no amount of trickery and deception will be able to trick you, sorcerer.

The wizard shakes his head. “This attempt is pathetic. You are not even taking our deal seriously.”

The Devil states, “I am trying, but such an impossible task is simply inconceivable.”

The wizard comes closer and scowls. “You cannot back out of our deal.”

The Devil immediately drops the needle and thread, and springs to his feet. He grabs hold of the wizard and sneers. “You have underestimated me, sorcerer.”

The wizard waves his staff and mutters a spell.

The Devil is blasted onto his back by a strong gust of wind.

The wizard tuts. “You are still trying to deceive me, how predictable. You have underestimated my power, Auld Hornie.”8

The Devil gets to his feet and brushes the sand off himself. “The rumours about you are true. How unusual…”

8 Auld Hornie is another Scottish nickname for the Devil originating from Robert

Burns’ poem The Address to the Devil.

The wizard scoffs. “You doubted my greatness.”

The Devil knows the deal isn’t going to end well for him. There is no backing out now, not when the deal has been sealed with blood. If either attempts to break it, the consequences will be fatal.

The Devil admits, “I doubted you.”

The wizard has a faraway look, “Many have doubted my power. All have ended up in the ground. Shall you use your final attempt?”

The Devil nods. “This is my third attempt.”

The Devil is worried the wizard’s soul will not be his. The humiliation of admitting defeat to him is not appealing. He has run out of ideas. There are not any more cunning tricks he can use to deceive him.

The wizard asks, “Are you going to use your final attempt, or have I bested you?”

The Devil scowls. “Silence, I’m thinking.”

The wizard chuckles. “The poor Deil has run out of cunning schemes.9 Hasn’t he?”

His wife quietly says, “Don’t goad him, Michael.”

The wizard turns to the Devil with a smug look on his face. “Get on with it.”

His wife sighs. “This deal is madness.”

The wizard chuckles. “If it is madness, then I will gladly call myself a madman.”

9 Deil is another Scottish nickname for the Devil, referred to by various authors

including Eleanor Atkinson and James Hogg.

The Devil must beat the wizard another way. The only way to secure his soul is to beat him in a duel. The Devil is a mighty fighter, but he is worried the powerful wizard will best him.

The Devil straightens up to his full height. “Oh, great Wizard of the North, you have outwitted me. I am unable to complete this impossible task. I would like to challenge you to a duel for my last attempt.”

The wizard nods. “Very well. To make things fairer, I will set my staff aside.”

He hands his staff over to his wife and winks at her. His wife sees the wink. She realises the wizard is going to try and deceive the Devil.

The wizard cracks his knuckles. “Let the duel begin!”

The Devil comes running towards him at an unnatural speed, but the wizard expected this move. He dodges and turns to face him.

The wizard taunts, “Is that all that you’ve got, foul beast?”

He laughs and when the Devil turns, he is ready to take him on. The Devil runs towards him again. With a click of his fingers, blue flames shoot from the wizard’s fingers and strike the Devil.

The Devil stops, astonished. “How did that happen?”

The wizard smirks. “Magical fire can burn almost anything, even you.”

The Devil secretly harnesses the magical flames. While the wizard gloats, he uses the flames to melt the sand around them. The sand is turning into glass.

The wizard exclaims, “That’s cheating, you have to weave the sand together!”

The Devil points out, “You never said anything about how I could achieve the task.”

The Devil clicks his hooves. The forming glass begins to piece itself together.

The wizard is infuriated by this trickery and runs towards the forming glass structure.

The Devil is so focused on his task and does not see him coming. The wizard jumps towards the steadily forming glass structure bellowing with fury and smashes it to smithereens.

The Devil is shocked. He is staring at the shards of broken glass surrounding them.

His last effort is shattered like his hopes of beating the cunning wizard.

The Devil sighs. “I suppose that this means you have bested me, sorcerer.”

The wizard nods. “It sure does. Three attempts and you are still unable to complete the impossible task I set for you.”

The Devil asks, “Must I admit what we agreed upon?”

The wizard smirks. “It was in the terms; you must do it whether you like it or not.”

The Devil states with gritted teeth and a forced smile, “Congratulations, oh great and mighty Wizard of the North. You have bested me at my own game. You truly are the most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist of your time.”

The wizard replies, “Thank you for the entertainment, Satan.”

The Devil scowls. “You won’t be so lucky the next time our paths cross, sorcerer.”

The wizard chuckles. “You are a sore loser.”

His wife mutters, “Michael, let him leave now. Your deal is over.”

The wizard shakes his head. “No, Margaret. I’m not satisfied with letting the foul beast go back to the pits of Hell.”

His wife asks, “What are you talking about?”

The wizard whispers, “Trust me, this will ensure that I will be remembered for many centuries to come.”

The Devil has been eavesdropping on this conversation from afar. He is curious what the wizard is planning.

The wizard come over to where the Devil is and says, “I know what our deal was, but how about I give you one more attempt? Not to complete the task, but one more chance to try and beat me in a duel.”

The Devil answers, “You do not need to prove yourself to me any longer, sorcerer. I have seen how perceptive you and your wife are, and how powerful your magic is.”

The wizard shrugs. “That is true, but this is no longer about proving myself to you. I want to see if you can best me without my staff and without any magical fire.”

The Devil responds, “Very well. No holding back. If you defeat me again, then you can even bury me on this beach if you wish. If I defeat you, then your soul is mine.

Deal?”

The wizard grins. “Deal!”

The Devil summons his pitchfork and faces the wizard. He is waiting to see what he is going to do.

The wizard shouts, “Now, that is hardly fair. You have a weapon!”

The Devil snorts. “You can use your staff then.”

The wizard takes his staff back from his wife and inquires, “Are you waiting for me to make the first move?”

The Devil was but would not admit it to him. The wizard laughs. With a single swish of his staff, a stream of water gushes forth and hits the Devil. It is no ordinary water, but holy water. The Devil splutters and coughs. His skin is rapidly blistering as he tries to shake the droplets off.

The effect the holy water has on the Devil is astonishing. From the impact point on his torso, it is rapidly eating its way through his body in all directions. It starts with burns and blisters, but quickly begins to seep through his flesh. It is clear that no matter how hard he tries to shake off the droplets, it is too late. The blood that courses through his black veins is boiling. His bones are incinerated one by one. He is being burned alive from the outside in. Soon, there will be nothing left but a pile of ashes.

The wizard and his wife watch with astonishment. Has the wizard defeated Satan himself with nothing more than holy water? Perhaps, this is all a trick to try and deceive the wizard one final time to damn his soul to the pits of Hell for all eternity.

But no, they can clearly see that this is no act. The Devil is even beginning to smoke as he falls to his knees in the sand. Tendrils of smoke are pouring from every orifice in his body. Before their eyes, the Devil is being reduced to nothing.

The sigil on the wizard’s palm disappears.

The wizard turns to his wife and whispers, “Dear, I have defeated the Devil.”

His wife can see in his eyes that he is not proud of his actions. She says, “Yes, Michael. It would appear that you have.”

The wizard frowns. “What will happen now?”

His wife asks, “What do you mean?”

The wizard points to the ashes in the sand that are the Devil’s remains and replies, “If there is no Satan to rule over Hell, then what will become of it? Who will rule Hell in his stead?”

His wife shakes her head. “I don’t know, Michael. Perhaps, there will be chaos in Hell this evening as they discover that their leader and master has been defeated by a wizard. Maybe they will send hordes of demons to drag you to Hell as punishment for your crime of murder.”

The wizard looks worried as he states, “Only time will tell. For now, we should bury his ashes on the beach.”

His wife nods. “That is wise. If we do not do so soon, they will be swept into the ocean.”

The wizard swishes his staff, and the ashes gather together in the air before them.

Another swish and a hole appears in the sand. A final swish and the ashes are neatly placed in the hole and covered up again.

The wizard stands over the freshly covered grave and mutters, “He may have been evil incarnate, but by Jove, he put up one Hell of a fight.”

His wife inquires in a solemn tone, “So, what happens now?”

The wizard admits, “For once in my life, I do not know. Let us leave this beach and go home. One day, I will tell our children of this strange night. For now, we both need rest and time to process what occurred.”

After that evening, there is a notable change in the wizard’s personality. Once a proud and vain man who was not afraid to gloat about how powerful he was, the wizard’s vanity has been subdued by his strange and unbelievable encounter with the Devil. He spreads the tale of the evening’s events all over the world, starting in his hometown of Kirkcaldy. As a trophy, he has taken the Devil’s pitchfork and even mounts it on the wall of his tower. It serves as a constant reminder of his foolishness and vanity which has now become a thing of the past.

For several years after his encounter with the Devil, the wizard stopped having dreams about the future. He had never seen anything about that evening’s events beforehand, despite what he had told his wife. He believes that is his punishment for murdering Satan himself because of his vanity. Despite their speculations, there are no notable changes after that evening. No hordes of demons come to claim him for murdering their master. As far as he can tell, nothing drastic happened afterwards.

No seismic earthquakes shook the ground his tower stood on and no lightning struck him down on his walks.

However, every time the wizard tells the tale of that evening to others, he does feel something. Not anything supernatural, but a human feeling which he hasn’t felt for many years. He feels remorseful. He had been protecting himself from the Devil’s promise of taking his mortal soul. He regrets how he had gone about it. After watching the Devil use his three attempts to complete the task and fail, the wizard had become cocky. He wanted to deceive the great deceiver and using his only weakness against him was his best option. Holy water was how he ended it.

The wizard hadn’t planned on deceiving the Devil like that when he sealed the deal with him. No, all he had wanted was a story so incredible that it would be remembered many centuries later. He had not only summoned the Devil to his tower, but he had made a deal with him and outsmarted him. He even defeated the Devil on the beach nearby and had buried his remains there. No other sorcerer could ever possibly be as powerful as him now that he had accomplished an unheard-of feat.

He would be remembered for centuries like he had hoped.

The tale of his feats will be passed down for many generations after the wizard’s demise. Although his accomplishments cannot be found in any history books, his tale is still told to younger generations. The moral of the tale is to not become as vain and conceited as the Wizard of the North was before his encounter with the Devil.

Despite wishing for a memorable accomplishment to be remembered, he regretted his actions for the rest of his life. More importantly, stay in the present and don’t be concerned about whether you will or won’t be remembered in the future.

“Is that the end?”

“Yes. Did you enjoy it, children?”

The children nod smiles on their faces.

“Excellent. I am glad that you enjoyed it. I am known for my storytelling, even if I do say so myself.”

The professor looks at him with curiosity. “So, may we know your identity now the story has finished?”

The man smiles. “My name is Hans Christian Andersen.”

“As in the fairy-tale teller?”

“The one and only. Have you read my book before?”

“Of course, I often read Fairy Tales Told for Children to my charges.”

“Oh, really? Then why were you reading the Germanic Brothers Grimm collection to them before I so rudely interrupted you?”

“Well, they asked me to read Cinderella to them.”

The children all start loudly protesting.

“Silence! One at a time please, children.”

“We never asked for Cinderella, you said that we had to have that story.”

The professor sighs. “I may have only brought this book with me today.”

Hans chuckles; he was greatly amused by the embarrassed professor. “Then it’s a good thing that I interrupted you. We would not want your charges to be bored by Cinderella. Would we now?”

“Excuse me for asking, but why exactly are you here, Mr Andersen? This small town in Scotland is far away from your homeland of Denmark, is it not?”

“I am on holiday much like you are here on an excursion from teaching and your studies with these fine young gentlemen. I am travelling around Europe. I found myself intrigued by this little town and its castle.”

“Have you visited the castle yet?”

“Not yet. I must confess that I became somewhat distracted by you and your boys here. Do you know the castle well?”

“Yes, I do. I know a great deal about it as do my young charges.”

The professor glances around at his charges who had finished their lunch long ago, but like him had become entranced by the fairy-tale.

“Shall we visit it together?”

“Do you not need to return to your classroom?”

“Not immediately. Today is dedicated to an educational excursion to the local historical site of the castle. What do you say, boys? Shall we show Mr Andersen here the castle as a way of saying thank you to him for the fine fairy-tale he so kindly shared with us?”

The children are keen to show off what they know about the castle to this stranger.

“Yes, we can even tell him what we’ve learned about it. Couldn’t we, Sir?”

“That is a fine idea, Arthur. What do you say, Mr Andersen?”

“I would be honoured to tour the castle with such knowledgeable local gentlemen such as yourselves.”

“Wonderful. Boys, pack up your satchels.”

While the children are occupied, Hans quietly speaks with the professor.

“Did you truly not know who I was?”

“I had no idea I was in the presence of a fairy-teller expert.”

“I appreciate it. You may call me Hans, professor. Mr Andersen is far too formal.”

The schoolboys, their professor and Hans leave the beach and begin the ascent up to the castle.

“What can you tell me about this castle?”

“A king acquired the land it stands on in 1460. Which king, Oscar?”

“King James II, Sir.”

“That’s correct. He immediately began work on the construction of the castle as a residence for his wife. Who was his wife, Ezra?”

“Queen Mary of Gueldres, professor.”

“That’s right. Within five months, King James was killed. How was he killed, Theodore?”

“He was killed by one of his cannons at the siege of Roxburgh, Sir.”

“He was. Regardless, his wife pressed on with the castle’s construction. When was it completed, Arthur?”

“In 1461, professor.”

“That’s correct. It was completed to such a state where her house staff were able to stay in the castle. How long did they stay for, Felix?”

“They stayed for 25 days, Sir.”

“They did. It is unclear whether Mary herself stayed here before her death. What year did she die, Silas?”

“In 1463, professor.”

“That is right. Mary never saw the finished castle at Ravenscraig. What were the only parts of the castle completed by her death, Oliver?”

“The east tower and the foundations of the central range, Sir.”

“That is correct. Mary’s son granted the still-unfinished castle to William Sinclair in 1470. Who was her son, Miles?”

“King James III, professor.”

“Yes. The granting of the castle was compensation. For what, Vincent?”

“It was compensation for resigning the earldom of Orkney and lordship of Shetland to the Crown, Sir.”

“That is right. At the same time, King James became earl. Earl of where, Ambrose?”

“The earl of Caithness, professor.”

“Correct.”

“You all seem to know a great deal about this castle.”

They have reached the top of the stairs and are now standing in front of the castle.

“What do you think of the castle, Hans?”

“It is so picturesque and so characteristic.”

“It is certainly a sight to behold. Take a look at the view across the Forth to Edinburgh.”

“Wow, it is magnificent and unforgettable.”

“It sure is a grand view. We are fortunate to have such a remarkable historical site on our doorstep.”

“This castle is nothing like any I’ve seen before. It’s almost like something straight out of one of my fairy-tales...”

“Yes, I can almost imagine one of your characters living in this castle.”

Hans smiles. “It is almost reminiscent of the castle from the princess and the pea, for example.”

“You have visited Ravenscraig Castle. You also told us a new fairy-tale. Will you publish it in a collection, Hans?

Hans shakes his head. “It isn’t fitting for a Danish man like me to write about a Scottish fairy-tale. You should share the tale with your own children, and they will share it with their children. There will come a day many years from now that a Scottish author has heard it from their grandmother or some other relation, and they will write it down in ink for the world to read.”

MADE IN GERMANY ___________________________________

A Bilingual Play in Two Acts

by

Chelsey Hahmann

Now, Where do you come from? strangers ask. Originally? And I hesitate.

-

Carol Ann Duffy, Originally

List of Characters (In order of appearance)

YOUNG GIRL;

A mysterious child who opens each scene. Later revealed to be LUISA’s daughter.

MAX;

LUISA’s 18-year-old brother.

LUISA;

A woman in her mid-20s.

MHAIRI;

One of LUISA’s friends.

ANGUS;

Another of LUISA’s friends.

BRANDON;

Another of LUISA’s friends.

STRANGER;

A German man in his mid-20s

YOUNG LUISA;

LUISA, age 11.

YOUNG MAX;

MAX, age 6.

Notes Note 1: MAX must be played with a Scottish accent, the region depending on the actor's own. The text may be adapted for the purpose of his accent. Similarly, the following characters should be played with strong Scottish accents, and the text may be adapted here also: MHARI, ANGUS, BRANDON. Note 2: YOUNG LUISA and YOUNG MAX may be played by the same actors as LUISA and MAX, provided that they are able to look much younger than in the other scenes.

ACT 1 SCENE 1 Living room. YOUNG GIRL enters, holding a book.

YOUNG GIRL (Reading from an old book of Grimm’s fairy tales as she walks across the stage) Brüderchen nahm sein Schwesterchen an der Hand und sprach: „Seit die Mutter tot ist, haben wir keine gute Stunde mehr.“1 (She lays the book on top of one of the boxes and exits, skipping.)

Enter MAX, sitting on the sofa. He is surrounded by boxes. He picks up a Learn to Speak Dutch book and tries to read but can’t focus. He stares at an empty chair, then surveys the room, turning his head to the right, and then to the left. His eyes land on a photo clock hanging on the left wall. He stares, and gets up intending to walk towards it, but is interrupted by a knock on the door. He answers it.

LUISA Hi… MAX Hey. Max steps aside and allows Luisa to enter. She drops her bag on the floor and embraces him for 10 seconds, sighing. Shen then picks up her bag and drops it on the sofa Max was just sitting on, turning to look at the boxes.

MAX Those are just the ones from the garage. I figured we’d start there.

LUISA Mmn… yeah. That makes sense. (Pause.)

MAX Lou? LUISA

1 Little brother took his little sister by the hand and said: “Since mother died, we haven't had a good

hour.”

Mmn hm?

MAX I’ve no idea how to do laundry.

LUISA You never did help Mami around the house. Pechmarie.2 MAX Don’t start.

LUISA Did you bring it down?

MAX Yeah. (He points to a pile in front of the washing machine. Luisa walks over and begins to load the machine, sorting the colours and whites.) Did you contact that lawyer?

LUISA Not yet. Pause. (Quickly) I don’t really know how to do all this.

The financial stuff, the funeral; do we even have a funeral if we get her cremated? And the family, Jesus, I haven’t even called them yet. Who do I call first? How do I even tell them, oh, by the by, my mother? Gone. I’m not sure I even have that vocabulary in German. I… MAX (Interrupting) Of course you have the vocabulary, don’t be silly. At least you have the language down. I’ve been avoiding that phone like the plague.

LUISA They’ve been ringing?

MAX Just gran mostly.

LUISA Well, shit. (She opens a cabinet and pulls out the laundry detergent. She scoops some into the machine and turns it on. Leaving 2 This is a reference to a German fairy tale called Frau Holle. This character is very lazy.

the open box of detergent on the counter, she turns to face MAX.) What the hell are we going to do with all this crap?

MAX Let's just sort it out first and then deal with that part later on.

MAX opens up a box and begins to pull things out. He puts all the random knick-knacks on the floor beside him. LUISA walks over and sits down beside him, picking things up as he puts them down, looking at them, and setting them down slightly off from where they were originally.

So what about the big stuff?

LUISA The big stuff? (MAX discovers a miniature Trabant toy car in the box and hands it to her) MAX The car, Lou. And the house.

LUISA (Rubbing her eyes in frustration) I don’t know yet. (Pause. She gets up and paces the room.) I can’t deal with the house until we deal with this stuff anyway.

MAX What do you mean, deal with it? You’re not selling it?

LUISA Well, Max, come on. What else are we going to do?

MAX But we grew up here Lou! No! (Pause) No, you can’t sell it.

There’s a long pause of around 10 seconds as they pair look at one another. LUISA breaks eye contact first, teary eyed, and sighs at size of the task before her. Another 5 seconds pass before LUISA walks over to the book of fairytales laying on one of the boxes. She picks it up and flips through it.

LUISA

I used to love these. (MAX looks over her shoulder, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head a little.) Yeah well, you used to understand them too.

MAX Not anymore. (Looking into LUISA’s eyes) Listen, Dad’s been wanting to see you.

LUISA (Snapping, looking down at the book) Don’t Max. Just leave it.

MAX sighs but drops the subject and begins to open a new box. LUISA notices and slaps the book down atop the box.

(Still with some lingering anger in her voice) We need a system first.

MAX (Pointing each finger to its respective side) Keep, chuck.

LUISA (No longer upset) Ok. That chair is the ‘maybe’ pile.

MAX (Teasing) For when someone gets sentimental over rubbish. (LUISA flashes him a smile and opens the box. She pulls out a packet of Knoppers and Duplo.)

LUISA Score! I knew she’d have a bunch of stuff saved up.

MAX (Sceptically) Yeah, but how old is it?

LUISA It’s store-cupboard stuff, it’ll be fine. (Echoing her mother) Das heißt Mindest-haltbarkeitsdatum.3 (She unwraps the bar and takes a bite, making a face involuntarily. MAX smirks at her, and she shakes her head at him defiantly. She swallows and takes another bite, this

3 Mindesthaltbarkairsdatum‘ means ‘best-by date’ but translates literally to ‘minimum durability date’.

Here Luisa is emphasising the word ‘minimum’.

time without any reaction.) See, it’s good. (She holds out the halfeaten bar to MAX, encouraging him to try a bite.)

MAX (Continuing to unpack the box of sweets, dumping them in the ‘chuck’ pile) Absolutely not, I wasn’t born yesterday.

LUISA (Walking over to the ‘chuck’ pile and picking up the sweets) Your loss. (She drops them theatrically on the ‘keep’ pile) MAX (Rolling his eyes) Yeah, I’m sure. Why don’t you just buy a new bar in Tesco?

LUISA Tesco? They have these?

MAX (Incredulous, imitating his mother’s accent) You must have tomatoes on the eyes.4 LUISA Whatever, I bet they’re not the same at all.

MAX They’re exactly the same.

LUISA It’s not as special if it’s from here. Mami always left space in the suitcase to bring them back.

MAX (Standing firm) They’re exactly the same.

LUISA I doubt -

4 This is a reference to a German idiom, meaning something like, ‘are you blind?’ Used when

someone can’t see something right in front of them.

MAX (Interrupting) I’ll buy you one and you’ll see. (LUISA sighs, and reluctantly moves the sweets onto the maybe pile.)

(Teasing) Told you, sentimental.

LUISA I suppose if we have the funeral in Germany I could get some more anyway. Keep some space in the suitcase.

MAX You’re going to have it in Germany?

LUISA I guess. That’s where all the family is.

MAX What about DLUISA (Interrupting) No. Still no.

MAX Does she even want that?

LUISA We’ll never know what she would have wanted.

Blackout.

ACT 1 SCENE 2 In this scene, LUISA should pronounce certain words with a more prominent accent than before. The stage should be split in a 70/30 ratio by a doorway which leads to an outdoor scene.

YOUNG GIRL sits upstage left, holding two non-descript dolls, with a spotlight on her. She begins to play with the dolls as if they are at a dinner table.

YOUNG GIRL (Putting on a voice for the first doll) Iss auf deinen Teller, sonst es wird regnen Morgen. (Putting on a voice for the second doll) No, I don’t want to! (First doll) But you wanted a Erbeermarmeladenbrot mit Honig!5 (Second doll) Nein! Haggis! (She makes the dolls fight for a few seconds, then hears voices offstage and exits.)

LUISA walks on stage left, entering the bar scene. This stage half should be crowded, with lots of tall chairs and tables, and so many people that it is difficult to manoeuvre. LUISA looks around, discombobulated until she sees a hand wave through the crowd from the other side of the stage. She pushes her way across until she spots her group of friends. MHARI quickly stands up to embrace her.

MHAIRI Lou! It’s been too long! How are you holding up?

LUISA Oh you know, getting by. (She plasters on a smile.)

There is an awkward pause as her friends aren’t sure what to say next. ANGUS breaks the silence.

ANGUS (From the other side of the table) I… I heard about your mum… I really am sorry Luisa. Truly.

LUISA (Waving her hand dismissively) Thanks, Angus, Max and I are getting through it.

BRANDON

5 Strawberry jam sandwich with honey. This is a reference to a German children’s show called Tom

und das Erdbeermarmeladenbrot mit Honig.

(Raising his pint glass) Well, we’re here if you need anything, yeah? A shoulder to cry on or someone to get plastered with - you name it.

The group laugh uncomfortably, LUISA’s eyes evading theirs, scanning the bar instead.

MHAIRI (Standing up and touching LUISA’s arm) I’m gonna grab another drink.

Can I get you anything, Lou? LUISA An Irn Bru would be great. (She pouts) I’m driving.

MHAIRI No problem. (She leaves and heads offstage to the bar) LUISA (Pulling out a few packets of the Duplo and Knopper bars) I brought you all some sweets to try from the house.

BRANDON Oh, these are great! My girlfriend always buys them, she’s obsessed.

(He opens a bar, bites into it and proceeds to talk with his mouth full) These, however, are stale.

LUISA (Hiding her disappointment) That’s what Max said. (She laughs it off) I guess they’re older than I thought.

ANGUS (After taking a swig of his beer) So what's new with you these days?

Feels like it’s been ages!

LUISA (Hesitating) Honestly, I’ve just been sorting Mum’s stuff out. Max hasLUISA and BRANDON start as ANGUS suddenly puts his glass down with a thud.

ANGUS

(Interrupting) Oh! Actually, speaking of, my mum was just asking do you have a date for the funeral?

BRANDON (Embarrassed for her, shoving him) Angus!

ANGUS What?

BRANDON Got the tact of a bull in a China shop, don’t you?

ANGUS reddens, LUISA shakes her head with a small smile.

LUISA Aw, I’ve missed you, Angus. (She laughs). No, I haven’t set a date yet. I’m not really sure where to have it - Germany with her family, or here with her friends.

ANGUS (Exclaiming) Oh, that’s right! I forget you’re not really Scottish.

BRANDON lets out a long sigh.

BRANDON Mate.

ANGUS I didn’t meanMHAIRI arrives at the table, interrupting the conversation.

MHAIRI (Placing the Irn Bru on the table in front of LUISA) Here you go, Lou. (Pause) Wow, weird vibe. What’d Angus say?

LUISA (Ignoring her, brushing it off light-heartedly) It’s fine, a lot of people do.

ANGUS

(Quickly) It’s easy to tell though - you don’t half look it, what with the blonde locks and the blue eyes. You’d have been perfect forLUISA (Interrupting) Please don’t say it.

ANGUS (Changing mid-sentence, with terrible pronunciation) Ich heiße Angus! (The group laughs, including LUISA, though she does so out of politeness.) That’s all I know. (With a cheeky grin) That and Scheiße.

LUISA Very classy phrases there. Anyway, I think I might nip out for a ciggie. (She leaves the table and heads towards the door which leads to the other side of the stage.)

BRANDON (Hitting ANGUS lightly in the head) Numpty.

They continue chattering until the lights dim and focus on LUISA as she steps outside. As she exits the bar, she pulls out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. She tries to light it a couple of times but is unsuccessful. Standing a few paces away is STRANGER, smoking a cigarette himself.

LUISA Ugh! STRANGER (Approaching her, speaking with a hint of a German accent) Would you like some help?

LUISA Yes! Please.

STRANGER takes the cigarette and turns into the wall, covering the cigarette as he lights it. He passes it back to her with a smile, his fingers brushing briefly against hers.

(Flustered) Thank you! (She takes a drag.)

STRANGER

It’s no problem. (Pause as the pair look at one another.)

LUISA (Detecting the German accent) I hope you don’t mind my asking, but where are you from?

STRANGER (Keeping eye contact) I come from Munich.

LUISA (Also keeping eye contact) I thought I heard some German in there!

I… (Pause. Then quickly) My mum is German. (Correcting herself) Was German. (She concentrates on the cigarette in her hand, then taps the ashes off on the wall.)

STRANGER (Watching her) My condolences.

LUISA (Eyes directed towards the floor) Thanks.

STRANGER (Still looking at her) Where in Germany was she from?

LUISA (She finally looks up) Dresden.

STRANGER That’s a beautiful city.

LUISA (She smiles, genuinely) I loved it.

MHAIRI pokes her head around the bar door and calls to LUISA. MHAIRI Are you coming back in, Lou? We’re about to play pool, and I need a teammate. (LUISA pauses, unsure. She glances at STRANGER.) Please?

The boys are driving me up the wall.

LUISA

(Giving in) I’ll be there in just a sec. (MHAIRI heads back into the bar, and LUISA and STRANGER smile shyly at one another.) I better go. What was your name?

STRANGER Sebastian. And yours?

LUISA I’m Luisa. Or Lou. (As she walks to the pub door, grinning) Nett dich kennenzulernen.

Blackout.

ACT 1 SCENE 3 This scene should be set up as a boyish bedroom, preferably with a blue backdrop and sheets. Most importantly, there should be a large backless wardrobe to the right of the stage. There should be a window along the back of the stage, which may be constructed or projected.

YOUNG GIRL walks from left to right across the stage, holding some papers in her hand. She is sounding out the letters as if just learning to read.

YOUNG GIRL Ssss…Ehhh…T Tuhhh…Luhh…Mmmm…Ehhh…NTuhhh… (giving up, she begins to sing the alphabet song, getting some of them wrong and mixing in some German letters, she discards the papers and exists stage right.)

MAMI (Offstage) Luisa du gehst mir echt auf die Nerfen! Wie oft kann ich es dir noch sagen? I know it not yet.

YOUNG LUISA runs on stage, visibly upset. She is wearing black shorts, practice kilt socks, and a pair of ghillies. She looks around for her brother, who is nowhere to be seen. There is a pause as we can hear MAMI muttering in a disjointed mix of German and English offstage.

YOUNG LUISA (Whispering, walking toward the wardrobe) Max? One of the wardrobe doors creaks as it is lightly pushed forward, opening up only a little. LUISA immediately understands and opens it just enough to crawl in. As soon as she is in, the lights should darken, and the wardrobe should be turned around to reveal the characters facing one another. The wardrobe should have clothes on hangers, which should be pushed to the side towards the door, with the actors' heads holding them in place, to allow the actors to be visible. A single dull spotlight should be on the wardrobe, again just barely showcasing the actors, and the rest of the room should be as dark as possible.

YOUNG MAX (Crying softly, whispering) I don’t want to leave.

YOUNG LUISA

We won’t have to.

YOUNG MAX You don’t know. What if they make us?

YOUNG LUISA (Taking his hand) I promise everything will be ok.

YOUNG MAX (Sniffling) They won’t understand me over there.

YOUNG LUISA I’ll understand. And I can try to make them understand. And we’ll have each other no matter what.

YOUNG MAX nods, and the pair sit in the wardrobe, holding hands, for 5 seconds. YOUNG MAX breaks the silence, poking YOUNG LUISA. Offstage we can hear the sound of a TV switching to a news channel.

YOUNG LUISA AND MAMI (Simultaneously, imitating her mother) Wir sind ja auch nach Schottland gezogen! Und trotzdem kontrollieren uns die blöden Engländer! (Pause. MAMI begins to mutter, and YOUNG LUISA continues to imitate her a beat late) 52% und 48%, was ist das denn für eine Mehrheit?

YOUNG MAX What is she saying? (YOUNG LUISA puts her finger to her lips, shushing him as she tries to listen. Pause. YOUNG MAX tugs on her sleeve.) Lou! YOUNG LUISA (Having understood perfectly) I don’t know Max; I just copy what she says. Anyway, I couldn’t hear properly. Hey, why don’t we play a game? (She takes his hand, putting it in a thumbs-up position. She begins to sing) One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war, five, six, seven, eight, try to keep your thumb straight!

The pair battle it out until YOUNG LUISA lets YOUNG MAX win. They’re about to start another game when they are interrupted by MAMI. MAMI is offstage throughout this entire scene, and so is always calling from offstage.

MAMI

(Shouting from offstage) Luisa! Was soll denn ‘peely-wally’ heißen?

YOUNG LUISA (Opening the wardrobe door a crack and shouting back) I’m not sure.

I think… Ich glaube, das heißt, dass du white im Gesicht bist. Why? MAMI Okay. A coworker to me said it.

YOUNG LUISA (Correcting) A coworker said it to me.

Pause. After a few seconds, YOUNG LUISA closes the wardrobe door.

They begin to play a second game when they hear the channel switch, and the theme tune of the show Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten.

YOUNG LUISA (Reopening the wardrobe door slightly and calling to her mother) Ich liebe Ohrenschmerz! (She giggles and YOUNG MAX copies her, laughing despite not understanding the joke.)

MAMI (Lightheartedly) Ja, sehr lustig, du Eule! Wo ist Max? Sag ihm, er soll in der Wohnstube ein bisschen Deutsch lernen.

YOUNG MAX (Responding before YOUNG LUISA can) No, I don’t want to! (Talking more softly to his sister) Lou, I hate it, I don’t understand it.

MAMI Auf Deutsch antworten bitte! Ich möchte, dass du in der Zeit lernst, in der ich Luisa zum Tanzkurs bringe.

YOUNG MAX (Having understood perfectly) I have no idea what you just said!

MAMI Get to the living room Max! YOUNG LUISA

(Opening the wardrobe door fully) Just go Max. You might need to know it. (Max pouts, as though about to cry) I mean, you obviously probably won’t. It’ll be fine.

YOUNG LUISA watches YOUNG MAX reluctantly exit the wardrobe, and exit across the stage, tossing a cushion at her as he walks away.

She takes a deep breath, then exits the wardrobe as well, waiting until he’s out of sight to close the wardrobe door again. She begins to pick up a water bottle and head offstage herself, when she notices the window; it has started to rain. She walks towards it and gazes out.

I guess Mami was right. It does rain if you don’t finish your dinner.

Blackout.

ACT 2 SCENE 1 YOUNG GIRL (Offstage) …The first craw was greetin’ for his maw, greetin’ for his maw, on a cauld and frosty mornin’… (Humming, playing peek-abook with the audience through the stage curtain) …The second craw fell and broke his jaw… (Humming for the remainder of the verse) …

The third craw, couldnae flee at a’, couldnae flee at a’… (Humming for just a second, then suddenly looking sad)… The fourth craw, she wasnae there at a’… (Exits) LUISA is pacing around the living room, dodging the boxes which have lessened in number since the opening scene. She appears to be rehearsing lines.

LUISA Hallo liebe Omi… Lieber Opi... Die Mutti ist... umm... No, not that.

Ich muss euch etwas trauriges sagen. No what’s that word... (She pulls out her mobile to google translate) Mitteilen! Ich muss euch etwas trauriges mitteilen. (Speaking to herself) Ach come on Lou, just do it.

She abruptly pulls out her mobile and dials a number. She hesitates and presses it. The lights grow dim and there’s a single spotlight on her as it rings. As the ringing stops and her call is answered, she immediately chokes up and lets out a little sob. MAX enters and sits on a box beside the formerly empty chair, which is now covered in nick-nacks, including the photo-clock and scrapbook.

Ich bins Omi, Luisa (An indistinct crackling can be heard from the phone.)

MAX (Whispering) What did she say?

LUISA (Ignoring him) Etwas ist passiert mit… (She chokes up, there’s more indistinct crackling) Ja, genau.

MAX (Slightly louder, and moving closer to LUISA) Come on, what is she saying? (LUISA shoves him and directs an irritated expression toward him.)

LUISA Es ist alles so schnell passiert, Omi. (Pause) Na ja, vor einer Woche. (MAX nudges her, impatient to know what is being said. LUISA swiftly holds the phone away from herself and covers the speaker while a crackling is still heard from the other end.) I told her that mum’s dead and she’s upset that we didn’t tell her sooner, okay?

(More indistinct crackling) Ja, klar. Max und ich planen eine Trauerfeier in Dresden nächste Woche.(Crackling) Ja, Max is bei mir.

(Crackling)She wants to talk to you.

MAX Lou! I can’t speak German, you know I can’t.

LUISA (Covering the phone speaker, snippy) Max, you’re just going to have to speak a little bit. Granny wants to talk to you.

MAX ButLUISA (Interrupting) What do you think it’s going to be like when we go to Dresden next week? I can’t talk to everyone for you, and I also don’t want all that pressure. You have to speak.

MAX (Getting frustrated) I literally don’t know how!

LUISA Well- (She’s interrupted by crackling from the phone. She lifts it to her ear) Ja, sorry Omi, zwei Sekunden. (She re-covers the microphone and holds it out to MAX.) MAX (Taking it begrudgingly) Hi Omi. (Crackling. Max covers the microphone) How do you say ‘yes, we’re looking after each other’?

LUISA (Shooting him an irritated look) Ja, wir passen aufeinander auf.

MAX (Uncovering the phone, pacing) Ja, wir passen aufeinander auf.

(Crackling) Samstag. (Crackling) Ja. (Crackling) Okay, tschuss! (He hangs up, then turns to LUISA) I think she said that she’ll call the rest of the family… Either that or she won’t. It’s sometimes so train station.6 LUISA (Smacking his arm, half-joking) You are so annoying! You know what I don’t understand about you? Your whole family is German, and yet you choose not to learn that language when it would be so useful for you. You know what you decide to learn instead? Dutch! What the hell is that about?

MAX (Nonchalant) I just don’t get German; I don’t understand it. Dutch is different. Better. (Grinning cheekily) Sucks that you guys don't speak it.

LUISA shakes her head in disapproval, still half-joking.

LUISA Learn German! Anyway, do I have to call anyone else or not?

MAX (Tentatively) You could callLUISA (Interrupting, elongating the words and walking away) Still no.

MAX Then no, you don’t have to, Gran will.

LUISA (Sitting on the box beside the chair) Great, that’s one thing off my back.

MAX Lou?

6 This is a reference to a German idiom meaning a lack of understanding, though Max is not quite

using it correctly.

LUISA (Teasing wearily) Yes, Max dearest?

MAX No, seriously. I’m nervous about this trip.

LUISA (Quietly) Me too.

MAX They make me feel like a baby. (LUISA nods, solemn) They don’t know how smart I am. He sits down beside her.

LUISA (Teasing again) I.e. not at all?

MAX (Rolling his eyes) Ha ha. Forget it.

LUISA (Looking him in the eye) No, I’m sorry. I get it. I always felt really small. But then, growth is a hard concept to grasp when you only meet for a couple of days every year. (Pause) I have no idea how I’m going to talk to them without Mami there.

MAX I don’t really want to go.

LUISA They’re still our family. We have to go.

MAX Hmmm. We’re not really connected to them without Mami. I can’t just find a connection.

LUISA Well, blood is thicker than water or whatever they say.

Blackout.

ACT 2 SCENE 2 YOUNG GIRL enters the living room in a rush, carrying a German Zuckertüte which is overflowing slightly. She stumbles slightly and spills it onto the floor, revealing a bunch of sweets and some stationary. She hurriedly begins to pick it up and then crosses the stage, but accidentally leaves a packet of tablet behind.

MAX and LUISA enter from opposite ends of the stage, which is now empty except for the empty chair, and a few bin bags. Throughout the argument in this scene, MAX and LUISA should be talking at a fast pace and gesticulating angrily.

MAX Lou, come on! He’s your father, for Christ's sake!

LUISA (Folding her arms) Yeah and where has he been through all of this?

MAX He knew you didn’t want to talk to him!

LUISA Damn right, and I still don’t!

MAX He should be at the funeral.

LUISA Why? They split up years ago, why on earth should he be there? I bet Mutti wouldn’t even want him there!

MAX She would want our family around, Lou, she would want somebody there for us!

LUISA No. Why won’t you let this go?

MAX Because-

LUISA (Interrupting) He has never made an effort to be there for us before. Never.

MAX (Louder, to not be interrupted again) Because he knew that Mami didn’t want him there!

LUISA (Snapping) No, nein und nochmals, nein!

MAX (Pause. Speaking quietly, avoiding LUISA’s eyes) I’ve already invited him.

LUISA (Walking towards him) Ich glaube, ich höre nicht richtig.

MAX I don’t know what that means, but you’re having a separate service in Germany anyway, so I figured…

LUISA (Infuriated) Max, I’m the oldest. I have done all of the arrangements; I spoke to the family, and her friends, I dealt with Mami’s affairs, and I decided what to do with her. If I wanted to invite him, I WOULD HAVE! MAX (Louder) Is that what this is about? I could have helped if you had let me!

LUISA Well, look at what happens when you think you’re helping!

MAX Yesterday you said that we have an obligation to our family. Why is that not true for him too?

LUISA (Stubbornly) Because I said so. You can’t-

MAX (Interrupting, speaking quickly and loudly) I regret not knowing him. (LUISA is silenced) I know he made no effort after we moved.

But the phone works both ways. If I knew him, maybe I wouldn’t be dreading this trip. Maybe I’d have visited him, and I’d be speaking German perfectly, instead of half-assing Dutch just to be different.

We lost our link after Mami, but he’s still there and he wants to be a part of our lives now, for better or worse. So yeah, I invited him to the funeral, and I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable but tough luck. This funeral is for me too.

LUISA (Pause, crying quietly) Max? (Pause)I’m pregnant. (MAX walks over to her and hugs her.)

MAX (Meeting her volume) That’s amazing. Congratulations.

LUISA (Crying intensifies) She’s never going to know her gran. I never knew my family, and neither will she.

MAX (Hugging her closer) I know. But she’ll know her uncle. And if you let her, she can still know her gramps.

LUISA (Pulling a tissue out of her pocket and dabbing her eyes) He would be good at keeping her German on track.

MAX Is that an invite? (He notices the packet of tablet on the floor and picks it up, offering it to LUISA.) LUISA (She accepts, opening the packet and taking a piece)Fine, he can come. But he better make it stick.

MAX

He will. Da kannst du Gift darauf nehmen.7 LUISA Wow. Look at you.

Blackout.

7 German idiom meaning, ‘You can take poison on that.’ Denotes confidence.

ACT 2 SCENE 3 The scene opens in the living room, which is complete with new furniture, where LUISA, whose hair has been dyed a dark brunette colour, is sitting on the floor with YOUNG GIRL, who has a copy of Katie Morag lying in front of her, and one of the Meine Freundin Conni books.

LUISA Come on Saskia! It’s time for bed. Pick one.

YOUNG GIRL looks intensely at the two books in front of her. She picks one up and then changes her mind and picks up the other one.

She contemplates for another second before dropping both and turning to her mother.

YOUNG GIRL (Pouting) I bet you have never ever ever had such a tricky choice before in your life!

LUISA (Smiling fondly) I bet I haven’t. Nonetheless: you must choose.

YOUNG GIRL (As MAX enters) If I choose Katie with you, do you think Gramps will read me the other one?

LUISA He’s in the kitchen, you can run and ask. But tell him he has to read it quickly.

YOUNG GIRL races offstage, and MAX sits down beside LUISA. MAX Mutti would say: nur eine Geschichte, es ist schon spät.8 LUISA Vielleicht, ja. Aber gerade du solltest wissen, dass zweisprachige Kinder noch keine zweisprachigen Erwachsenen sind.9 MAX

8 Mum would say only one more story, it’s already late.

9 Maybe, yes. But you of all people should know that bilingual children do not make bilingual adults.

(Jokingly) You can just call me stupid to my face, you know.

LUISA Dummkopf.

Max playfully shoves her.

LUISA It takes work. And Dad will put in the effort with her.

MAX (Smugly) I told you. Das war mir schon klar wie Kloßbrühe.10 LUISA (Unimpressed) Uh huh.

MAX Anyway, how’s Sebastian?

LUISA (Sighing contentedly) He’s good. Saskia adores him.

Max nods. Pause. He notices an Unser Sandmännchen doll. He picks it up.

MAX You kept the sand guy.

LUISA (Correcting) Sandmann.

MAX Yeah, yeah. (He looks at the tag.) Made in Germany.

LUISA All the best things are.

YOUNG GIRL runs back onstage, carrying the Grimm’s fairy tale book.

YOUNG GIRL

10 German idiom denoting certainty.

„Und wie sie zu Asche verbrannt war, verwandelte sich das Rehkälbchen und erhielt seine menschliche Gestalt wieder; Schwesterchen und Brüderchen aber lebten glücklich zusammen bis an ihr Ende.“11 Blackout.

11 “And when she was burned to ashes, the fawn was transformed and regained its human form; Little

sister and brother lived happily together until the end.”

MADE IN GERMANY – Framing Essay Initially, I began the project after discovering a love of Scottish theatre. The more I read, the more patriotism took hold of me, and I wanted to see more Scottish works on stage, especially more works which didn’t just centre around poverty. So I decided I would write a Scottish play, but aside from knowing what I didn’t want to focus on, I had no idea what the purpose of the play should be. However, the more I read, and the more I thought about the project, I realised that what I truly wanted to get out of this project was a sense of myself.

While the initial project was focused on celebrating Scottish culture, it turned into an introspective piece about cultural belonging.

I was born in Germany to two German parents, I have a German passport and all of my extended family still live in Germany, making me, on paper, German, despite having spent my entire life in Scotland. I have one sibling, a brother, who was born in Scotland, and while I can speak German, he can’t. I remember a lot of German games, TV shows, and general culture from my childhood that my brother has no memory of at all. I began to realise that the difference between us, despite growing up in the same household, with the same parents, was quite interesting and unique. So I decided I was going to write about that; how do experiences of childhood and upbringing shape one's national identity? And how does this identity persist or evolve across generations?

I’ve had people tell me that I’m not really German, and many, many people who find out that I’m German and declare that I fit that nationality perfectly because of my blonde hair and blue eyes (I don’t bother telling them that the hair is dyed…). Some people tell me I’m more Scottish, and others laugh when I pronounce something wrong because I’ve only ever heard my mother say it. I have to prove my right to work every time I get a new job, despite having lived in Scotland my entire life. However, I was also a highland dancer, I was raised watching British TV shows, and I feel most comfortable in Scotland. To me, the two nationalities exist very separately, and I feel like a different person on either side. Thus, with this project, I wanted to ask what it means to be German, Scottish, or both. The project began as a way to celebrate and feel closer to the country I grew up in, and became an exploration of the balance between my two nationalities, a fictionalised exploration of what it means for both nationalities to co-exist.

To address this idea of two national identities, I purposefully designed the characters to have distinct nationalities; I wanted the Scottish to be distinctly Scottish, and the German to be distinctly German, with Max and Luisa acting as a sort of grey area. I did want them each to fall into one nationality slightly more, which is why Max speaks with a broad Scottish accent while Luisa's accent is minimal, as this matches with my research on immigrants, as well as my own experience. I also found that this played into the contrast between the nationalities, and emphasised the black, white, and shades of grey.

I also chose to keep the setting of the play ambiguous. It is set somewhere in Scotland, but the region is undefined, just as the part of Germany from which the siblings come from is kept undefined. I wanted the audience to make up their own minds about the definition of the siblings' nationality, so it was important to me that the audience received only the basic facts. I also hoped that the ambiguity would inspire them to think more deeply about the

answer. For this same reason, I chose to have the mother completely absent of any stage presence.

My initial research was focused on Scottish theatre, wherein I read plays by David Greig, Ena Lamont Stewart, Gregory Burke, and John McGrath. After redefining what I wanted to do with this play, I started to research bilingual theatre and found very little, likely because multilingual work plays for a smaller, more niche audience. However, I did find an interview with artistic director David Furlong, who works at Exchange Theatre in London, where he spoke about the limits of linguistic translation and his fully bilingual cast. This is what inspired me not to translate the play; initially, I was considering having some form of subtitles for the German parts, however, any misunderstandings for monolingual audience members are more true to life, especially in the phone call scene, which aligns the audience with Max, who also can’t understand what his sister is saying.

Next, I began researching other 1.25 and 2nd-generation immigrants’ experiences from various parts of the world. After reading a few, I noticed that both my brother and I followed the typical trajectory of a 1.25 and 2nd-generation immigrant, and so, these are the experiences I based my characters on. A 1.25-generation immigrant is someone who was born in one country, but raised in another from a very young age, like Luisa, (this is different from a 1.5-generation immigrant, who has spent a few years in their home country), while a 2nd-generation immigrant is born in the country of emigration, like Max. A 1.25-generation child is typically closer to their home culture, though not to the same extent as a 1.5, while a 2nd-generation child typically rejects their home culture, especially in their young years. I mirrored this in Max through his refusal to speak German, as this idea of linguistic rejection as the first form of differentiation from the home culture was universal throughout the experiences of the 2nd-generation. In Act 1 Scene 3, he cannot understand what his mother is complaining about in German and asks Luisa to translate. This lack of understanding is immediately brought up again in the next scene, wherein he is grown up, and still begging her to translate what is being said.

After reading The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil by John McGrath, I was inspired by his use of verbatim theatre, and I decided to include some by opening and closing with a German fairytale from my childhood. This opens and closes the play on the idea of childhood, leaving an impression on the minds of the audience. This also allows speakers of German to immediately grasp the plot of the play, while mono-lingual audience members will remain in the dark until a couple of lines later. I introduced the character of the young girl i.e. Saskia, as another way to get the audience thinking about childhood. Being Luisa’s child, when Saskia opens each scene, she is mirroring Luisa’s childhood, as well as placing focus on the idea of childhood in general. This theme is brought up often through the fairytales, as aforementioned, and the Three Craws nursery rhyme. Saskia’s character overall brings up the question of the importance of childhood in terms of cultural, and national identity, as well as the question of the next generation. Once we can define Max and Luisa, if at all, where do their children fit into this definition?

I also thought carefully about character names, and how these will play into the play’s overarching themes. I chose to have a lot of repetition in terms of names to reaffirm the idea of identity, as well as bring up the question of the importance of names in determining nationality. Luisa and Max both have German names which are not uncommon in Britain,

and which can be anglicised, for example, by changing the spelling of ‘Luisa’ to ‘Louisa.’

This works to emphasise the duality of the characters. I also chose distinct Scottish and German names for their respective characters, to further create this line between the two nationalities. Similarly, the characters opt to call the mother ‘Mami’ throughout the play, which is how young children in Germany will refer to their parents. I did this to show how growing up in Scotland has affected the characters’ German culture, as most adults will move on to call their mother ‘Mutti’; both Luisa and Max’s German heritage are defined by their childhood years.

My connection to Germany is through my family, so logically, this would be severed if I were to lose them. That is why I decided to narrow it down to the mother, making her the only link between the siblings and their home country. When she suddenly dies, they are forced to reevaluate their identities as they journey through the two weeks following her death. This is established in the first scene, where I introduce the symbol of the house, which has been passed down to Luisa and represents heritage. Max’s refusal to sell it indicates a reluctance to lose his heritage. I also added the symbol of the vacant chair, which is implied to be their mother’s. As she is no longer there to sit in it, Max and Luisa are left alone to sort through their heritage, such as the boxes from the garage.

In the bar scene, I was careful in terms of word choice when Angus exclaims that he ‘forgot she was not Scottish’. He does not define her nationality, instead excluding her from the ‘Scottish’ label. This allows the audience to decide without character influence and emphasises Luisa’s inability to fit in on either side. Later in the scene, I focussed heavily on my own experience and how I felt when introducing myself and my nationality. Surrounded by her friends, Luisa is upset about her difference as she feels both as Scottish as her friends, and yet is different. When she speaks to the stranger, a ‘true’ German, she is not brave enough to say that she is German herself but rather declares that her mother was.

This shields her from any scrutiny about her German cultural imperfections, connecting her without being fully committed.

Throughout the project, and thinking back, I’ve realised that I tend to defend my German nationality more, despite feeling more at home in Scotland, and I think this comes through in the text, as I found it much easier to reference typically German things than Scottish. This causes the play to deviate a little from my expectations; I had wanted an even number of German and Scottish influences (and generally a symmetrical play, which is why I chose a two-act play with scenes of even lengths) to add to the idea of there being two even sides.

However, this imbalance, given that this is supposed to be a Scottish play, poses the question of what a Scottish play entails, which is a further exploration of Scottish identity, making it, arguably, work in my favour. Is the play Scottish enough simply because there are Scottish characters? Is being raised in Scotland enough to be Scottish? And is having German parents enough to be German? These questions remain unresolved by the end of the play, and their definition is entirely up to the audience.

Bibliography Beckett, Samuel, Happy Days : A Play in Two Acts, (London: Faber, 2010) Brecht, Bertolt Eugen Friedrich, Mother Courage and Her Children (London: Methuen, 1986) Brown, Mark, Modernism and Scottish Theatre Since 1969: A Revolution on Stage, 1st edn (Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, 2019) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-31998639-5 [Accessed 15 September 2023] Burke, Gregory, Hoors (London: Faber and Faber, 2009) Dolberg, Pnina, and Karin Amit, “On a Fast-Track to Adulthood: Social Integration and Identity Formation Experiences of Young-Adults of 1.5 Generation Immigrants,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 49.1 (2023), 252–71 <https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2088484> [Accessed 25 October 2023] Duffy, Carol Ann, “ORIGINALLY,” in The Other Country (London, 1998), pp. 7–7 Greig, David., Dunsinane, (London: Faber and Faber, 2010) Grimm, Gebrüder, Kinder- und Hausmärchen Gesamtausgabe, (Bindlach: Gondrom, 2003) Edgar, David, How Plays Work, (London: Nick Hern Books, 2009) ‘Making Bilingual Theatre’, Mobius, (Mobius Industries, 2021), <https://www.mobiusindustries.com/news/making-bilingual-theatre/> [Accessed 30 October 2023] McGrath, John, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, (London: Methuen Drama, 1981), <https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/playtext-overview?docid=do9781408163085&tocid=do-9781408163085-div-00000004> [Accessed 14 September 2023] Stewart, Ena Lamont, Men Should Weep : A Play, (London: Samuel French, 1983) Tran, Ngoc Hong, “‘I Was Given a Second Chance’: Retrospective Life History Stories from Generation 1.25 Immigrant Students”, UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations (eScholarship, University of California, 2020) Qvist, Hans-Peter Y., and Jeevitha Yogachandiran Qvist, “Interethnic Union Formation Among 1.5- and Second-Generation Immigrants: The Role of Cultural Proximity,” The International Migration Review, (2023), <https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183231177969> [Accessed 25 October 2023] Venturin, Beatrice, “‘That Part of Me Is in a Different Language’: 1.5 Generation Migrants’ Views on Feelings of Difference When Switching Languages,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 44.5 (2023), 370–87 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2020.1826494> [Accessed 25 October 2023]

Yu, Eunjyu, “Crossing Borders: Generation 1.5’s Journey from Alien to Master,” Research & Teaching in Developmental Education, 32.2 (2016), 73–77, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/44290298> [Accessed 27 October 2023]

HERE LIES SHAME.

Written by Clare Havertape HU40001 Creative Practice Dissertation University of Dundee 2024

PREFACE / NOTE TO READERS

This dissertation discusses in detail the effects of the patriarchal society that we are all entrapped in. Though it is extremely important to never stop talking about feminism and how it can help everyone in the world, I would like to make two things clear: I have not discussed transgender rights, world war crimes and current events, specific races, or sexual minorities though these issues can be founded in other books and feminist influencers. Please see the bibliography at the end of the dissertation and the further reading provided for more information. The second thing is that though I am wary not to offend, of course there will be some who will disagree or have issues with what I am discussing. I rip apart society, misogynistic men, and religion to name some of the topics. I also talk about deeply traumatising events, whether my own or as related in the books I discuss, including sexual abuse, rape, and suicide. If any of these issues are tough topics for readers, please continue at your own caution. Trigger warnings will be present at each chapter as necessary.

Rape Crisis: https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-help/ Women’s Aid: https://www.womensaid.org.uk/ Male Survivors Partnership: https://malesurvivor.co.uk/ National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 0808 2000 247 Text SHOUT to 85258 for any crisis.

For non-emergencies, contact 111 For emergencies, contact 999.

Free Palestine.

I am angry, so I write.

Dear Daughter,

By the time you are old enough to read this, my words may be redundant. But this does not stop me from writing, because it is this act that soothes my worries of the future. I write this at twenty one years old, and I do not know you; you do not know me. Nevertheless, you already mean the world to me.

I’ve already started thinking of how to be a good mother, and I can’t seem to think of anything else other than this: my prediction of motherhood is that I will simply be tired all of the time. To be so exhausted beyond all measure. To be sad, and pained, no matter day or night, and so anxious too— but to still care. I imagine I will never be able to get out of bed in the morning, but I’d love to think that if you were ever to knock on my door and ask for a cup of coffee, I would be there instantly with a freshly made pot in my aching hands. That is what a mother does, isn’t it?

I wonder, will motherhood harm me in the societal, capitalistic, patriarchal way in which it lives? To love to heal, or to love to maim, slowly over time, until I am the one needing the open arms, and the cup of warm coffee— you see, these things keep me up at night. But women are strong; we are stronger than we think, and we can and will overcome the obstacles that aim to destroy us.

I often worry that I will not be here to walk with you as you grow older, because that exhaustion I’ve mentioned is already starting to burden me. I’m so anxious, my love, but I

want you to share in this process of self-acknowledgement when you come around to read this, just as I have as I’ve been writing. So just in case I cannot fulfil this for myself, meaning I cannot be there for you, I’ve written a series of instances, much like diary entries, alongside other literary analyses regarding feminist enlightenment. Much of it surrounds blame and death, as these things are too much ignored in our society. Through talking about it on my end and reading it on yours, I hope you can learn not only to protect yourself, but know when to stand up as well, and encourage others to do so too. You will be able to benefit from the strengths of womanhood and conquer the challenges of a world that functions against you, whatever it may take. I’d wish it wouldn’t have to take much, but I fear it will take everything.

(But you will defeat it with great resilience.)

THE GENESIS OF BLAME

I

I grew up religious. We’d attend church every Sunday, I’d watch many kids get baptised, we’d sing songs and pray, all normal things for a family to do while taking part in organised religion. When I was eight I attended an after school group for a little while. There were about thirty kids in the class, ranging from six to sixteen, and even though the teachings catered to different age groups, the supposed morals of each teaching remained relatively the same. I was eager as a child to put faith in God, and I loved to discuss what I had learnt with my mother once she came to pick me up. There was one instance where I questioned the lesson however, because it was different from what I had been taught at home from my parents.

When my mother picked me up that Thursday evening, I questioned her about it.

The youth pastor had been flaunting the church’s wonderful and successful conversion therapy program. I knew that LGBTQIA+ and two spirit people existed, but had never been told that they must be treated differently to what I only knew as “normal people.” So when the church offered a solution to their so-called problem, I questioned why my mother had never told me that this was the right way to treat and help them. That she didn’t talk of treating them any differently than how one would treat a cis-het person appeared to me as a sort of betrayal.

I asked her why she chose to teach me differently, when surely the church held the correct answer.

She pulled the car over on the side of the road, and I was convinced I was about to receive a hefty lecture. But she had a look in her eyes of something like rage and shock

instead. For a moment, she didn’t speak at all. What went through my head at that moment was that maybe telling her what the youth pastor said was a mistake, and I genuinely feared that God would punish me for going behind the pastor’s back, and punish my mother as well for overreacting. That was what I thought— I didn’t think she needed to act as if anyone had died, because the church wasn’t doing anything wrong. All I knew was that these people were respecting God’s will, so surely they were in the right to do or say or promote anything.

She might have explained to me why conversion therapy was harmful, but I don’t recall fully understanding the implications at that age. I was more concerned with the fact that my mother in turn evidently pulled me from the after-school program. I felt guilty, but I also knew deep down that my mother made the right choice.

We still went to church on Sundays. When I was fourteen, my mother would finally have enough of the church goers. She recognised some of the families were not acting as what she called “the type of Christians that Jesus truly encouraged.” She explained to me that she thought some parents took the teachings of God to their own level, one that would inherently appropriate their own actions that would otherwise be frowned upon. This let them get away with being rude, excluding others, and enforcing the gender stereotypes and roles that man and woman had under God’s rule.

Another “lesson” that bothered her (and me, as I was at the age of puberty and therefore keen to pick a fight with anyone in any way, shape or form) was the way the story of Adam and Eve was discussed. We were sitting in a ski chalet in late January, and I was too

cold to continue skiing with the other kids from church. I sat with my mother and some other parents; one parent would eventually go on a rampage about how Eve was the bane of all that was wrong with the world.

“She was the one who introduced sin,” she exclaimed with a wild look in her eyes.

She had small dark eyes, and they often scared me. I stayed quiet in the corner, letting the adults talk. From what I could see, this mature conversation did not even involve me, no matter if I was shy or not.

“It was Eve who ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge,” she ranted, forgetting her hot cocoa and letting it grow cold while she yelled. “It was Eve who brought on the fall of man. She introduced sin, and if she hadn’t eaten the fruit, then—”

I’ll stop right there. Eve was manipulated. By Satan. In the form of a snake. And is characterised as using he/him pronouns. But sure, Eve is the sole one to blame.

“This is why women must stay in the home,” she continued. “They can’t be trusted.

It’s all their fault, the way the world is. All these wars— if Eve never ate the fruit, then our country wouldn’t have to fight in Afghanistan.”

As if Adam and Eve really did exist. As if a snake fucking talked. Come on, Eve didn’t cause the Afghanistan war. It was the most surreal claim I’d ever heard at the ripe age of

fourteen. (Back then, I didn’t have it in me to argue truth and morale to her. Perhaps when you are fourteen, you’ll have the courage!)

For a group of people so obsessed with sin, it was clear the true villain was usually forgotten. It’s absurdly ironic. They’ll point fingers, but when the true evil is manipulation, everyone acts as if it didn’t exist.

“You must feel a lot of blame,” my mother said to her, sipping her cup of hot cocoa.

The woman leaned back in her chair, tilting her head. “No, because I’m a Christian.”

“But you’re a woman,” my mother replied calmly.

“As long as I remain at home, and raise my children, then I’m not doing anything wrong,” she argued. “That’s God’s will.”

Is that not control? Was she not letting herself be controlled? Forget God’s will for a moment: this control only shows how deep misogyny rules. I do find that when it comes to blame, more often than not, it is inherently misogynistic— even if it’s not expressed that way outright. Regrettably, the misogyny can affect a woman’s own mind too, as I observed in this woman from the church. She turns against herself, and that is the most painful part of it all.

And unfortunately, unless our society changes to be more self-accepting (by this I mean constructive accountability must be held with the truth and to a high standard) we can start to

shift away from the unnecessary blame that is more often than not pitted against women.

However the catch with blame is that it comes with guilt close on its heels. Whereas men don’t want to feel guilty, women want to stop feeling guilty. Even in a patriarchal world, journeys of self love and self care are encouraged— but I do not believe we will ever reach full self-love as long as blame and guilt is being shoved in our faces from outside forces. We can accept our mistakes and learn from them, but we need forgiveness too; sadly it is the patriarchal dream to be terrorised for the rest of our lives. As long as everyone else points fingers at us, we start to point the fingers at ourselves too.

II

If you’re interested in the connection between blame and religion, I have a film recommendation for you: Alex Garland’s 2022 film Men depicts how blame can engender an emotional demise. The escalation of guilt, fear and blame that haunts the female protagonist Harper is portrayed alongside feminist and religious imagery and symbolism. It is coincidental then that within five minutes of Harper arriving at a reclusive English cottage for holiday that she eats an apple from a tree in the garden. Immediately, the audience knows that sin is unequivocally relevant here: Harper is not necessarily Eve, who brings sin into the world (as the woman from the ski lodge would say), she is instead the woman who is blamed after the fact. This is shown through flashbacks to her London flat, where we learn that her husband had struck her, and she kicked him out. He broke into the flat upstairs and fell out of the window to his death. The audience, like Harper, doesn’t know if this tragedy was accidental, or if he was truly carrying out what he had threatened before: suicide. She had told him they

needed to divorce, and he responded with the threat. And to think that she’s still expected to keep the peace…

When visiting the town’s church, Harper meets the vicar. They chat about her frustration, and he appears to understand how she feels. But his character is only symbolic of her own guilt, just as every other man does in the film. Nearly every male character (apart from her husband) is played by the same actor— this creates an effect of redundancy of individualism, but intensifies the guilt on the contrary: because in every man Harper sees, she is reminded externally of the fear of violence, and terrorised internally by the guilt she feels.

Just as the vicar says, “You must wonder why you drove him to it. Might it be true that if you gave him the chance to apologise, that he’d still be alive?”1

Harper knows her husband’s accident wasn’t inherently her fault. She knows that a guilty conscience is not fair on her. She can be logical about what happened— but honey, blame doesn’t know logic, especially if it’s being forced on you by the ones who treated you badly before anyhow. Then you may tend to blame yourself too, which only augments the guilt, and so on. Point is, it never ends: it’s like rebirth; and rebirth is a recurring theme in the film as well, as each man dies while giving birth to another man in violent and unnatural ways.

Not only is this a threat to take away one of the only “powers” a woman has, which is to create life, but it also forces the idea into Harper’s head that she will never escape the blame of her husband’s death, and she will always feel guilty for it. Furthermore, the guilt will always be a tool to use against her so long as the men can reach her. They will intrude, terrorise,

1

Men, dir. by. Alex Garland (A24 Studios, 2022).

chase, stalk, rape, murder; they will always exist— especially if she keeps feeling guilty, because they thrive off that guilt. It reminds me of the woman from the ski lodge’s logic: that she unconsciously feels the need to change herself so as not to disturb anyone, yet this does not include herself. Even with rebirth, which surely holds some sort of change, blame still appears to be fate for a woman, or at least God’s will. How can we be content with this?

Eve causes herself and Adam to be thrown from Eden.

Harper deserves the terror the men bring from Cotson.

The similarities are evident, but the way in which we talk about women’s “faults” must be changed. Likewise, if blame was only blame, then maybe it would be a little more tolerable on its own. But blame more often than not comes hand in hand with punishment. This brings about a complicated implication that I’m going to try my best to describe: when people blame women for sin and suffering, they tend to do it not because there is a definitive fault at hand, but because they like to encourage and see the female sex punished. In other words, misogynists don’t blame women so they can in turn change, they do it because they like to see women suffer under it. When the female sex is thus punished, it in turn damages sense of self: we feel shame for our bodies, for having hair, for having periods; for saying the wrong thing, for speaking up, for speaking at all, for defending ourselves, for having boundaries— and then we are punished for it. The blame doesn’t end, my love, because the punishment will always follow, and that’s the hook of the show that keeps everyone watching. In turn, we quieten our voices, we filter our words, we apologise profusely and we become non-disruptive. We

become tolerant of the punishment, and tolerant of the blame. Then we bring back and try to maintain the peace, even if we weren’t the ones who sabotaged it in the first place.

Then, when we can’t fulfil these expectations, when we can’t maintain the peace, when we feel rage, sadness, and any negative emotion, we are still punished. For feeling. I don’t know how many times I’ve been hurt in the past by various people, some of them exes, some of them ex-friends, some of them teachers… and then I apologise for being hurt in the first place. And they didn’t apologise for hurting me. This is the patriarchy and misogyny striving.

Don’t do this, my love. Don’t apologise.

“Men will drive you to insanity and then ask why you don’t bring peace.”2

III

If religion can be tied to feminism, then one important linking factor is that of accountability. More often than not, misogyny turns a blind eye to accountability, and strangely enough, so does Christian premillennialism. We cannot strive for a more equal world as long as we avoid accountability, my love. You must be able to self-reflect, learn, and grow from your own mistakes and recognise other’s mistakes accordingly.

Jenni, “men will drive you to insanity and then ask why you don’t bring peace”, (X post, @hashjenni, 20 February 2024).

2

Premillennialists are less likely to be inclined towards politics and social justice with two main implications: 1) it’s pointless to try and improve the world in the meantime anyway— the Great Tribulation (essentially the world ending in disaster) is inevitable to humans and entirely in God’s control; and 2) it goes against God’s will to try and improve it. Some premillennialists believe the Church will be exempt from Tribulation and followers of God will be saved in death and rewarded with entry to Heaven. It’s similar to the concept of karma, wherein those who suffer will rise again, and those who give suffering will perish.

There is something eerie about this mindset of being saved while taking a step back from social intervention. When one turns a blind eye to those who are suffering by shouting “Not me though!” they are avoiding accountability and morale. All because to intervene is pointless and “religiously wrong, as it would get in the way of God’s plan to end the world.”3 Tell me, if I detach myself from the violence I witness in the world, and instead devote myself entirely to God, am I saving myself because I am being an obedient, good Christian? Or am I willingly being ignorant to the suffering of others?

I do not think it’s enough to be saved at the end of time, because with this logic, we let suffering continue in the present. For premillennialists to not do anything because a) it’s going to shit anyway and 2) it’s against God’s plan is inherently ignorant and shows the ruthlessness behind the tolerance. It takes away the significance of life and the human right to exist freely and peacefully. Also, to tell others they’ll be saved in time if they follow God is dismissing

BBC, “End Times”, BBC, 2011 <https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/endtimes 1.shtml#:~:text=They%20believe%20t hat%20God%20has,last%20book%20in%20the%20Bible.> [accessed 21 March 2024] 3

their pain now. Premillennialism teaches in subtle ways that, and I must be blunt, we must take what is given to us. This is what misogynistic thought preaches for women too.

As long as we take what is given to us, we sometimes start to believe that we deserve it. The manipulation that breeds from the ignorance is the silent killer.

It’s like saying “boys will be boys” with a shake of the head. You know his actions are wrong, but you let him keep acting like that anyway as if his actions are inevitable. I’ll tell you a story about this: when I was fourteen, a boy in my class had a crush on me. We talked for a bit, and when I eventually ended up rejecting him, he stuck vulgar drawings on my locker and spread rumours about me that I couldn’t have even understood at that age. When I cried in front of the school counsellor about it, she said, “You know how they are, boys.” I knew damn well how they were! That didn’t mean they should get away with it!

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” she said when I recovered enough to challenge her. “But here’s what you can do in the future for when this happens again.”

Do you want to know what she said? A little trick to getting back at mean boys?

That’s not what you should be focusing on.

When, not if, she said. When it happens. Not if it happens. If is inherently threatening, don’t get me wrong, but when makes it a reality. The language we use— even words as

seemingly insignificant as these conjunctions— is permitting inappropriate behaviour to persevere. But neither word should have been said anyway, because he never should have responded that way.

As you grow up, dear, you will realise that the when/ifs occur daily, and yes, you must be ready to defend yourself against the cruelties they have brought before, and will continue to bring again. But don’t become obsessed with speculative self-defence, because then you’ll do what that school counsellor did, which was acknowledge that what that boy did was wrong, but completely fail to underpin a solution that involves him. Sometimes we are too occupied thinking about what we should or should not do, when those who behave horribly are let off easy. Don’t ignore appalling behaviour as if it’s inevitable. The logic of ignoring someone because bad behaviour is inevitable is shockingly mirroring premillennialist thought, never mind it being complete bullshit. Accountability isn’t something to be frightened of. It’s instead a crucial part of human growth.

Only death is inevitable. Everybody dies— yes, but if we don’t improve our behaviour, and don’t condone it in others, then have we lived an empathetic life? Living an empathetic life is much better than Heaven after death, my love. And don’t put all your trust in a hypothesis that tells you you’ll be saved in death if you follow a god, my dear. You can only be your own god, especially in a misogynistic world.

ADOLESCENT REALISATION

I

Even in everyday life, my dear, you will face scrutiny for being a woman. It will probably start at a young age, and you may not recognise the first harsh comment you may receive. Here’s my experience.

About five years ago, I refereed a U10 basketball game alongside an older man whose skill level was not sufficient— even though it was a U10 game. These games are not very intense, are easy to follow, and if trained correctly, are easily officiated. But as my partner could not call a fair game, missed fouls and penalties, and made mistakes with points and turnovers, I made sure I would officiate it to the best of my ability. Never in my four years as a ref have I ever played favouritism or held any grudge against a team. And I knew being young, sixteen or seventeen, short and small (in comparison to the over-forty male coaches who strutted with big biceps and beer bellies and jacked-up dually F-150s) would cause some issues on the commonplace shit-talk the ref front. Naturally, they shouted I was unjust to the little boys who were “just trying to have fun”, though they played to kill, which showed the level of toxicity in the coaching itself. Boys will be boys, as it goes. But when a ref plays fair, plays safe, and plays by the rules of the game, the men were upset.

Once I called a foul, I remember granting a player his deserved free-throws, and the player stood at the line, eager to score some buckets. The gym was silent, every parent anticipating a cheer and a round of applause— because at the end of the day, every parent does want to see a smile light up a kid’s face, even if it’s from the opposing team. One shot down, he missed— and a “That call never should have been made; ref, ref! Look at me when I’m trying to speak to you—” and when I glanced back at the coach who shouted at me, signalling with my hand for him to calm down, as we had been taught to react in training, one word escaped his mouth. It was quiet enough so the kids wouldn’t hear it but targeted enough so I would, and I did— “Bitch.”

It was my first gendered insult in that job. That was one thing that they hadn’t mentioned at all in the workshops. I was angry, scared, desiring to tell him that was no way to treat a woman, let alone a girl, but not sure how to bring it up. Frightened of the fact that he was already angry, and petrified to take a beating should he react even worse.

At the end of the game, the coach refused to shake my hand. He shook the other referee’s hand, although that referee could have changed the fate of the game should he have officiated a bit better. Even though his team lost, the coach made a point of saying, “Good game, ref.” Then to me, he asked why the game was so horrifically officiated. I told him I did the best I could, up to the league’s standards, and then asked him why he didn’t shout at my partner as much as he shouted at me. I knew by the look in his eye that he knew he couldn’t get away with making my partner look like he had done a better job than me: we both knew the other ref was practically redundant. But in this silence, I knew something else held him

back too. In retrospect, I didn’t need to ask the question at all because I already knew the answer. It’s why he was able to say the word bitch in the first place. Because I was young, sixteen, small, a teenager, you name it— sure, but really, because I was a girl. The all too common phrase that my employers joked about instead manifested in a terrifying way: “Get paid to be yelled at!” But at what point would money never erase the words? Words have meaning, and I’m not putting so much focus on the fact that they hurt, instead, rather on the fact that words tell. They tell about a person’s morals, ideas, beliefs, they tell girls like me that it just might be dangerous walking alone to the parking lot after the game. They might be there, just waiting. Just waiting. Just waiting.

It is never just about the words, because words always turn into something deeper if they aren’t already used to express a very old and prominent anger of misogynistic men. So many insulting phrases have been thrown towards many young girls as they grow up, such as “He made fun of you because he likes you” and “He hit you because he has a crush on you” or “he got angry with you because you rejected him” and as Laura Bates relates the incel rationalisation, “it is women’s fault men are driven to rape in the first place (because they refuse to provide them with sex).”4 These so-called excuses for boys’ and men’s behaviour provide a gateway to the high-horse men get when calling a woman a bitch, or a cunt, or slut, or anything else. It’s the frustrating, baseless logic of “If she wouldn’t have just done x, then I would have no NEED to react with y.” If you’ve followed anything I’ve communicated thus far, you’ll know what I’m about to say: it all boils down to fucking blame. Blame,

4

Laura Bates, Men Who Hate Women (London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2021), p. 30.

consequence, excuse, and a continuance of these behaviours until misogynistic men actually seem to enjoy being this hateful.

II

One Saturday night, my coworker had just finished her shift and was enjoying a pint with another coworker. A regular was in, and was quite drunk, and begged for the attention from the coworker, who was busy in a different conversation that didn’t involve him. When she didn’t react to him, he yelled to get her attention, and then slapped her.

Shouldn’t misogynistic men love the power they get, even though it really only expresses itself as anger? Shouldn’t they be happy when being misogynistic? Perhaps that is why some men can get away with being so misogynistic in the first place: because they can excuse it by playing the victim.

“She didn’t call a fair game. It’s unfair!”

“She wasn’t paying attention to me!”

“My ex, she was a crazy fucking bitch!”

There’s a common denominator here.

Victimisation is sprawled in big block letters over this whole rationalisation, and it helps accentuate the misogyny— without the victimisation, they can’t truly win. Happiness and domination is never enough, eh? To an extent, this helps explain (not excuse) why Carl Benjamin’s rant is able to be seen as a crisis response by news outlets rather than just and only what it is: hate speech.

“You are responsible for perpetrating it, by disenfranchising these poor fucking guys who don’t have any options left […] The question you and all of your stupid fucking feminist cultists need to be asking is: why are these men becoming misogynists in the first place? What is this feminist-run society doing to them that is causing them to go insane?”5

This quote is in relation to Elliot Rodger’s 2014 misogynistic murder spree, wherein six people were killed because he wanted to punish all women for a small amount who rejected him.

Though I am sure the coach I butted heads with probably won’t kill a woman, or two, or three in his lifetime, and neither will the pub regular who slapped my coworker, the words misogynistic men speak is killing the humanity that is supposed to unite us, and in turn, men are killing women. Humans killing other humans.

5

Bates, p. 219.

Don’t worry, my love, I’ll explain more about this dynamic soon enough. I only wanted to point out that this type of behaviour happens at any age. I want you to be ready to recognise it if/when it should happen to you, though surely you’ve got enough self-respect right now to know that you do not deserve it. No one deserves this.

THE DEATH OF THE WOMAN

content warning: assault, rape, suicide.

I

When it comes to communication (which I’d like to call the dynamic between comment and response), women are expected to react in certain ways that would serve to satisfy the man who is talking to her or about her. For example, a man makes a joke, and it’s offensive, or rude, or dark. A woman has two choices: to laugh, or not to laugh? She may laugh, even though she knows it’s not right, but she does it to satisfy him and to protect herself. She knows, deep down, that if she doesn’t laugh, he may then react worse to her. He may take it as an attack against himself, and thus equips a type of self-defence tactic that has nothing to do with self-defence, but is instead to punish the woman who is “disobeying” or disagreeing. My dear, you can probably see the dilemma, right? Regrettably, standing up means risking yourself to hatred. But surely you can also see that to sit there and let him keep saying horrible things means that he can and will keep controlling how you react, and in turn, silence you. As

long as the woman is being silenced and controlled when it comes to communication, she starts to lose herself. For when a woman does react the way a misogynistic man would want her to, she can only positively react to him, but negatively to herself. This often leaves her with no choice.

This communication dynamic reminds me of a book I once read when I was nineteen.

In Young-ha Kim’s 1996 novel I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, an underage girl named Seyeon enters the world of work at a bar. As she can’t serve pints, her role is to simply be eye candy, and to laugh along with the drunk men in the bar. When she doesn’t— well, you can imagine.

“The five men entered a room and ordered beer, and Se-yeon came in to peel fruit for them. She peeled apples awkwardly. She looked young, despite her dark purple eye shadow. She didn’t laugh once. The drivers got pissed and cursed at her, a woman selling a good time who didn’t laugh. The owner of the karaoke bar came in and cursed at her, too. He dragged her outside, and they could hear him slapping her. A bit later, when she came back in, she laughed endlessly. She laughed at a lame joke, when someone groused about the taxi dispatcher, and when someone said that the Korean soccer team was likely to get to the World Cup. The drivers got pissed again. Someone called her a crazy bitch. She laughed at that, too, and was dragged out again.”6

6

Young-ha Kim, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, trans. By Chi-young Kim (Harcourt, 2007), p. 35.

It [should/must] be obvious that once Se-yeon goes back into the bar, she only laughs because she knows it will make the violent men happy. It [should/must] be obvious that she is afraid to make the wrong move should something else happen to her. But that’s fear, my love.

We can’t only focus on fear and ignore how that fear will rip us apart. For when Se-yeon laughs wildly and uncontrollably, she does so not to make the men satisfied with themselves, but because a piece of her soul, her person, her sanity, is being taken away by the control and threat of violence. It’s ironic that even though the men in the bar are the ones expecting her to laugh, they get angry when she laughs too much— Are you following me, my love? If she doesn’t laugh, they can punish her. When she does laugh, they can still punish her. If she only laughed when they “invited” her to, then she wouldn’t have been slapped, right? But that means she’d have to wait for speech, signal, and react accordingly. It’s easy!

Right?

“Why didn’t you laugh at first?” K wondered.

“Because nothing was funny.”

“Then why did you laugh afterward?”

“Because it was all funny then.”

Of course it’s not funny, though. Kim’s pointing to the fact that there is no explanation as to why Se-yeon thought it was all funny. It’s absurd, bizarre, confusing, and that’s the point. When nothing makes sense anymore, that’s when the most control has been exerted; when each slap equals a bit of your own sanity being stripped from your body, of course

psychological safety starts to falter. Physical violence is so much more than pain, bruises, cuts, gashes; when it is charged in such a way that is inherently against women as humans, then naturally, it will always turn psychological.

II

We see this control and a complicated expectancy of reaction in heterosexual sex just as much as simple (controlled) conversation. Just like the expectation of a certain reaction, the masochistic/sadist pornographic image is another performance that women have to replicate.

By this I mean, they aren’t expected to enjoy penetration as much as they are merely supposed to just take it. In Men Who Hate Women, Laura Bates mentions this distinction even in a school setting: that a fourteen year old boy thought it “normal for girls to cry during sex.”7 If these are the standards surrounding porno culture and communication, then we will never be free, my love.

In this sense, I’ve learned there is a very fine line between sex and rape. I once went home with a man named Arthur, and I was a bit drunk, and so was he. The sexual tension was there: for one minute, I was fine, but the next, I was screaming just like how the girls scream in those videos, and I wanted him to stop, but he wouldn’t.

“Give me thirty seconds. Shut up.” He put his hands on my neck and pushed my face into the pillow.

7

Laura Bates, Men Who Hate Women (London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2021), p. 271.

When my screams transformed to loud sobs, and when I finally let out a noise that sounded an awful lot like “Help!” that was when he stopped. And I knew he didn’t stop because I asked him, then told him, then cried for him to. He only stopped because I was set on incriminating him.

A few moments later, he asked me why I was crying. I was too overcome by my emotions that I couldn’t admit to even myself that from that moment on, I was being raped, even if it was only for a small time. So I told him something stupid like “I’m not over my ex.”

He proceeded to tell me that it was okay to cry, it’s okay to be upset; the good old phrase “let it all out” spilled from his horrible lips, and I couldn’t stand to look at him, and then, the worst moment of it all—

“Females are more emotional than men, so I’m not judging you,” he said.

I actually stopped crying, because what the fuck?

Arthur proceeded to explain science, and God, and Adam and Eve, and everything about the “nature” of the world, except society (perhaps the biggest killer of everything ever) and I wasn’t as surprised as I was pissed off. I asked him why he doesn’t cry. He said his brain isn’t wired to be able to cry because he’s a man. I tried to reason with him, because I knew that there was major emotional suppression going on with this young man, and he obviously

felt the need to let those emotions out in the perfect pornographic dream sequence: complete sexual domination, until it becomes rape.

But it wasn’t rape for him, and I didn’t tell him that. I was scared. I was really, really scared. But I was curious.

I told him the patriarchy doesn’t allow him to cry. He told me I was wrong, that it’s scientifically his body. He was studying engineering, so he’d know! I laughed. He yelled at me. I wanted to ask him what engineering had to do with human emotion, but then I recalled another observation from Bates’ novel: “But it is just something he knows.”8 With men like this, they may expect a woman to agree with everything he says, and yet, they makes no sense at all.

He told me to shut up when I began to speak again. When I pointed out that he was getting angry, he called me a bitch. I got up, got dressed; he asked where I was going in an innocent voice as if nothing had happened in the last ten minutes, and I said I was leaving.

“I don’t even know your name,” he called out as I reached the door.

I’m just a bitch to you, I muttered under my breath. He began yelling again. Who’s emotional now, Arthur?

8

Bates, p. 262.

If he wasn’t naked I was sure he’d have gotten up to start strangling me again. It was there in his eyes, the anger, the hatred, the tone of his voice as he called me a bitch over and over and over again.

I stalked home and broke down in the stairwell, thinking that maybe if I had just taken it and laughed, and agreed with his mansplanations, and cried orgasmic tears, even if they were fake, that maybe none of this would have happened. For a long time, I thought it was all my fault. That I could have prevented it.

But it’s not entirely my responsibility to avoid rape, neither is it entirely yours, dear.

We need to teach the boys and men in our communities that they cannot do that either, and tell them why they can’t do that. If they treated this rule just like Arthur treated the “no crying or vulnerability” rule that men have (but shouldn’t!), then we can start to tackle this issue. It can’t all be put on women.

I hope this does not come as a shock to you, my love: as long as our society keeps ignoring, excusing and allowing angry and misogynistic men like Arthur to keep treating women like they are treated in porn, then we will never be free. We must take it upon ourselves to combat it, but alas, we are forced to be scared. Forced to be silenced. Forced to laugh, forced to take it, forced to listen to their reasonings and manifestos, forced to sympathise with them, and forced to react the way they want us to react because it seems, in every other scenario, we lose something of ourselves until we lose ourselves. Even though Arthur didn’t see me as something to be beaten, harassed, or killed, he still saw me as

something to be dominated and used, and in turn, raped, and that is just as horrific. Germaine Greer notes this in The Female Eunuch: “We still make love to organs and not people.”9 But if he sees me as a vagina only, then why does he take pleasure in choking me, hearing me scream, seeing my face grow red from lack of oxygen and twisted in fear?

I hope I’ve felt enough shame for myself and my body and my soul for the both of us, my darling. I hope you will never be forced to lose yourself. I hope you never have to encounter an Arthur, though plenty of them exist, and will continue to exist. Maybe we can change the world, you and I. But misogynistic men have to change too.

III

“Death has become pornographic, shown on live TV.”10

The existence of a damaged woman (in this case, meaning a woman who has had her agency, sexuality, mind, and soul taken away from her) manifests in I Have the Right to Destroy Myself as the one unconscious fear that we all avoid. Take the character C for instance, whose job is to record live performances— although he’d rather filter, and control it through the lens rather than just watch the performance for the sake of true human expression.

C captures Mimi with his camera, but of course, he’s capturing her psychologically as well. To be able to do so gives him the same feeling the patriarchy flaunts with such admirability:

9

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (London: Harper Perennial, 2006), p. 52.

Young-ha Kim, trans. Chi-young Kim, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (Harcourt, 2007), p. 56.

10

domination, or ownership. The two are usually synonymous in the most horrifying ways. As Mimi, another damaged woman in the novel, is the subject of the recording, she quarrels with him about his fears.

“You lust after the woman in the tape, instead of the real me. Because it’s safer that way— you can’t get hurt. You’re right, Mimi in that tape isn’t really me. It’s you.”11

I have always wondered what Mimi meant by saying a man “can’t get hurt.” It’s like a real woman would injure a man who so innocently only wants to videotape a woman for “art’s sake.” A real woman could thus mean two things: 1) a damaged woman, which I’ve mentioned before, and 2) a woman with no sex appeal. Both threaten the man (if not the misogynistic one) but only one is to do with overall emotional awareness. A woman with no sex appeal threatens man because he fears he can’t gain a sense of control, even though he always has his imagination. A damaged woman threatens man because he may not be able to escape the realisation that his own person is suffering. It’s what makes another character, Judith’s, point much more resonant: “It’s funny, the truth makes people uncomfortable, but a lie gets people excited.”12 You may be able to see why C would choose the first woman, it’s the easy way out.

He might not be in control of this woman, but there’s still no sympathy, nor any respect. The lack of such qualities is what adds even more fuel to the already raging fire that engulfs the world— because misogynistic men do have the ability to understand struggle; however, it is their choice not to.

11 12

Ibid., p. 101.

Ibid., p. 27.

Initially, I thought perhaps it was a challenge or a need for experience for a damaged woman to objectify herself so much just to see if a man could ever truly see her as human behind the broken pieces of her sexuality. The woman from Hong Kong’s story is the most compelling, in the most heartbreaking way. She works as a mannequin at a bar, and is too young to sell alcohol but is old enough to have pieces of paper with prices stuck to her body.

(Old enough? In whose world?) Customers drink, pay to take off a piece of paper, and they aren’t allowed to touch her, and she’s not allowed to speak to them at all. She expresses disappointment when pieces remain, and when one man keeps coming back every night, she feels a sense of loyalty from him. When another customer pays for the most expensive piece (we don’t know where this is, but can assume covering the vulva), she says she feels “less humiliated” than before with other customers and other pieces.13

At first I didn’t get it. But as I’ve mentioned before: perhaps her agency, her sexuality, her body and soul were being ripped from her like they were the pieces of paper themselves— perhaps, she couldn’t think for herself any longer. Perhaps she needed the attention, not because she craved it, but because it was all she was used to— familiar, though dehumanising.

But what happens when all the pieces are taken off? For the woman from Hong Kong, she started living with the man, and he continued to objectify her like this until she retaliated. We cheered when she escaped, yes, but her soul doesn’t kindle anymore, her body is made redundant from the abuse, and her mind is practically gone from trauma— she cannot even drink water anymore, because even that has been sexualised against her. The narrator who

13

Ibid., p. 74.

talks to the woman from Hong Kong holds the key to her fate, as he holds it for every other woman in the novel. He is said to be from Hell and wants to reveal people’s unconscious thoughts and fears. In a characterised way that is so manipulative that it could hardly be noticeable, I’d like to place him next to someone whom I know so well: Satan.

He is Death to all the women in the novel like Satan is the tempter to Eve. And yet, when the women he works with finally die, we might say, “At least it was her own choice.”

When we learn of all the women’s heartbreaking backstories, we only wish for them to be free from their trauma, but when freedom is presented as suicide, then the question of morality arises: is the narrator encouraging these women to commit suicide, or do they willingly search for it because it acts as some sort of vengeance? Is the narrator, acting as the Grim Reaper, doing the women a favour by helping them reach their goals, or is this the most misogynistic thing a man could do? Just as Kim wants us to face our unconscious urges and fears, we thus cannot turn away from this novel’s message. We cannot deny now that even death is deeply gendered. Thus, the title of the book becomes glaringly veracious. It really is the last option.

I can see how it’s a protest, to just die. But I can also greatly comprehend that a world that presents death as the only option to a damaged woman after bouts of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse is not the right world in which we should be living. Surely you’d agree, darling. I applaud Kim’s storytelling skills, and whether or not my interpretation is the correct one for the novel, I pray it doesn’t fucking matter— because as long as women are having everything taken from them that they turn to suicide, I will try my best to keep living in dissent.

And I’d hope you’d do the same, my love.

If you’ve gained anything from these instances and analyses, I’d hope it’s the urge to fight back against this patriarchal world. I don’t have all the solutions, but I hope that you’ll take some pleasure in finding them in your life. I love you dearly, and I don’t wish to see you struggle— please fight back. For yourself. Because you deserve it.

FRAMING ESSAY

I

The first time my mother and I truly fought, she eventually retreated into her room, isolating herself away from the shouting and arguing. I thought this was a cowardly move, but when she knocked on my door about an hour later, she handed me a few pages of her own writing. She encouraged me to write as well about how I felt about our disagreements, and this would later inspire me to record the latter half of my teenage years through diaries and journals. You may have heard many variations of the quote, “A problem written down is a problem half solved”— this has unequivocally proven true to me a countless number of times, whether it’s been about familial clashes, or about my experiences as a young woman.

Therefore, it is no wonder that the issues I’ve encountered within patriarchal society have been written down. I started by writing about the trauma itself, but then I wanted to gain insight into why this trauma had to exist in the first place: meaning, why misogyny is so rampant in society. The creative practice dissertation has thus been the perfect opportunity to augment my passion for feminism, as it’s allowed me to research both non-fictional works and fictional works in order to create a narrative that is both analytical and artistic. The aim of this has been to balance both the forms of a critical response and creative narrative so that the claims I make in each section of the project are both immersive and thought-provoking. To help practise this form, reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 has assisted me greatly, as its form is also a harmony between fictional narrative and essayistic consideration.

As my writing process has been nearly all self-reflective, I’ve learned to break past the fear of voicing my feelings. It is one thing to be silenced as I have communicated in “The Death of the Woman”, but it is another thing to find your own voice again after experiencing any trauma; in this case, misogynistic trauma. The influence of writing is thus therapeutically groundbreaking: I am able to organise my emotions, and in turn, can come to accept and grow from the suffering. Additionally, another huge aim is to both provide solidarity to those who have suffered under the patriarchy and to inspire them to reflect, accept, heal, and fight back.

Contrarily, the more prominent audience is the hypothetical daughter, who is altogether a silent character, an imagined state, and a driving force to write. She didn’t exist in the proposal for this project back in April 2023, and in finding her, I’ve found deeper significance in my writing. I figured that if I wrote for someone, then this would unconsciously urge me to be as clear, powerful, and steadfast as I could. This brings a transcendent philosophical tone to the

narration, acting as a tentative teacher/mother to the imaginary daughter. Likewise, it also helps me be clear with my own self about how I truly feel, so that I am not forgetting myself.

With the daughter in mind, I’ve had to equip a balance between past, present and future tenses. In relation to the writing process, this has encouraged me to remember and reflect on my experiences, analyse them in real time, and then deliberate how to link it with the research I’ve done to make it as cohesive as possible for this singularly imagined audience. Thus I kept asking myself if the work was comprehensible to a younger mind, and if the material included was appropriate. This brings up an issue I had struggled with in regards to writing: we know misogynistic behaviour can be exploited against any girl of any age, so how can I reasonably relate those instances that are more mature and traumatic?

With feminist writing, I believe honesty is more important than ignorant security. Just like what I communicate in Part 3 of “The Genesis of Blame”, I truly think that it does not do to turn a blind eye to the factuality of suffering: in this case, morality and creative writing has been a dynamic that I’ve learned to equalise to the best of my ability. This includes creative decisions such as right word choice and syntax. Whereas the level of fictionality can vary with the narrative “instances” (though it does remain overwhelmingly honest in the project), I have learned that it is the actual analyses and observations that must remain true and therefore ethical. In Garland’s Men, the vicar asks, “You prefer things to be comfortable or true?”14 With the research and reading I’ve done on various feminist literature, including Angela Davis’ Women, Race and Class and Angela Carter’s The Sadeian Woman, I’ve recognised that an

14

Men, dir. by. Alex Garland (A24 Studios, 2022).

irritating sense of realisation is worth so much more than what may otherwise be hushed and used as damage control like we see in some journalism. Likewise, even fictional books like Beartown by Fredrik Backman have helped me reflect on how humans communicate with one another regarding misogynistic behaviour. The novels follow the rape of a young girl, and how the society defends her rapist, turning against her. Apart from this tragedy being relatable, it is the dynamic between the girl and her mother that deeply intrigues me and has provided a literary basis for how to be a strong, defensive mother. This has helped me sympathise myself as the focalising narrator of my project; in other words, the mother, who desires to be a guiding light for her daughter, whether or not she will be present in her life. (Relating to tense again, if the narrator cannot be in her daughter’s life in the future, the creative project acts as an impelling keepsake. This in turn will help inspire the writing to continue, even if it is not the same narrator— my aim with this technique is to inspire other women to speak up and write as well.) Most importantly, however, the novel has reminded me that it is okay to feel emotion and be damaged. Though I talk about the damaged woman in “The Death of the Woman”, it is crucial to remember that we must not suppress our emotions, and we must look for support in those we trust. Conclusively, there is no better way to increase our knowledge on our own emotions and relationships than to read— literature holds the key to the world in more ways than we think. If we don’t read, then we remain stuck in the same place.

If fictional and/or memoir writing surrounds stories with morals, essay-writing extends this psychological and emotional exploration in the way it forces us as writers to meditate on our choices of communication. In other words, writing a mutual essay alongside the project has encouraged me to keep pushing my passions in an academic mode, so I can both improve as a

writer and a thinker: there is no better combination. If I strengthen this union, then my activist voice will never be drowned out. This realisation that has been manifested through creative practice has amplified my motivation to a great extent.

Researching the similarities of misogyny in other countries such as France, Sweden and Korea has been heartbreaking, because I’ve learned that hatred truly is all around: but I hope to continue my studies so I might be able to improve my activist voice and conceptualise theses and resolutions accordingly. With this being said, a huge part of the creative process has been the recognition that the more I learn about the vices of a patriarchal world, the more it energises me to keep writing. As I don’t have as many solutions to the issues I communicate in the project, I hope for two things: that the hypothetical daughter may be mirrored in any reader, such that they can in turn join my thought process, and that I can in time succeed.

II

My 2023 proposal versus my final project is drastically different. At first I struggled with word count, and felt the pressure to talk about every branch of feminism possible, but of course, this could not be done. I wanted to examine intersectionality, the progression and/or regression of minority rights, and different cultural roles when it comes to gender. However, as my brainstorming ensued, I became more interested in shame, and how that shame has stuck with me since my early childhood. As you’ve read, I’ve linked shame to punishment and death, making these three things the chief themes of my project. With these ideas in mind, I then chose my main supporting resources, Men Who Hate Women, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, and Men. Bates’ influential book disconstructs incel logic to its most basic facts, which

has helped me to better understand how misogyny can not only be so rampant, but how it also manages to get away with it. In turn, I was able to construct my criticism and relate it to past trauma that I’ve encountered. Next, I read Kim’s novel on a whim one summer, and it took three more reads to finally come to a conclusion that wasn’t full of rage— however, of course that’s what the author wants: those inner urges, right? The creative research practice with this novel has definitely kindled my views to be even more feminist than it already is. I wrote a mini essay about the book to keep to myself, and when I realised I could tie it in with this project, I was eager to do so. Last, I watched Men with my ex-flatmate, then with my mother, then on my own, and I was enthralled by the many layers of imagery and symbolism within it.

I related it to Milton’s Paradise Lost by its way of showcasing sin, and of course, the allusions to Adam and Eve from The Bible are undeniable, as I have discussed in “The Genesis of Blame”. Like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the horror that surrounds unnatural sexual functions (ie. creation or conception) creates perhaps the first basis for a feminist defence of the female body. Furthermore, Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch discusses different sexual bodies and how they have evolved societally to become linked to the horrors portrayed in the film.

Overall as aforementioned, this project has motivated me to clearly outline the complex dynamics between shame, punishment, and death. In creating this link, I have improved my skill to coincide analytical approaches with creative narrative, which is a new form for me to experiment with. Though I have not been able to talk about every instance and ideological thought that I have conjured or researched, I am confident that this project can be a starting basis for anyone wishing to broaden their minds in a more humanitarian way. There is lots

more out there to study in relation to my main three themes; to name some would be the sexualisation of the female body in classic art, the difference between punishments and jokes, and female healthcare. Perhaps a reader, or you, my daughter, might be able to reach some conclusions regarding the shortcomings and dangers to such concepts. After all, just as much as this project is for my own improvement as a writer and a feminist, I hope it will act the same for you, so you may always feel empowered.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I’d like to thank my supervisor, Johanna Linsley, for repeatedly encouraging me to push the boundaries of thinking and writing. I had the passion, but I didn’t think I’d be able to express it without your support and guidance. Thank you for teaching me for the past four years!

Thank you to the class of the Creative Practice Dissertation; we’ve encouraged each other throughout the year and I couldn’t ask for a better team. Happy graduation!

My mother, who has, to this day, been unapologetically herself. If the patriarchy can’t move against anyone, it’s you. Thank you for being such a huge role model in my life and I really hope to continue to live by your ideals, your energy, and your love and understanding for the world and its inhabitants. I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without you.

To my friends, Danila, Rae, Morgan and Hannah, who have been there for me at my lowest, and have shown the true influence of girls supporting girls. Keep being beautiful, powerful young women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bates, Laura, Men Who Hate Women (London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2021)

BBC, “End Times”, BBC, 2011 <https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/endtimes 1.shtml#findoutmore > [accessed 21 March 2024]

Garland, Alex, dir., Men (A24 Studios, 2022)

Greer, Germaine, The Female Eunuch (London: Harper Perennial, 2006), p. 52.

Hughes, Lloyd D., and Majekodunmi, Olwkayode, “Hormonal contraception and suicide: a new dimension of risk”, The British Journal of General Practice: The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners 68,676 (2018), 515-513 (p. 512) <http://dx.doi.org/10.3399/bjgp18X699473>

Jenni, “men will drive you to insanity and then ask why you don’t bring peace”, (X post, @hashjenni, 20 February 2024)

Kim, Young-ha, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, trans. By Kim, Chi-young (Harcourt, 2007)

FURTHER READING

This list includes novels I’ve read and studied, even though they may not be discussed in the dissertation. I’d recommend these novels to read yourself as the information provided is crucial to adopting a wider range of feminist ideology.

Backman, Fredrik, Beartown, trans. by Smith, Neil (Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 2019) Carter, Angela, The Sadeian Woman (London: Virago, 2006) Carter, Angela, The Bloody Chamber (London: Vintage, 2006)

Cho, Namjoo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, trans. by. Chang, Jamie (London: Scribner, 2021) Davis, Angela Y., Women, Race and Class (London: Penguin Random House UK, 2019) de Beauvoir, Simone, The Second Sex, trans. by Borde, Constance, & Malovany-Chevallier, Sheila (London: Vintage, 2011) Krauss, Chris, I Love Dick (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2016) Nelson, Maggie, The Argonauts (London: Melville House, 2016) Perkins Gilman, Charlotte, The Yellow-Wallpaper, Herland, and Selected Writings (London: Penguin Classics, 1999) Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein (London: Everyman Paperbacks, 1991)

Frozen above the blackened sky, The chosen god, refusing to perish.

Her child’s cindered footsteps lost, Welcoming the frozen horde and Dooming all she swore to protect.

The snow gently resting upon the branches of the willow trees, taking rest in a silent forest during their descent to the ground to join their ever-growing ranks. Resting snow continues to rise higher and higher claiming the silent forests for themselves. Creaking limbs of aching trees become limp, unable to stand as they once did. In this undisturbed land one would expect silence; however, that is not what you would be greeted with upon entry to these once tranquil woods.

Within these woods hides a small hamlet, within resides a mother, a father and their child. This place hidden away from society was once a place of peace and tranquillity but tonight that won’t be found. Cries of pain echo across the frozen forest, voices roar as flame takes to flesh. The mother sits by her child’s bedside as they writhe and contort. A sickness aims to claim their child, a fever grips them alike no other. They cry out in pain as fire attempts to bore out of their chest, the anguish manifest through the child’s voice. Outside the home, the father desperately clawing for his child’s life reaches into his sack and retrieves another body for the fire, the corpse’s black fur singing upon contact with the flames.

The smell sticking to his sweat, the feline’s cries ringing in tune with his child’s, the dawn coming ever closer and with it, their salvation. The cats cry louder, the child screaming piercing their parent’s ears, their mother attempting to soothe them as their body continues to twist and contort, a faint glow emanating from their chest; like their heart itself had caught fire. The sun begins to break the skyline, the once black night now a blood red hue, even the sun fears what will occur at this once humble abode.

As the final feline is cast into the fires, four days of agony for the child and the cats alike, a large shadow now denies the sun its entry to this outcrop in the once silent forest. The father’s eyes follow the borders of the shadow to its source, a short, imposing, feline figure; the one who he wished to call upon, Big Ears. Followed by hordes of his kin, the Cait Sìth army stands to their king’s command and with a roaring voice he cries out.

“Why have you summoned me to this frigid plane, taking my own and putting them to the flame?”

Countless shining eyes now darting to the ongoing fire, one body refuses to ash, the now unsightly body of another Cait Sìth - one of the Cat King’s many soldiers.

Four days meticulously burning, two weeks collecting the accursed fuel and not once did the father consider what he was collecting, only his child’s salvation rested in his mind. Falling to his knees he pleads with Big Ears, “I beg of yis’ please save my child!”

His cascading tears rapidly freezing as they collide with the snow. The spirit has no interest in the father, strolling right past him with a distinct swagger as the hut’s door flies open at the feline’s presence, welcoming him to the soul inside.

The child’s bloodied screams yet to cease, their skin bubbling from the fire that grips their soul, Big Ears watches with unwavering anticipation akin to his mortal brethren hunting sparrows. Each step towards the child their cries growing louder, the blazing light attempting to free itself from their chest, darting from their heart to their ribs as each bone cracks and twists, the flames inside screaming in their ears, attempting to take control. The cat steps closer. The pain grows stronger.

The flames erupt from the child’s chest engulfing their home before finally… darkness.

The child’s body now set adrift in a sea of nothingness, threads tugging their limp body across countless, formless oceans. Rising and falling by command of a tide known only to the beings of this domain. Hiding within the shadows a form stands, pulling the child’s body from the threads of darkness before holding them tight between its gnarled arms. Its shadowed claws cutting the child’s skin and drawing the light from their veins. Twinkling in the ocean of entropy, placed in the claws of the unknown beast, dancing between the rotting fingers and bringing the once shadowed skin into light and beginning to restore the figure’s corporeal form.

Thrack!

A large, black cat pounces on the shadowed figure, freeing the child from the shadow’s grasp and releasing them into the sea of darkness once more. The cat begins to tear at the figure, clawing the light from it’s engorged torso, wrapping the light round the cat’s spectral claws and teasing it back through boundless nothingness, racing back to their home within the child. Swiftly making way through their nose, down through the atrophied body, through each bone, each muscle, each sinew before finally resting gently behind their weary eyelids. Their eyes begin to twitch open and gain a grasp of the environment around them, pushing the unbearable weight of one’s skin from their vision before finally being met with a frozen ocean.

“Here I was thinking you’d sleep the entire journey, aye Sìth?”

Remarks a strange yet familiar voice. Perched upon the bow of the small rowing boat, curled up to avoid the freezing cold, lay Big Ears, king of the Cait-Sìth.

“Dreaming again, were you? Well listen up, we’re soon to land at the Northern Isle,” Sìth starts rubbing the leftover sleep from their weary eyes and begins to look around the frozen landscape around them, lit only by the lantern upon their boat. The once turbulent ocean has been left calm, trapped beneath layers of ice only to be broken by the splintered paths created by fishermen before. Entire warships lay in waste and uprooted by the frozen wasteland. Winter’s fingers lay firmly rooted into the body of The Isles, the sun now trapped behind the peak of Ben Dreich, piercing the sky deeper each day. The moon no longer chasing the sun and instead claiming dominion over the skies.

“This is your final hunt, young one. I have been denied the soul of the giants for many hallowed moons. You will be the one to retrieve it for me.”

He barked commands to Sìth, as he had done countless times before for countless hunts. Unable to harm most monsters in the Isles due to his mortal shell’s fragile body, Big Ears was left to rely on the power of doomed, foolish mortals to feed on stronger souls. Sìth was the first human to be kept indentured to the devil, as he had moulded Sìth since their youth.

Sìth replies with naught but an affirming grunt, their gaunt face half-obscured by matted curls of dark, unkempt hair. Their lanky build wrapped in elk furs and rugged cloth frozen stiff with snow stuck to the tips of each strand. Their blistered skin wrapped in bloodied bandages. Finally,

contained with a shabby sheath, upon their waist lies a silvered dirk; the perfect tool for hunting the monsters that dwell in these lands. This ornate blade, left marked by the bloods of monster and man alike, has been Sìth’s only companion for as long as they could remember, alone in the frigid wastes.

The minds of other humans left broken by the unending winter and no creature tame enough to talk walking the barren landscapes, no matter where Sìth walked, there would be need for the dirk.

This life has been all Sìth knows, travelling the frozen wastes with Big Ears by their side moving from hunt to hunt. Entire species of monster wiped from existence to sate the greed of the Cait Sìth. The pixies to the east consumed in their hundreds, engulfed by flames spanning their entire woodland home. The snow unable to douse the flames before their tiny bones were reduced to ash and dust.

The screams ever present in Sìth’s mind, countless voices crying out to their mothers with their final breath repeating endlessly. Though Sìth could never save the pixies if they were to ever save themself. They could not save any creature who catches Big Ear’s voracious eyes and Sìth found themselves in the centre of that gaze for far… too... long…

After what felt like an age on the waters, Sìth finally arrives at the banks of the Northern Isle, one of the few destinations they were yet to visit during their time in servitude. The sands of this beach near black, the heather that would poke through the mounds of snow stands unweighted and every tree left to nothing but stumps. Big Ears finally uncurling and jumping off the boat strides around Sìth, reciting their commands in a sing-song voice.

“The Giant resides in a cave to the north-east, past the village set upon by a madman, be careful of the traps of the beast, should you wish to kill the Fachan”.

Slinking behind Sìth and disappearing into their shadow, Big Ears disappeared as quickly as he arrives. Looking to the skyline, a large plume of smoke bellows into the sky from the nearby village, the only thing standing in the way of the Fachan’s lair.

During these periods of respite, Sìth often takes the time to attempt to reflect on the life that they have lived, their earliest memories hard to grasp past the ghosts of all they have killed. A cottage in the woods and a mother and a father is all they can muster to remember, the harder they try the worse their blistered skin begins to burn, and their ashen bones begin to ache. Their parent’s nought but obscured shadows, the memories never consistent, one taller than the other and one much kinder. Only one reminder survives in Sìth’s mind, the flames. The burning light in their heart blinding every memory, reducing them to shadow puppets displayed against weakened walls.

Drawing closer to the village, the pillar of smoke only grows larger as Sìth’s being to dilate with revelation. The pillar was the village, all that remains of it, ashen remnants of buildings clouding the view of the central pyre, no snow to be seen as the heat permeates through the Isle. A once proud fishing village set upon by rot and decay before being met by cleansing flames. Yet no safety appears to be found here as a ruckus can be heard from the village centre.

Clinging to the tree stumps, dashing between them with panicked speed, Sìth approaches the village.

Thoughts darting through their mind, what could create such an intense flame? Was there a creature here more fearsome than the last giant? Finally, as the flames begin to enter their view, Sìth learned that the monsters of the Isles aren’t the only ones capable of such destruction.

Laughter and screams echoing aloud, a lone figure stands to face the flames. A brute of a man, leaning upon a great-axe admiring the flame, roaring with laughter and joy. Past the brute, from within the fire, myriads of voices cry out. Human, animal and monster all screaming in dissonant harmony, a cacophony of suffering echoing out to the burning village. Within the fire there are

numerous posts, the wood unscathed with charred bodies tied to them. Whoever this brutish firekeeper was he was not human, wielding powerful magic that could offset the endless winter.

His laughter halting, the brute spins fast on his heels to stare down the empty street, his face obscured in shadow. The roaring flame behind him flickers and dances behind him, a cloak of brimstone. His hulking figure protected by rusting chainmail draped with a green and gold tabard, he cries a declaration toward to the sky.

“My great lady, guide these souls from Teran’s frozen grasp, may they walk through your fires and be blessed forevermore in the ashes.”

His hallowed words fan the flames, bellowing higher than ever and radiating an immense heat through the empty alleyways and rotting storefronts, splintering the wood and forcing them to the ground. Sìth’s body twitches with fear, these flames are no stranger, these flames that shroud their memory.

Without thought, clambering from the protection of the house, Sìth stumbles into the clearing where the brute stands alone. The pressure created from the roaring flames tossing them backwards, ripping the cloak from their shoulders and revealing their bandaged body. Roaring with laughter the brute cries out to Sìth, “A survivor I see! Have you come to pledge allegiance to your true salvation? Or will you burn like the rest of them? My name is Aodh, Blade of the Flamebringer.”

He grasps onto the handle of his great axe with one hand and raises it to the sky, he is no mere madman but a monster. A beast come to exterminate all that stand against him. The flames roaring higher and higher, crackling in adoration for the paladin of this unknown deity. Looking down at Sìth he begins another prayer.

“My Lady blesses me…”

As he continues to speak, tendrils of flame begin to break free from the pyre, rushing to Aodh’s side and encircling his blade. “… I will walk through the flame and thaw this endless winter!”

Rushing from the air, the flames now diving to his axe, flowing from the gilded steel into Aodh’s arm, his body emitting a faint glow. Intense pressure now growing stronger in the arena, every escape route blocked by the now ruined buildings.

Barely able to draw their blade in his presence, the now trembling Sìth takes one, two deep breaths as they find their footing. If they wished to be free, this man must die. No time to think, digging their heels to the ground and tightening their grip on their dirk, Sìth begins to throw themselves forward and – CRACK A flash of light blinds Sìth all but momentarily as they are thrown off their feet. In what felt like a split second, Aodh leapt towards Sìth, striking them with a gut punch. Drawing every strand of air from their lungs and sending them upwards, coughing out blood from the powerful strike. Aodh begins to scoff before crouching down and jumping after Sìth. Gently placing the bottom of his boot upon Sìth’s head before thrusting them back to the earth. “Ah… perhaps you are too weak to be blessed by my lady… pity.” Pressing Sith’s head into the soot covered ground, he raises his axe to the sky readying to cleave Sìth in two.

Their head being crushed, dirk just out of reach, Sìth’s eyes lock with Aodh’s momentarily. This monster of a man’s eyes like honey, the light of the flames shining through his iris. Glaring into each other’s eyes, Aodh’s soft eyes slowly widening, momentarily loosening the pressure from Sith’s skull as he struggles to speak. “Those eyes…” is all that he could mutter before Sìth breaks free from under his foot, reclaiming their dirk and making a desperate attempt to slash towards Aodh’s calf. A crimson cascade flies from the once tensed muscle, coating the silvered dirk and revealing a severed tendon past the open wound. Desperately trying to brace himself and regain momentum, Aodh raises his right arm to the sun and begins to swing towards Sìth. His rippling muscles begin to visibly contract; from hand to bicep, bicep to shoulder, the muscles continue to contract before abruptly stopping at his leading leg, which buckles from Sìth’s ingenious attack.

With Aodh now plummeting to the ground, unable to drive force from the earth into his fists, a smile can be seen on the once fear-stricken face of Sìth. Recognising the upper hand that they now hold, their eyes lock once again with the zealot. The once confident warrior kneels before Sìth, who’s eyes are now fully revealed from behind their matted locks. If Aodh’s eyes were honey, Sìth’s were blood.

Feline iris housed inside a human head; the true embodiment of man turned monster. “A soul turned from the flames; you will burn all the same.” Slamming his axe to the earth Aodh begins to shakily stand in front of Sìth, the blood from his single wound flowing through the grooves of the earth. In reaction, with blinding speed and clinical precision, Sìth slashes at more vital muscles, forcing the giant to fall to his knees and release his great axe, blood seeping out of his countless wounds. The flames that turned his eyes gold flickering back to embers, the pyre dwindled to nothing but a candle.

“I have slaughtered countless of your master’s beasts in hopes that I could save mine, I became one with death and now death overwhelms me, to think a lion was hidden in a sheep’s skin.” The life slowly fading from his body with each passing second, Aodh was left staring up at Sìth, who now towered over his weak and powerless body. Stretching out their hand Sìth’s fingers gently glide across the warrior’s face. Callouses cascading through his wrinkled flesh before clasping his cheek and drawing his eyes upwards, a flash of warmth and compassion shines from behind their cold eyes for but a moment. The two lock eyes one final time; if it weren’t for Big Ear’s hold over Sìth, they may have had a chance to fight against the winter together. However, Aodh was nothing but a roadblock to Sìth’s freedom, his now dull brown eyes widening one last time as the dirk slides through his throat: with the last of his blood trickling through his coarse beard. A final explosion of flames erupts from the pyre, knocking Sìth to the ground and the corpse on top of them.

Tendrils of flames scatter to the wind, the souls of the many scorched returning to the earth, a beautiful dance of hundreds of lives who were once merely fuel for Aodh’s power. The spiderweb of souls spreading out beneath the endless night sky, celebrating a chance to enter the afterlife. Sìth breaking free of the drained corpse trapping them and clambering to their feet to witness the fruits of their unintended heroism. Suddenly, a single flame escapes from the web, barrelling directly towards Sìth. As they attempt to escape from Aodh’s crushing weight the flame ruptures through him, incinerating his flesh and finally… nothing.

Sìth stands, surrounded by nothing but a familiar darkness. Enclosed within an imposing void both suffocating and endless. Entropy swirling around them constantly, the darkness so thick it can be held in one’s hand; or threaded between fingers. The shadows cling to their skin, grabbing and tugging them, attempting to drag them into the ethereal flow. Hiding within the shadows a faint glow begins to be apparent just beyond a wall of shadows, getting ever closer as the shadows grab at Sìth tighter and tighter. Emerging from the shadows a familiar husk appears, Aodh. Momentarily before he was a mountain, immovable and imposing, a monster draped in human skin but now… his

floating body is serene and at peace, his muscles no longer tense and solid; his mouth left with a weakened smile as his hand rests upon his cheek.

Staring upon his form it rapidly begins changing, his body contorting and shifting, the splintering of his bones crackling as his flesh rips and tears. Images begin to flash in Sìth’s mind. A young, boisterous child sprinting through an abbey, surrounded by hooded figures and followed by other children. A slender and weak teenage boy, his body colliding with the tough cobbled floor, the clattering of his axe deafening as he stands to his feet and charges and finally one final image, a burning chapel and a lone man standing within the flames. Each breath stoking the flames around him before they engulf the memory. Gasping into the vacuous void as the flames assault their senses, Sìth’s eyes dart open to reveal Aodh’s body is no more and, in its place, floats a gentle flame silently calling out for Sìth’s embrace.

A lone light illuminating the dark, twitching and jerking around the aether. Staring deeper into the source, Sìth begins to feel themselves slipping further into the darkness. It’s many hands clinging to them, desperately tugging and clawing in attempts to tear Sìth away from the flame. These myriad hands familiar, all varying in size yet all violently ripping Sìth’s skin. Their breath harder to grasp, their body growing lighter and weaker, Sìth is dragged further and further into the abyss when, all of a sudden, the flame begins to start moving of its own accord, darting between the thousands of spectral hands denying Sìth freedom. Drawn to their endangered soul, barrelling into the darkness once again, a final cry of heroism from the noble paladin.

Colliding with Sìth the spectral flames begin to engulf them, an all too familiar feeling for the young wanderer. Memories of a life lived long before beginning to race in their mind; the hamlet in the woods, their mother and father, the nights of flames, immolation, the BURNING. Writhing as they once did years before, blistered skin bubbling, Aodh’s spectral flame begins to burrow deeper and deeper; however, it is met with a brighter light within.

Rapidly rising through them and clashing with the holy flame, the light envelops the flames, controlling and drawing them in closer to Sìth’s heart. As they are finally contained, not even the shadows dared to touch Sìth, their appendages slowly crumbling as the flames turn their fingers to ash. Floating in solitude they were, once again, alone. Memories of their past still flowing throughout their mind. Years in servitude to an unforgiving master, years stolen from them by the flames. They could have lived an easy life, they could have had parents who cared for them, are such wishes truly a luxury to someone like them? The darkness encroaching upon them as their body continues to flake away, there is but one emotion swirling through Sìth, dancing from their head to their heart, leaping and pirouetting between their bones: rage. A fury that refuses to subside, anger bubbling through every inch of them, gazing into nothingness with death slowly embracing Sìth after years and years of silence; they finally release One. Final. Scream.

Crying out to nothingness they scream for an eternity, tears streaming down their fractured skin and fusing with the blood from their many oozing blisters. Never ending, rising in ferocity they continue to cry out, maybe their voice will be heard by another? Calling out to be held once more by their mother before they forget her once more. Maybe their father will find another way to save them like he had done before. However, no one comes. Years of pain and sadness congregating within their chest and piling up upon their resting anger. A fate forced upon them by none other than a sadistic feline, hundreds of souls denied freedom by their hands. Each emotion as overwhelming as the last, blood overwhelms their throat as they scream until their body begins to give out. Darkness glazing over Sìth’s eyes as their consciousness slips further and further. They had heard enough death rattles in their time, they would not allow themselves such a pitiful final moment. Drawing in all the

air hidden in the shadows their chest puffing and inflating, tucking into as much of a ball as their crumpling limbs could allow and bracing themselves to slip beyond the veil. Sìth unleashes their voice accompanied by a splattering of blood and within them the light and it’s contained flames cry out in unison; swiftly growing and engulfing the darkness in blinding flames. Swelling throughout the nothingness, igniting infinity with their soul. Ashen stumps beginning to extend, the flames reforming their limbs; incinerating the dark forces that hoped to claim Sìth.

Flames now spanning the shadowed wastes, Sìth gazes ahead of them stood in a smouldering crater with only ash around. The once crumbling houses naught but a fine dust swirling in the wind. Raising their gaze to the heavens, the web of flames still igniting the sky; they were alive. A faint glow emanating from their hands they stand stunned; unsure of the phenomena that they had just undergone. How long had they stood in the ashen remnants of their battle? There was, however, no longer any time to waste. If Sìth wanted to confront Big Ears about the truth of their parents and their origins, of the shadows and the light, they would need to find and kill the Fachan. Preparing to leave, they looked to find the pack they had shrugged off before engaging with Aodh to realise it was gone, left with no supplies they would need to be swift as to survive the harsh moonlight.

And so, they set off with the night slowly encroaching. Despite the sun and moon being denied visage by the ever-present clouds which haunt The Isle’s sky, minor amounts of light could still bleed through during the day. However, when night struck the lands became much more treacherous to navigate due to the nigh impassable darkness. Making haste to the northeast, desperately hunting for signs of the giant, the ground slowly turning becoming one with the shadows. Typically carrying lanterns and flint in their pack, Sìth was at a loss in hopes for tracking the monster. Racking their brain for solutions, they thought to attempting to forage through snow in hopes to find supplies.

Each idea met with immediate setbacks and complications; frustration begins setting in. The angrier Sìth gets the harder it becomes to think of any better solutions. The emotions from the void festering in their soul, they strike a nearby snow mound and are met with a strange sensation… warmth?...

Looking into the dark snow, a faint glow can be seen emanating from the centre. Drawing their hand out, the glow moves with their arm and shyly shines from within Sìth’s knotted fist. Hesitantly opening their hand, Sìth is met by a small flame resting gently within. Nestled between frostbitten fingers, the flame burns effortlessly without wick. Floating mere centimetres from their palm it dances around their hand, darting through the gaps between fingers like a kestrel through the trees.

Attempting to inspect it further Sìth raises their hand to their face, and as they begin to inspect it the flame aggressively slows down before coming to a halt right in the centre of their palm again; as if it were commanded by them.

As Sìth gazes deeper into the flame it reflects an unfamiliar face, a slender nose placed upon a pale and gaunt face. Curled hair sits tucked behind their ears as they stare back into Sìth eyes with familiar honeyed eyes. Their blistered skin begins to sting again, and their gaze averts from the flame to the snow which now revealed distinct tracks single footsteps.

Tales of the monstrous Fachan were sporadic across the isles, with details between stories being inconsistent at best. The beast was said to house inexplicable strength whilst others would beg for others to take caution against the monster’s excessive speed. Only one constant between each tale existed, a Fachan walks on one leg. Solitary footsteps in the snow begin leading Sìth, a trail of breadcrumbs to freedom. The snow begins to rage in the night, a thick blanket of white begins to block out the sky and stars. Clambering over the mounds of snow Sìth prays that the storm won’t

cover up the tracks, it would be nigh impossible to build camp in these conditions, especially without a pack.

Thousands of powdery meteors plummeting to the Earth, leaving many mini craters in the expansive snow. Swiftly reducing the tracks to etchings in the ground, continuing into the night Sìth reaches a dead end in the tracks. The footsteps vanishing into nothingness with no signs of returning; the Fachan seemingly disappearing into nothingness. Panic and desperation worming their way into Sìth’s mind, failure has never been an option for them. Big Ears could nary tolerate failure from his own kind, let alone a human. Digging away at the snow with one hand as to not snuff out the fire frostbite begins to gnaw at Sìth’s fingers, the pain growing and growing as each snowflake seeps into their cracked and wounded skin. A pain that begs for attention, screaming from every pore, with each shooting sensation Sìth’s desperation growing greater and frustration beginning to fester deeper within their heart. Snow persisting to return as quickly as Sìth can clear it, their attention placed solely on trying to find the tracks, ignorant to the flame growing in their hand. Transforming from candlelight to a burning pyre, melting the mounds of snow around Sìth, they stand in awe of the power in their hands. Despite the evident heat of the flames Sìth was entirely blind to it, their blistered scars ignorant to the pain they had once experienced far too intimately. Sìth’s attention was diverted elsewhere, somewhere far more important, before them lay a hole in the ground; one that could barely house a supposed giant.

Focus…

Sìth closes their eyes and concentrates on the bellowing fire in their hand. As their breathing slows and their heart stops racing, the flames return to their original size. It was just like inside the darkness, the flames are one with Sìth’s heart. Balling their hand into a tight fist they snuff out the light and begin to rest their hand on the dirk in its sheath as they step into the cave. If the cave did not house the Fachan, it would act as a haven until the storm subsides. Traversing the winding crude tunnels the smell of burning wood begins to permeate the air, before finally Sìth spots a faint glow from the end of this final straight. However, all Sìth can hear are the sounds of someone’s muffled sobbing.

Slowly drawing their dirk, Sìth approaches the end of the corridor before halting in their tracks in sight of what awaited them in this room. On the ground lay something that Sìth had never witnessed before, fractions away from the appearance of a gigantic human scarcely dressed, only missing half its appendages. However, it had seen better days. The beast lay motionless; it’s skin freeze-dried by the frozen cave, blistered and rotten the body lay, cracked skin festering with the final droplets of blood remaining. Glazed over eyes, frozen entirely in a state of confusion and fear; the ice gripping the expression still. All colour stripped from solitary arm and leg where the frost had set, you could snap the finger clean off to hold a piece of the newly formed obsidian.

Hidden behind the body in the recess’ of the cave lay a bundle of cloths, similar in size to the giant’s body and from the bundle Sìth could hear the murmuring’s of one voice that the Isle’s had long been missing, that of a child’s.

“Papa… please wake up papa…”

EXCERPT 2

Slicing through the silent waves, Sìth’s boat moves steadfast away from the central Isle, it was finally time to return home. The moon peeking through the clouds for the first night in weeks, shining down, as if it were a lighthouse to guide Sìth back. A home they scarcely remember in some wood they can’t recall, there weren’t many settlements in this part of the realm; or so that’s what they could recall. It had only been a few days since Sìth began to remember, since this searing pain started looming in their mind. Sluagh had assured them that their parents lived; but what if it was some trick? They had no reason to help Sìth but did anyway, but maybe she had her own purpose.

Will they remember me? Sìth thought to themselves as they lay beneath the darkened sky, their time in the void assisting in the restoration of their memories. They were far stronger now; they didn’t need to be protected. Maybe they could have an easier life, they were away from many of the beasts that roamed but the Winter may have made it more dangerous. What if they’re dead instead? What if Sluagh was a servant of Teran and leading them into a trap? Freedom has been nothing but difficult, for the first time in their life they had no guidance; albeit a refreshing silence.

They were truly expected to know what to do, no matter the scale of the task.

As the moon slowly returns behind the clouds, clouding the waters in a pale darkness. On the horizon, a mountainous sight. Splaying out towards the sky, an enormous willow tree stands high above the rest of the trees. A thin smoke adorns the crown enticing Sìth onward, teasing tendrils spread out against the night fusing with the cloud covering the sky. The forest silent and motionless, every tree’s branches pinned to the ground by the heavy blanket of snow that encase the island.

Hundreds of souls fighting for the suns embrace, but it never comes.

Another leg of the journey nearly over, anticipation begins to wash over Sìth. From their very fingertips all the way to their cindered heart, stoking the flames of their soul. Though inspired these emotions left Sìth uneasy, letting their guard down for too long could mean death. Any hesitation, death. Any temptation, death. These strewn islands nothing but burial grounds for humanity now, it was up to Sìth to protect their parents now. Thunk. The boat begins to catch on something below, it won’t be making it any further to land but steeling their resolve, Sìth takes one deep breath and braces their legs. Loosing themselves from the boat, Sìth launches themselves at terminal velocity towards the treeline. Stomach churning and mind dizzying, still unaccustomed to their new strength, they hurriedly clamber to grasp their dirk. Taking the hilt with both hands and locking their gaze to the upcoming willow tree, plunging the blade into the branch and…

Snap.

The wood splinters, shattering the instant the tip comes into contact. Barrelling through, twigs embedding themselves in Sìth’s skin. Grasping at a passing tree, they halt their descent and find refuge above the deep snow. Lying hidden beneath the canopy and writhing in pain, Sìth takes but a moment to catch their breath and remove the myriad of missiles from their skin. Riddled with thousands of tiny arrow holes Sìth presses on across the treeline, leading directly to the monolithic willow that pierces the sky.

After many hours of travelling through the treetops, the treacherous branches threatening a swift descent at any moment. The black clouds above begin to turn to grey as the sun forces itself into the sky, the blistering light trapped in the net of clouds above, leaking thin beams of light through the cracks. Approaching their destination, Sìth begins to slip through the tree’s many limbs before clambering to the ground. A solitary willow stands in an opening in the forest, its many branches slumping towards the ground. Weaving through the wood, permeating throughout the trees leaves, a smoke originating from the remnants of a building at its base.

Built of ashen wood and soot covered stone, held together with dried branches woven between the rotting carcass, the roof hardly one solid object but more a conglomerate of wood and animal bones.

The spectre of homestead stood alone amongst the woods, smoke seeping through every crack in the roof. Throughout the snow approaching the home, crooked footprints spread from every angle towards and away from the doorway.

Though their mind still, Sìth’s entire body begins to quake. These footprints inhuman, were they too late? Their fears continue to coalesce in their mind as the trembling thunders on, their freedom a waste if they were unable to succeed in their only goal. Steadily approaching ever closer, a quiet sobbing emanates from within the hut that freezes Sìth in their tracks. The cries of a familiar voice.

Messily attempting to dash through the snow and throwing all caution to the wind Sìth arrives at open doorway, a faint light glimmering from within, enticing them inside.

Inside, Sìth is matched with an unfurnished room save for the firepit in the centre, kindling strewn across the floor and dried logs stacked against the wall. By the fire sits an unsightly body upon an upturned log. Sitting near slumped, a woman feeds wood to the fire. Her fingers long and thin, her body contorted and monstrous, every inch of her skin covered in pox scars and soot. Behind matted, unwashed hair are her dulled eyes; clouds covering her iris. She tends to the fire with a wistful emptiness to her. Her nose flares and she begin staring towards the doorway where Sìth currently stood, only her eyes gaze past them.

“Many moons and chave passed since we last had a visitor, who steps inside the domain of Cailleach?”

Stumbling to her feet, the hag begins to move towards Sìth. A strange sensation fills them to their very stomach, though distorted and freakish the approaching monstrosity does not fill them with fear but comfort. Her claws outstretched begin to glide across the bandages that adorn Sìth’s body.

Feeling each finger and floating upwards along their arm, brushing the unruly curls from their face before clasping it with each hand. Cailleach’s cloudy eyes mist further, tears trapped and unable to escape. Comfort washing over Sìth, they brace themselves as the hag grasps them tightly between gnarled fingers and rotting limbs before snatching them into an embrace.

“My mind does not play tricks. You have come home to me, Dóchas.”

Locked in the hag’s clutches, Sìth’s breath quickens. Stunned by their mother’s words and trapped in disbelief. Thousands of words stuck in their throat, so many things Sìth wishes to say. Tears begin to flow and wet the cloak over their scarred face, grasping at her cloth as if still a babe, Sìth begins to muster the only words they can.

“Mo…” Blood furiously seeping from their mouth, their vocal cords singed past recovery, they drive the word from their very soul. The one thing yearned for, all Sìth had ever needed. Years and years of solitude, left to fight for survival. Thousands of souls stuck to their horrid soul; every heart plucked

by Sìth’s tempered hands now put to rest in the sweet air of retribution and forgiveness. “…ther, Mother…”

Their voice rasped and their body torn. The pain beginning to overwhelm Sìth as their vision begins to blur. Cailleach holds steady and embraces her now found child who’s tears now well to the surface.

The pair embraced for what felt like eternity, years and years of pain that has built up begins to wash away. The two lock eyes as Cailleach begins to speak.

“She took you from me, my child, the wretched Sea Mither. She placed her searing flame inside your heart to burn you from the inside for her own entertainment.”

Unrest begins to brew in Sìth’s chest again. The Sea Mither was a kind goddess, or at least that is how Aodh spoke of her in the void. Sìth could not be the target of such cruelty.

“After you were taken a man came to me, a kind man, his name was Teran. He told me of your affliction, I could scarcely remember your face after you were taken but he made me remember.”

Her claws sinking inch by inch into Sìth’s skin with each word. Writhing from her claws, her voice shuddering from the rage welling up inside.

“He helped me, made me stronger, if I burn the wood, I can survive the winter and he gave me plenty. He gifted me this form so I may protect myself from the beasts. He took my sight so I could truly see the world for what it is, my child.”

Deeper and deeper her claws descend, blood oozing and trickling down Sìth’s arms. Refusing to harm their mother, rejecting using their power Sìth winces and writhes in pain. Glancing towards her claws Sìth’s eye is met with the sight of sharpened bone, protruding from Cailleach’s grip ever tightening, the wind begins to pick up outside the hovel.

“Her flames live on inside you, don’t they Dóchas? How dare you bring them here. It seems I am going to lose you once again.”

Loosening one set of claws and moving them towards Sìth’s nape, the pain is now unbearable, Sìth cries out with a bloodied scream. Igniting the flame, they release a small wreath of flame around them for but a moment, burning the hands that cling to them. Freeing themselves from her grasp and looking upon her once again; Sith is met by their mother’s grotesque form displayed in the new burning light. Her body laden in patchwork skin, drooping below sunken eyes, tiny insects making home in the crevices of the skin; rot creeping from the inside. Her teeth each an earthen trinket as a putrid air escapes her maw. This could not be Sìth’s mother, it may have been but no longer.

Grabbing a flaming branch from Cailleach’s fire Sìth thrusts towards her gut; igniting the threads hidden in her skin.

Violently releasing a bellowing roar, Cailleach flings Sìth from the cabin with an explosive gust of air as the wind further picks up and the stars in the sky hide from sight one by one, terrified of the static which rapidly filled the air.

“If you will not listen to your mother, you shall be punished by your father!”

Her shriek cutting through the night sky, revealing the lone moon atop Ben Dreich for but a moment, the ground begins to shake and crack from an unknown power. The bark of the grand willow begins to splinter before a body erupts out of the tree. A large, scaled beast, who’s maw eclipses the sky, now stands between Sìth and their mother. With an echoing cry lightning begins to strike the ground around them as it charges towards them.

Appendix 1: Entire Narrative Timeline: |[text]| = Details of excerpts.

In a mysterious land named ‘The Isles’ a child is brought close to death by a curse. To save them, their father takes part in a dark and ancient ritual to summon a powerful demon, Big Ears. The ritual goes awry, and Big Ears leaves the parents to die.

The child and family are caught in their house burning but the child’s soul is rescued from the void by the demon.

|Many years pass, the child has lived in servitude to Big Ears and has no memories of their curse or parents. Acting as a hunter for the demon, they collect the souls of many monsters throughout the Isles for him to consume. The Isles have been plunged into an endless winter, driving humanity to the brink and leaving mystical creatures to freely roam the world.

The child, named Sìth by the demon, travels to the Northern Isle to hunt their final monster, the elusive Fachan, the last of the giants. During this hunt they meet a mysterious zealot called Aodh who imbues himself with magical fire to fight.

Although Sìth was victorious, they perish after the battle only to discover themselves in the void once again where they remember their past and absorb the soul of Aodh with a strange mystical light, gaining control over fire. With their newfound power Sìth finds the Fachan |and slay it, getting caught in a collapsing cave and returning to the void once again with the Fachan, absorbing the monster’s intense strength and lightning speeds. With the powers of fire and the giant’s strength and speed, Sìth demands answers from Big Ears about their life and of the mysterious deity ‘Teran’ who is presumed to be behind the endless Winter.

Travelling from the Isle Sìth’s boat is halted by terrifying visage, a rotting horse with a human upper body attached, dispersing pure pestilence from their mouths. A fierce battle ensues and Sìth is victorious, but their boat is destroyed leaving them adrift in frozen waters. Once again, Sìth is returned to the void and begins to learn more of Teran and the Isles from the soul this beast. When they awake, they have washed up on a shore on the central island, which they must traverse to return home. During this journey they meet with Sluagh, the host of the dead, who has Sìth enter a trial within the void where they face the many souls that are still tied to the Isles despite perishing, including those who reside within them. Whilst communing with Aodh, Sìth learns of another god named the Sea Mither who would defeat Teran and return the Isles from Winter to Summer and fix the cycle, she has been missing for many years and Aodh was trained by her followers to find her. After facing the souls of the dead, Sìth has a greater mastery of their powers and continues their journey for answers.

|Returning to their childhood home, Sìth finds the ruins of a cottage built into a towering willow tree and within a blind hag; who senses Sìth to be the child she lost many years before. She reveals that an evil goddess, the Sea Mither, placed a curse upon them to become more powerful which destroyed their home and stole Sìth from her. After the night Sìth was taken, their mother faced an indescribable sadness before being approached by a kind god named Teran who promised her and Sìth’s father the opportunity to get revenge on the Sea Mither, transforming them into powerful creatures. Sensing the goddesses smell on Sìth, their mother becomes irate and attacks and when Sìth nearly repels her, she calls upon Sìth’s father in his new form the Beithir.| Thanks to their new mastery of the void, they can defeat both. Afterwards Sìth sets fire to the large tree and cremates their parents before leaving, heading to Ben Dreich, the towering mountain in the centre of the Isles to slay Teran in revenge for turning their parents to monsters, and to free the Sea Mither for Sìth’s personal revenge.

After a very long journey, Sìth arrives at the mountain. Travelling to the very peak, hidden above the clouds, they find the god of winter Teran and the Sea Mither, held captive. Sìth furiously attacks and after a long and difficult battle they find themselves victorious. Sìth kills Teran, absorbs them and as the clouds begin to part above the entire Island, the eternal winter is lifted but Sìth can sense the destruction left throughout. The Sea Mither is still weakened, as she reveals a piece of her resides within Sìth’s soul, a piece she placed in them many years ago in order to retrieve it as Sìth grew older, but would result in their death; however due to Big Ear’s meddling, Sìth was saved and their soul left a mess of human, demonic and godly energies. Furious at this revelation, Sìth strikes down the goddess for being the catalyst for all the hardships they faced. As the fragments of her soul are reunited within Sìth’s body, the energies begin to overpower them as they begin to die alone. Upon their death, an incredible amount of energy disperses throughout the realm.

Framing Essay: Sìth From a young age, I was always enamoured with fantasy worlds, hunting for pixies in the forest by my house and dreaming of being a wizard. I was always disappointed, however, when the eras of English knights always found themselves in my stories and never Scottish tales. Why was it always the Knights of Camelot and never the Knights of Edinburgh?

My Creative Practices project, Sìth, began as a way that I could feel a deeper, personal connection to the fantasy genre than the one I already had. Growing up reading book series with my mother like Redwall by Brian Jacques and the Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R Tolkien, I found myself obsessed and enamoured with the fantasy genre and its expansive worlds. This interest further developed into my later years with my obsession with fantasy settings in video games, namely FromSoftware’s “souls-like” games; Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. My focus on world building and immersion, attempting to recreate the level of immersion in prose that I would experience through active gameplay through focus on descriptive language and simplicity in my themes in order to attempt to make the reader feel drawn into the world I created named “The Isles”.

The main themes of Sìth would be revenge, forced destiny and overcoming one’s trauma. Through the plot the titular character Sìth faces many hardships and is constantly shaped by them, down to their physical appearance. I purposefully designed them to be agender with no reference to whether they were male or female as I, myself, define myself as agender and wished to represent myself and my gender in my piece. I also made this decision as a nod to character creation in video games like the aforementioned “souls-like”, where the playable character has no defined gender placed upon them so the player themselves has a freedom to play whoever they like.

With this inspiration through video games, I found a lot of my narrative choices and building had similarities to the hero’s journey1. Specifically, the loop of the tests which the hero faces. Intending on having a power system where the main character stole the powers of each monster they faced, I had Sìth’s power constantly tested and displayed for the reader. Taking inspiration from the story of Perseus2 I had my main character’s power be born from a god’s interference and instead of being born to a god I would have Sìth instead have a god’s curse placed on them. Playing on the power dynamic between the gods and humans, I took many influences from stories of Zeus and other Greek gods, whose fickle behaviours would actively harm humanity at points.

Inspired by Scottish folklore, I initially set out to create what I would lovingly refer to as “The Scottish Witcher”3, a game-series I had found lots of enjoyment in since a young age. Based on the novel series written by Andrzej Sapkowski of the same name, with a focus on beasts from European folklores and sects of mutated hunters. I was inspired by this as Scottish folklore has a rich and bountiful folklore, with a plethora of monsters to explore and work with and growing up as a Scottish fantasy fan I was sorely disappointed at the lack of Scottish representation within the genre except for caricatures of the Scots like the Nac Mac Feegle in Terry Prachett’s Discworld4 .

Initially I wished to focus on the Pictish era of Scottish history through their folklore, but I swiftly learned that a lot of the Pict’s history was lost due to English/Norse invasions throughout Scottish

1

Campbell, Joseph. 2014. The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work (Novato, CA: New World Library) 2 Scott, Walter L. 2023. Perseus (Legare Street Press) 3 Sapkowski, Andrzej. 2023. Blood of Elves: The Bestselling Novel Which Inspired Season 2 of Netflix’s The Witcher, trans. by Danusia Stok (London, England: Gollancz) 4 Pratchett, Terry. 2005. The Art of Discworld (London, England: Gollancz)

history, besides their standing stones. I ended up turning to reading blog posts and found a book by Aaron Mullins Scottish Legends: 55 Mythical Monsters5 which would introduce me to the many different monsters found within Scottish mythology; most importantly of the Orcadian deities ‘The Sea Mither’ and ‘Teran’ who’s cyclical conflict deeply intrigued me. Where the Sea Mither would protect the people of Orkney and bring them warmth and calm seas during Summer, Teran would bring the death of crops and dangerous seas in the winters as the pair would battle every year and take control over the other and vice versa. This book also deepened my knowledge of the cat spirits of Scotland, the cat-sìth, a cat formed fairy and the source of the 9-lives superstition that surrounds cats. I delved deeper into learning about the cat-sìth; learning of their king “Big Ears”, a demonic spirit who could be summoned through a ritual called the taghairm6. These three entities would take their place as the main antagonists of my piece.

Firstly, Big Ears takes on the role of the antagonistic mentor and the source of their soul-stealing powers; inspired by the Cat-Sìth’s relationship to Samhainn and their power to prevent souls from passing on to the next life. Forcing Sìth to be their subject after saving their life in the opening scene of the novel, Big Ears drives Sìth towards self-discovery unknowingly where they learn of the Winter deity Teran who has broken the cycle of his and the Sea Mither’s control and placed The Isle’s under an endless winter, driving humanity to near extinction and emboldening many of the creatures which would reside within.

Finally, The Sea Mither is the overall antagonist force of the novel, with the curse she placed on Sìth in the opening scenes of the novel in a bid to gain power over Teran acting as the driving force for all the entities relationship with Sìth. Created as a target for Sìth’s anger throughout with the piece’s ending constituting of them slaying the Sea Mither for revenge and removing the cycle of the Isles and instead leaving a barren wasteland in their wake. This acts thematically as a question for the reader “Should you take revenge on those who traumatised you”, as the catalyst for Sìth’s extended suffering, they develop a hatred for the Sea Mither in the final moments of the book, as their quest has forced them to bring numerous species of monster in the Isles to extinction as well as killing their own parents (twice, technically).

Taking inspiration from Fimbulwinter, the precursor to Norse mythologies Ragnarok, I wished to place my story in the centre of an apocalyptic scenario where the actions of my main character would be directly pressured by it throughout and ultimately would defeat it in the end, despite their questionable reasonings for it.

I chose this apocalyptic setting as I was greatly inspired by the settings created by Hidetaka Miyazaki in their “Souls-like” games, which focused on emptiness, despair and gruesome imagery. His game Dark Souls created a scarily empty world, which had previously been densely populated before the downfall of civilisation, with many humans being left ‘hollow’ (turned to mindless, violent beasts).

Leaving much of the game’s design to each individual designer and not adhering to any strict ideas, Miyazaki focused on letting a harmony be built through chaos, quoted saying “if I provided very specific orders, the resulting product will be limited by the boundaries of my design skills”7, instead leaving a lot of the world design and lore hidden behind item descriptions and minimal dialogue.

5

Mullins, Aaron 2021 Scottish Legends: 55 Mythical Monsters “Big Ears and the Taghairm: Atrocious Celtic Ailuromancy.” 2014. EsoterX <https://esoterx.com/2014/08/01/big-ears-and-the-taghairm-atrocious-celtic-ailuromancy/> [accessed 20 April 2024] 7 Sun, Kevin. 2021. “Hidetaka Miyazaki and Collaborative Game Design,” Kevinsun.com (Blogger) <https://www.kevinsun.com/2021/12/hidetaka-miyazaki-and-collaborative.html> [accessed 20 April 2024] 6

This forced both the design team and fans to have to be very pro-active in learning of the lore of the world. Focusing on the philosophies set by Miyazaki I, too, took a “building while we build”8 approach, where I let the world design itself around the narrative. Creating a rough map of the world, I used this to help develop scope in my head, referencing where important events would occur and the time for travel between each location to better understand pacing and placement.

A large design influence for me was once again the grotesque imagery shown in Fromsoftwares collection, with many of the creatures fought throughout taking the forms of walking corpses, patchwork beasts and terrifying horrors. One of which being the “Gaping Dragon” who’s unsettling gaping maw left many players stunned and uncomfortable upon their first meeting with the foe.

9

With my focus on macabre imagery, I once again was inspired by Miyazaki’s work, who wished to focus on darker environments. These horrific creatures who would act as roadblocks for the player where they would die countless times by their hands. I wished to take these and place them in prose, where one could more accurately describe the pains felt with these endless failures. I believed this would juxtapose nicely with the moments of tranquillity in the piece, in Miyazaki’s

8 9

ibid Fromsoftware. 2011. Dark Souls

words “Light looks more beautiful in darkness.”10 I agree with this sentiment in design, where the aspects of my piece which would invoke a feeling of beauty would be best experienced when met with the insipid dread I wished to weave through my piece.

In my quest to aptly describe the grotesque I found myself researching topics I would never find myself exploring. In preparation for writing the scene where Sìth find’s the corpse of a Fachan, I found myself writing articles on the stages of human decomposition11. Wishing to correctly describe the instances of horror within, where I hopefully have poetically described a body going through Autolysis. In my creative process I always attempt to stay grounded in some form of reality and in a fantasy setting I felt that an effective way to conceptualise the “larger than life” aspects was through tangible and realistic methods, specifically the horrors I focus on.

When approaching the storytelling I was stuck between first and third person perspectives but found myself drawn to using a third person present-tense narrator. This choice came from my intention to tell the narrative with a distinct rhythm, as the reader makes their way through the piece, I wished for there to be moments where they are stopped abruptly or find themselves speeding up pace with the way that segments are written, with the latter being prevalent during my opening scene during the ritual to save the child. I wanted to use this written form of accelerando to incur a sense of desperation and immediacy to the reader, as would be felt if experiencing the moment first hand. As immersion was always a primary focus of mine in writing this piece.

Twice we see my main character, Sìth enter the death-realm named the void during my excerpts as each time they conquer over death and return to the land of the living with new-found powers. I chose this to personify Sìth’s growth and progression through a mirroring of the myth that cats have nine lives. As their source of power comes from the combination of a god’s curse and Big Ear’s interference and manipulation of their soul, I wanted to pay further homage to the fairy tale of the Cat-Sìth further within my storytelling. As some tales claim that the source of the Cat-Sìth were a clan of witches who could transform into cats but upon their 9th transformation are permanently stuck in that form, I wanted to have Sìth’s control over their powers grow in 9 stages, with their final growth in power leaving them unable to escape death. I chose this unhappy ending in relationship to the feeling of despair and helplessness I have focused on throughout the piece and as an answer to the question of “is revenge worth it?” that I wished to examine in my piece.

In creating this piece, I wished to reimagine what the fantasy genre meant to me by exploring the idea of writing with gaming and immersion in mind when approaching the process. Thanks to this, I believe I was able to begin creating a piece that my readers can make a personal investment in whilst reading. Celebrating the stories of Scotland, my home, I hope that when I continue this project in the future, as it is completed I will have succeeded in bringing Scottish fantasies out of our history and into our pages.

10

Chalk, Andy. 2019. “Dark Souls Director Hidetaka Miyazaki: ‘The World Is Generally a Wasteland,’” PC Gamer <https://www.pcgamer.com/dark-souls-director-hidetaka-miyazaki-the-world-is-generally-a-wasteland/> [accessed 20 April 2024] 11 “The Stages of Human Decomposition.” 2017. Aftermath Services | Crime Scene Clean Up & Death Cleanup Professionals (Aftermath Services) <https://www.aftermath.com/content/human-decomposition/> [accessed 20 April 2024]

Bibliography Primary Sources

Tolkien, J. R. R. 2022. The Lord of the Rings (London, England: HarperCollins) Plato. 2023. Symposium (Pharos Books) Sapkowski, Andrzej. 2023. Blood of Elves: The Bestselling Novel Which Inspired Season 2 of Netflix’s The Witcher, trans. by Danusia Stok (London, England: Gollancz) Campbell, Joseph. 2014. The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work (Novato, CA: New World Library) Pratchett, Terry. 2005. The Art of Discworld (London, England: Gollancz) Fromsoftware. 2011. Dark Souls Fromsoftware. 2015. Bloodborne Mullins, Aaron 2021 Scottish Legends: 55 Mythical Monsters

Secondary Sources “The Stages of Human Decomposition.” 2017. Aftermath Services | Crime Scene Clean Up & Death Cleanup Professionals (Aftermath Services) <https://www.aftermath.com/content/humandecomposition/> [accessed 20 April 2024] Chalk, Andy. 2019. “Dark Souls Director Hidetaka Miyazaki: ‘The World Is Generally a Wasteland,’” PC Gamer <https://www.pcgamer.com/dark-souls-director-hidetaka-miyazaki-the-world-isgenerally-a-wasteland/> [accessed 20 April 2024] “Big Ears and the Taghairm: Atrocious Celtic Ailuromancy.” 2014. EsoterX <https://esoterx.com/2014/08/01/big-ears-and-the-taghairm-atrocious-celtic-ailuromancy/> [accessed 20 April 2024] Sun, Kevin. 2021. “Hidetaka Miyazaki and Collaborative Game Design,” Kevinsun.com (Blogger) <https://www.kevinsun.com/2021/12/hidetaka-miyazaki-and-collaborative.html> [accessed 20 April 2024]

THE TERROR OF SWINFELL WOOD

By Walter Lambert

Note to the reader: In the following introduction, it is stated that the reproduction of Gerald Briars’ email will be followed by the reproduction of 92 letters written between Gregory Alford and Humbert Marston from January to early October 1894 and forty-one pages of a journal written by Humbert Marston between September and October of the same year. However, in the text that you will read, only Gerald Briars’ email is included.

Introduction

If it was possible for an artist alive in 1997 to be transported through time to our own year of 2097, before long at all that very same artist would beg to be sent back to the late 90’s, the cultural climate that existed 100 years ago a comparatively utopian setting for the practice of creative work.

My name is Cassian Hume, and for a long time I have observed the decline of creativity across the world. It is no understatement to say that this decline is a threat to the future of humanity. To understand why this is, and how we might overturn creativity’s decline, it is necessary to briefly essay the state of creativity on 2097, after which I will explain the connection that exists between the paucity of creative vocation in today’s world and that of a much more widely acknowledged danger to humanity: the mass disappearances of children generally accepted to have begun in 2075.

The dearth of creativity in 2097 has arisen as a natural consequence of our society’s once partial but now complete surrender to the practical needs of industrial society. The profit motive and its instinctual preference of efficiency over style has crushed not only creative originality but also the demand for it from the masses, the result of which may be most readily perceived, beyond the popularity of increasingly simplistic music and film, in the near universal absorption of creative practice within artificial applications. Generative AI, so widely used that to refer to it by its full name seems antiquated, has been a progressively baneful enemy to organic creativity ever since its beginnings in the early 2020’s. To the great many that use AI for creative tasks in place of their own mental capability, the performance of the former completely outstrips the latter by its unparalleled ability to aggregate generalities with infinitely greater speed and comprehensiveness, and in whichever style the user desires. To neglect its utility in most if not all creative endeavours is generally accepted to be foolish, undeniably resulting in a lesser product. In a culture where creativity is routinely removed from the domain of humans, it is no surprise that the creation of original work exclusively produced by human ingenuity has begun to seem odd. In two decades or less, perhaps what is ‘odd’ will become deviant, and so in half a century might art for art’s sake, or art as an instructive medium that breaks down the essential qualities – and by

extension, inequalities – of everyday life, effectively be tainted through association with deviance and perversion.

How then to kickstart a reversal of the rapid dissolution of original creativity that the vast majority of society willingly contributes to? To call for a methodical re-evaluation of cultural dogma is extremely unlikely to gain traction, as well as being a generally unexciting appeal to those whose dulled minds need to be jolted to even consider the dangerousness of widespread under-utilisation of creative thought. Fortunately, the almost complete absence of genuine creativity in 2097 is inextricably linked to a problem that excites the emotions of all but the most dull or heartless.

The reader will be all too aware that child disappearances across the world have surged to incredible numbers over the past ten years. In 2096, the number of children declared missing aged three and under was over 250 million, none of whom have reappeared. This number is ludicrously higher than the recorded cases of missing children in 1996, there being in the whole of that year 21,028 reports of missing children within the same age range, well over half of these children being rediscovered alive. Although many theories have been offered to explain the present number of disappearances, none have been accurate. As I am setting up to relate the actual cause, I will first say that the real cause as I present it to you will seem utterly ridiculous. In fact, so ridiculous will it seem that I can say with absolute confidence those of you not immediately put off by the absurdity of my claim will number yourselves almost exclusively in the hordes of conspiracy theorists now well-represented in every corner of the globe and whose appetite for narrative after narrative of covert malignity is insatiable and undaunted by contradiction or physical improbability. Therefore, in the hopes of earning the sympathy of more sceptical readers before I jump into murky waters of incongruity, I would suggest that those readers skip this introduction entirely – from this point on – diving instead into the body of a work that never again mention child disappearances. Perhaps, after reading that which follows this introduction, you may return here with a sense that what I affirm about the disappearances is something at least to be considered. This being said, I proceed to the matter at hand.

In today’s world, almost every single missing child aged three or under is taken to a place I will henceforth refer to as the astral realm. Being in existence since the beginning of human life on earth, the astral realm is an almost entirely intangible place and has remained invisible to the majority of humans throughout history. For a human to be able to enter the astral

realm, a singularly advanced level of creative intellect is required. Up to the present day, the number of those individuals whose minds have adhered to this specification and have therefore been able to enter the realm stands at 24,179. Upon entry into the astral realm, the physical body disappears completely. Unburdened of the vessel that degenerates intellectual organs in the physical world, the lives of those existing in the astral realm have no age limit.

Drawn from every period of human history, the individuals that inhabit the realm combine their creative power to produce ideas far beyond anything that humans have the time or allowance to create in the physical world. How it is that I know about the astral realm in such detail is because I have been able to enter it. Furthermore, thanks to the distinctive peculiarity of my creative sensibility, I am one of five individuals that can travel between the astral realm and the physical world. This privileged position enables me to explain why it is that the astral realm is the destination of the majority of the world’s kidnapped children.

Around twenty years ago, the number of individuals crossing into the astral realm from the physical world gradually ceased. As a result of the ever-decreasing creativity of the physical world, the creative vision required in individuals to enter the astral realm had apparently dissipated completely. Quickly realising the gravity of the problem, the inhabitants of the astral realm were, as they saw it, forced to consider drastic measures. If they did nothing, and if the physical world did not upend its creative decline, the realm would wither away and dissolve completely. On the other hand, if certain of the inhabitants of the astral realm were to extract from the physical world those persons whose minds, by virtue of their inexperience, had not yet been denuded of imaginative potential by psychologically debilitating poverty of resources or intellectual culture, it could give itself a chance of prolonging its existence, however much the physical world degenerated in creative spirit. In what was only a brief period of time following the realisation of the astral realm as to the imminent danger it was threatened by, a considerable number of incomprehensible and irresolvable child disappearances begun to attract the attention of the world. These disappearances, linked by a silent perpetration always unseen and leaving no traces of evidence, are recognised now as a global crisis.

The astral realm was brought into being by an exceedingly strange race of creatures who are known as The Keepers. In contrast to the immateriality of the astral realm’s human populace, The Keepers have tangible forms. However, these forms are so extraordinarily changeable, ranging between the size of a small child to that of a tyrannosaurus rex, a clear

and extended description of abiding physical characteristics is impossible to give. The Keepers would appear to be eyeless, the texture of their bodies elastic and sponge-like, and their general coloration of a pinkish shade not dissimilar to that of humans. No one is able to say how many of The Keepers exist, where they come from, or why they created the astral realm. As to their origin, it is generally accepted that The Keepers are an incredibly ancient lifeform, possibly being in existence before even the first ancestors of humankind were wriggling in the primordial slime. The Keepers rarely communicate with the humans of the realm, and they do not contribute to the creative ideas that circulate, seeming at times to hover with a suggestion of listening to what is being proposed. The human population, merely grateful that they have been allowed entry into the astral realm, never demand answers of The Keepers concerning wider objectives, or anything of the kind.

If the annual rate of the type of child disappearances under consideration continues its exponential rise, the consequences for the future of human life on earth will be highly detrimental. Provided numbers rise annually as they have done ever since the disappearances commenced, children living to maturity on Earth in 2197 will become very few indeed. So few, in fact, will be the children grown to adulthood, and so painfully incomprehensible will be the cause of their scarcity, pregnant women will become an extremely remarkable sight, such will be the loss and heartbreak that parturition will be expected to precede. Conception will still occur, but in such limited number that the gene pool of humanity will eventually become so spoiled by interbreeding that mankind will die out in a little over four-hundred years.

Having associated the astral realm with an inordinately dramatic form of nefarious activity, I would not be surprised if the immediate reaction of readers was anger or a desire for vengeance. This would be a highly natural response to the shocking information I have conveyed. However, I must assure the vexed reader it is collaboration, not confrontation, that will end the phenomenon of the child abductions as perpetrated by denizens of the astral realm. Why it is that I can confidently assert a belief in the sufficiency of a non-aggressive response may be most effectively communicated by the application of metaphorical language.

It is broadly understood amongst human beings that the value of methodical work or practical deeds lies in the efficiency with which either of these activities repel the decay and disorganisation that lassitude or prolonged abstraction of thought can and does occasion.

However, humans also understand it is just as important, if not more so, to take enjoyment from life in the form of games or, more generally, to stray from convention or routine by speaking of, thinking about or committing one’s body to creative or fanciful ideas. So it is that we as a global society must begin to think of the earth as a manifestation of the human body. Too great a degree of creativity is clearly unsustainable for any well-functioning society. Proof of this can be found in the atrophy of once vibrant socialist and anarchist movements in the 20th century or the terrible fate that has befallen many gifted artists the world produced as recently as 2065. However, too little creativity is also unsustainable. Just as the human body yearns to express creativity and engages in progressively disruptive personal or social acts if it is prevented from such expression, so too does the astral realm, the homeland of creativity, require gratification of its creative needs from the body it coexists with and succours from. Insufficient gratification of the astral realm has led to rebellion: the abduction of children. Without prompt and decisive action to redress the creative imbalance in society, irreparable damage will be done.

The text that follows this introduction is an email that was written by Gerald Briars to Kenneth Jenkins on the 1st of January 2024. At the time the email was sent, Briars and Jenkins were both aged 64, very recently retired and comfortably well-off. Natives of North Suffolk and friends since childhood, Briars and Jenkins wielded richly creative imaginations that had retained much of their dynamism in spite of advancing years. Both of these men now reside in the astral realm. For reasons that will become clear, Gerald Briars is the individual whose crossing into the realm is of much greater significance. Briars’ email acts as a microcosm of a wider story communicated by 92 letters written between Gregory Alford and Humbert Marston from January to early October 1894 and forty-one pages of a journal written by Humbert Marston between September and October of the same year. Exact reproduction of this literature will follow that of Briars’ email, both the letters and journal providing a fascinating background to the phenomenon of the astral realm and Swinfell Wood.

Gerald Briars’ email to Kenneth Jenkins is deserving of wide exposure for the reason that its composition is the most significant event in the entire history of the astral realm. Three factors that emphasise the profundity of the email may be listed as follows: 1. Gerald Briars was the first to propose the abduction of infants from the physical world to the astral realm.

2. The email, through a process the unexplainable means of which I will come to in point 3, details the effect of the astral realm upon an individual who, not having the requisite creative insight to fully cross into the realm, would not be able to assume a presence there.

3. The email contains one journal entry and two letters that, though Gerald Briars declares them to be his own conception, were actually written over one-hundred years prior to Briars’ transposition of them in 2024.

With regards to the transference of thought cited in point three, it is impossible to fully explain how or why this has occurred. There is no familial connection between Briars and those men whose writing Briars produces word-perfect copies of. Somehow, a kind of telepathy has occurred enabling thoughts to pass through time and manifest themselves in the brain of someone who could never have seen the material they write as if it were the product of their own intellectual manufacture. Perhaps because Briars is possessed of creative genius, and the journal entry and letters written by or to persons who are similarly constituted, such mental transference is the more easily instantiated. It may also be that Swinfell Wood, being a location known to Briars and the persons whose writing he reproduces, has functioned as a node of thought and facilitated the production of endogenous writings by the hand of Briars.

We will probably never light upon a satisfyingly conclusive answer to the riddle of the Briars email. Nevertheless, it is useless to speculate; Briars himself has never suggested an explanation. How it is that I have managed to reproduce the journal entries of Humbert Marston and his letters to and from Gregory Alford is very much more within my power to explain. Phillip Turner, real name Augustus Euridius, and featured in the email written by Gerald Briars, is one of the five persons besides myself who can cross between the astral realm and physical world. Posing as Phillip Turner, Augustus was frequently present in the physical world – London especially – throughout the 1890’s. The five who can cross between realms are, naturally, well-known to each other, passing items of interest in the physical world back and forth whenever we come across them. Intimately connected with the characters of the events (as will become clear in the latter part of Briars’ email), Augustus was able to present me with the original journal of Humbert Marston and the letters written between Marston and Gregory Alford. The transposition of Gerald Briars’ email to Kenneth Jenkins is also easily explained. Amongst the inhabitants of the astral realm, a direct consequence of the miraculous phenomenon of Gerald Briars’ email to Kenneth Jenkins has been the esteem afforded to Briars and the elevation of his email to Jenkins to a status akin to

that of a sacred text. Such is the significance of the document, all five who can cross between the astral realm and physical world keep copies of the Briars email in various secure locations in the physical world.

Before concluding this introduction, it is necessary to add a further detail concerning Swinfell Wood. In Briars’ email, before he writes in the style of late 19th century gentlemen, he briefly outlines a plan to make ‘regular excursions into natural environments’, the first of such excursions taking place in Swinfell Wood, a forest near Briars’ home. Briars’ entry into the astral realm occurred on the very same day he walked into a certain, indefinable point deep in Swinfell Wood, the ‘indefinable point’ being that of a gateway into the astral realm that exists in the wood itself. Numerous of these gateways exist across the world, all of which are situated in exclusively natural settings. They are so located because the human mind ascribes greater fancy to natural objects or settings than any manmade construct. As such, individuals of suitable neurological constitution are most likely to perceive the existence of the astral realm within natural environments.

Despite my wishes to the contrary, the contents of this work may do nothing to spread awareness of the dire threat to its existence that humanity faces. Worryingly, in this context, it is often posterity that takes up the cause of radically antithetical texts more so than the work’s contemporaries. So it is that I forward my own text to the vacillating taste of time, hoping earnestly that the time of humans does not elapse before the import of my work, either through its reading or the organic realisation of its demand is understood and acted upon.

EMAIL, GERALD BRIARS TO KENNETH JENKINS – 01/01/2024

From: Gerald To: Me Time: 16:01 Subject: New Year, New Idea

Hello old boy!

Allow me to wish you a delightfully Happy New Year, Kenneth. May this one be the best yet! Yes, I really do mean that; you will be given to understand why in the ensuing mail.

What a troubling time it is: LOOK at the world today and look at nonstop disaster! N’est pas?

Stories of War and Ecological War drown me when I flick through the news channels.

While everyday folk might never emerge from the deluge of evil otherwise known as ‘current events in Late-Stage Capitalism’, I am not everyday folk.

With the advent of a new year, I have resolved to carry out my very own self-help programme that will, I hope, counteract the relentlessly upsetting impact of seeing and knowing about the many, many bad things going on in the world.

Over the course of 2024, I intend to make regular excursions into natural environments, starting tomorrow with Swinfell Wood: a relatively large forest that I have never set in before despite its situation no more than two miles from my home.

By means of these excursions, and without wishing to sound hopelessly romantic (alas! It is a losing battle – you know me too well, I think, Kenneth!), I will imbue my perception of the world and all of its crises with an elemental awareness, making the many bad stories less randomly cruel, connected as they will be to nature’s archetypal displays of Good and Evil.

Of course, it may be that nature provides little of the consolation I seek – I intend to see and feel its effect, regardless.

Swinfell will make a fine start to my excursions – it may even form the bulk of them, being the most attractive site of nature in an area very much lacking arcadian treasures. From the top of my road, affording the best view, the wood is a topographical marvel; one acclivity in particular stands out for its greater height than various other rises.

Given the boldness of the direction I am taking and the sylvan setting in which my initial forays are going to play out, I expect that a person as keen on weird fiction as yourself may be hearing echoes of warning from this subgenre’s many tales of folk horror. Any number of weird tales might have prompted the unease with which a proposed jaunt into the woods could provoke in a reader so well-versed in the dark pastoral as yourself.

Within the bowels of Swinfell, perhaps I will indeed come across an antediluvian, pygmy race and lose my soul – or simply be killed. After a string of emails, becoming the more awed and seeming to hint with decreasing subtlety sightings of gnarled imps, my correspondence to you may well cease. You will mail and mail unavailingly; you may begin to keep a journal as your concern about my whereabouts increases – perhaps you started writing entries once my emails became less cryptic regarding encounters with the little people. Finally, after reading everything you can find on British folklore and enduring the reproach of all you have tried to requisition for aid or interest in the matter, you will resolve upon the only option left.

You will go into Swinfell Wood.

Taking your journal with you, your last entry will end on a dreadful cliffhanger. The final page, from a story entitled The Terror of Swinfell Wood and written in 1894, may read as follows:1

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Note from Cassian Hume: The harrowing journal entry that follows was first written by Humbert Marston, a 61-year-old man alive in the late 19th century who had long retired from an extremely successful career in finance. Marston’s ignorance of the date on which his entry is written will quickly become understandable to the reader. Noting that the date of the entry written before the final entry was the 19th of October 1894, and that Marston was officially declared missing on the 27 th of October, the final entry can reasonably be conjectured to have been written between the 19th and 26th of October.

HUMBERT MARSTON ENTRY NO. 41.

DATE – UNKNOWN. I have now witnessed the phenomenon that Alford has described. It is infinitely worse and more awful than I could ever have imagined from his account; the whirling babel of shapes and half-shapes in this horribly indeterminate place has revealed partially and entirely astral realms the mind could only ever grasp for inadequate comparisons to, comparisons that, burdened by anthropological patterns of thought, would ever fail to ascribe meaning to the utterly unbelievable horror of heterogenous blasphemy that exists here. If the weary scribblings from my pen could ever hope to put into words the inconceivable horror, they may aver that the scrivener has witnessed something so astoundingly miserable that even the most fiendishly perverted maelstrom of nethermost hell could never hope to conjure the merest fraction of its wanton excrescence. The forms that cohered, split apart and swam toand-fro all at once; the interminably awful and curiously malleable space in which wicked things made horrible sport; appreciation of these diabolisms had the effect of producing an abominably excruciating sickness attended with innumerable features of hysteria, nausea and marked physical uncertainty. The vehemence of this affliction, combined with the mad collage of whirling evil, overwhelmed my mind’s ability to construct rational thought. In truth, the sentiments that came to me in that phantasm of material obscenity were so extravagantly terrible that I cannot believe they were wholly produced by my brain alone.

When the pandemonium became still more grotesque, I collapsed, falling through a space that was not, should not have been there. So did I fall into an abyss that was seemingly without end, hurtling through a void without shape and hued in bilious debaucheries of spectral profusion. Before the fall, I was being conducted towards a nameless font of cataclysmic evil; this was the final horror, vowed by mad eyes and unspeakable visions.

Never should I have beheld the horror’s precedent; to see that was to go numb and submit.

Though the pandemonium is no more, and I do not fall, a sentiment of undeniable certainty is insisting resumption and heightening of the terror that prevailed before will not be long deferred.

The place in which I attend the final hell befits an interval stage of evil: I lay sprawled in the midst of a deeply horrible, strange marsh, mephitic and slime-ridden with great puddles of jelly and outcrops of vegetation so sickening they defy even the grossest words of

description. Awful too, there is no breeze to disguise the rank odour, and much as I try to disregard it, none either to explain the movement of the terrible foliage. Everything is lit in an abominably bright, hazy light. The upper reaches – I will not say sky – shine down like a mocking Empyrean illuminating a wasteland no heavenly being ever graced. The entirety is living putrefaction; verily, the miasma of gluttonous decay seems to blend into me through the slime itself. I can actually feel myself softening, but to what end? Will I melt away and be diffused into the slime, or simply disappear? As there is no sense in this place, and because I do not wish to dwell upon the subject of my own destruction, I will not attempt to answer such questions.

Though I have nothing to restrain me, I can barely move; perhaps I have overreached my senses, and in the land of shame that awaits those who go too far, the facility of movement one can enjoy unhindered in the natural world is withheld. It can only be hoped that the distinctly abnormal geographical features of this place mean that I have traversed earthly boundaries, far enough, perhaps, that the journal I took with me into Swinfell and the terrible consequences of overzealous curiosity related within its pages will never be returned to civilisation. Just as I write these words, I perceive the very same journal lying open some ten yards distant. Before, I was gripping the journal to my chest, so perhaps it was torn away from me; that must have been what occurred, as the single shred of parchment I am writing with great difficulty upon was within reach when I began to comprehend my environs. The journal lies open, the pages smudged and slightly torn but the whole still intact. Merciful God. I am seized by a new fear. If the journal provides a gateway into human knowledge and human domains, I must destroy it now before it and I are parted forever. I can but move slightly – to make it to the journal would take hours. Now I hear noise, noises. Something approaches – no chance now. If man reads this, beware the Swinfell Wood. IT IS ALL BAD.

The problem that arises, Kenneth (me again, not you as your dramatis personae) is how this page of ill-fated scrivening is retrieved from the evil fairyland described so that it appears in The Terror of Swinfell Wood. This always happens, doesn’t it? I can never plan when an idea will hit me and I will be compelled to write as much of it down as I can in one sitting. This is just one of those occasions. Since I am now consumed by the idea I have originated, I must write more of it. In so doing, I will keep the breadth of my writings enclosed within this email for the sake of neatness. The next chunk of the story may go some way to resolving the

problem of how the journal entry was found. That being said, the unpredictability of the creative process means that I can make no assurances as to the content of the writing I am about to produce.2

Note from Cassian Hume: The writer of the first of the two letters that follow, Gerald Marston, was a wealthy, 27-year-old bachelor with no regular occupation. The writer of the second letter was Augustus Euridius, going by the pseudonym Dr Phillip Taylor, a personal friend of Gerald Marston as well as a reputed physician and occasional dabbler in the science of metaphysics.

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LETTER, GERALD MARSTON TO PHILLIP TURNER 7th November Dear Phillip, – Please accept my apologies for having taken a week to reply to your correspondence. I was greatly warmed by your letter, and I know that you will excuse the slackness of my answering despatch when I explain the reason for my delay.

Though I have received a mass of correspondence in the days following the announcement of my father’s disappearance, I would be practicing dissimulation were I to say that this influx of well-wishing has been the cause for my dilatory response to your particular letter.

Said dissimulation would obfuscate the real and, frankly, profoundly terrible reason for my having neglected to write back to you and, for that matter, anyone else. It is this awful, true cause – one that has brought about a near-complete removal from the regular offices of life – I must lay before you in your capacity not only as a dear friend, but more especially in your singular capabilities as a physician and a man whose knowledge of the arcane is surely unmatched in the whole of England.

The unwonted abnegation from commonly observed manner and routine I am presently obliged to endure was brought about, curiously enough, by my own solicitousness. The day before I took measures to alert the public to my father’s disappearance, and having observed his absence from the Thornton Club at a time and day on which he had never before failed to appear, I decided to call on him at his home in Wandsworth. My father being absent here too, and feeling an increase in perturbation at the unpropitious nature of this development, I took the liberty of essaying the personal effects of the house with much less reserve than I would otherwise have done, hoping to chance upon some indication of a change in habit. Finding nothing in the various downstairs rooms yielding the encouragement I besought, I ventured upstairs, making for the study, a room that I had never entered independent of my father’s presence. The door standing surprisingly ajar, I entered, immediately drawn to the writing desk, upon which were two distinctive objects so perfectly arranged they stood in diametrical contrast to the relative dysfunction the room beheld. On the table was a capacious bundle of papers bound in string and, next to these, a leather-bound journal. Charmed by the apparently explicit deliberation with which the papers and journal had been placed and convinced that

they must necessarily have presented a degree of increased importance to my father, I sat before the desk and began to read the assembled literature.

Before I describe the profound effect reading the material concerned has had on my person, I must give an idea as to its content. The papers were a series of correspondence written to my father by an artist called Gregory Alford,3 the bulk of which letters broadly relate discovery of a deeply strange location within a hilly, wooded area in North Suffolk known as Swinfell Wood. While much could be said of the highly abstract speculations and theories that Alford’s letters are filled to repletion with, greatest objective significance is to be found in the final missives, in which Alford relates a frantic and seemingly incongruous depiction of the inner recesses of Swinfell Wood. The leather-bound journal was my father’s, its first entry written two weeks before I found it in his study and the last one day before my visit to his home. The greater part of the journal’s pages consist of my musings on my father’s his friendship with Alford and reflections on Alford’s increasingly abstract ruminations concerning Swinfell Wood. Towards the end of the journal, entries are exclusively concerned with my father’s own ‘discoveries’ of mystical effects experienced in the near vicinity of a certain acclivitous location within Swinfell Wood. The journal concludes with what one might infer to be a description of a particularly intense centre of mystical property – a bizarre and disturbingly phantasmal narration not entirely dissimilar to that which is recounted in the final pages of Alford’s letters.

I read the entirety of the literature in one sitting, the writings pertinence with regards the absence of my father becoming undeniable and relating as they did the most uncommonly singular set of events that I could have imagined possible. As I read, though I endeavoured to disregard it as the product of increasing agitation, I began to sense that there was an odd, malign force being transmitted by the literature – by the very words, letters and spaces between letters themselves. The effect of this force is hard to define other than that it purveyed a consistent, dull horror, or such as if I were the prey of a deleterious influence impossible to shake off. Would that the effect had dissipated as I assumed it must upon the

Gregory Alford, 44 years of age at the time of Gerald Marston’s letter, was a sculptor, poet and otherwise popular raconteur notable on the London scene from the late 1880’s through to his disappearance – one week prior to that of Humbert Marston – announced on the 22nd of October, 1894. Alford crossed into the Astral Realm the day before his disappearance was announced and he has proved an extraordinarily imaginative addition to the realm ever since.

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cessation of reading. Had that happened, I may only have experienced the anxiousness that a father’s uncommon absence from public life might be expected to precipitate, however trying that may have been and however much one allowed for the disappearance’s alliance with distinctly bizarre concatenations detailed in the letters and journal. As it was, at the very moment of the reading’s conclusion, and ever thus, the influence I have spoken of has taken on a distended, terrifying import. I could barely stand after I had finished the material, and to return to my own residence took all of my strength both physical and, as it seemed to me, metaphysical. As of the day upon which I write this letter, I can affirm that the disturbance I ventured to ignore during the reading of the journal and letters is as of nothing to the indescribably extravagant mania that has since gripped my entire constitution and refuses, with utmost intransigence, to relax its hold.

This takes me to the strangest point, and in expressing the substance of it to you I am compelled to undertake what might be very crudely described as a cerebral revolution. In essence, this revolution is a transformation of mind from an inhered form of understanding into a speculative, incontrovertibly credulous mode entailing the throwing aside of customary scepticisms to all things immaterial and obscure. A demonstration of such an outré reversal of intellectual standard, with regard to my own physical state, might be described in such a way: I am convinced; have been given, indeed, little option but to be utterly convinced, that what I have read has occasioned the complete alteration of physical reality as I perceive it, revealing previously unseen and totally unsuspected vistas of space, time and energy existing within and throughout the physical environment known as Earth. This fundamental alteration is manifestly borne upon me by the constant appearance of an interminable space behind or beyond whatever it is I choose to look upon, whether this is the features of buildings and streets across from my sitting-room balcony, or, awful to note, the very house in which I live.

There is nothing, in fact, not even my own physical form or those of every other person without a dimension of horrifying depth behind, or even inside it. The tangible surfaces of life – those that one feels in all of the senses give rational shape to beginnings and ends – are now mutable: they admit light that they should not and do not give or receive impact as they did before. The cognisance of such a feeling, experienced in the second day of my illness, caused me to dash a valuable glass beaker to the floor. In the moment that I committed this act – and I regretted that I did so in the very same instance – I saw not the wood floor that ought to have obstructed the falling glass and collected its scattered shards. Instead, beneath me was an awful void, in which rays of horrifyingly variegated colour coruscated in

magnificent, terrible explosions of light. Had my disagreeable reception of the immaterial spaces that I perceive behind the notionally ‘real world’ been less determinedly rigid, I may have fallen into the infinite abyss and then coruscated as did the shards, lost to the world forever.

I am having the letters and journal I found in my father’s study sent to you. These you should receive by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. I considered sending the articles in question alongside this letter but felt it appropriate to give some advance indication of the context of the literature as well as the iniquitous effect survey of which has imparted. In sharing the literature with you, knowing the evil it has done me to read it, I understand I am risking the spread of a malign influence that at present is limited to my own physiology. It would have been my preference to tell you face to face of that which I write before sharing any of the literature. However, quite apart from my ignorance as to the illness’ transmissive quality, it has become well-nigh impossible for me to go outside without suffering an unendurable intensification of the horrors I have already described.

As it is that the awful and persistent discomposure I am tormented by has no obvious cure that I can fathom, I am compelled to appeal to you, Phillip, entreating your aid in the hope that you may deliver me from the infernal biological quandary I have stumbled into and can find no relief from. I know of no other physician who possesses the breadth of learning and healthy scepticism with regards the efficacious extent of conventional medical practice that my condition could very well be said to expressly demand. As a solicitous friend and an extraordinarily perceptive physician, I am certain that you will be able to make bold advances into the problem I have put to you. You are a brilliant man, and I dearly hope in this instance you may know of or, indeed, by means of your Daedal expertise, fashion a cure to my terrible ailment and deliver me from the terror of my existence, banishing the shadow-world that menaces me in one audacious blow.

I hope that you will excuse an abrupt termination of this letter. It has cost much to render into language the general malady of my being and the confusion thereof, and to continue would be to advance into realms of thought that I fear would induce even greater anguish.

This being the case, I will bring my tortuous missive to an end. I beg that you write me as soon as you are able to provide counsel or theory, however slight or speculative, that may mollify or allow for increased understanding of my condition.

Yours, Gerald Marston

LETTER, AUGUSTUS EURIDIUS TO GERALD MARSTON 11th November Dear Gerald, – So that the awful suspense as regards your father, Humbert Marston’s disappearance be ceased immediately, allow me to assure you that Humbert is alive and well.

Having issued information I daresay you have been considerably eager to ascertain, I must explain how it is that I can state unequivocally my knowledge of Humbert’s safety. In so doing, I am obliged to inform you that this will be a short letter, the reason for which brevity will become plain from the instant that I disclose Humbert’s location. You will likely find this disclosure and the consequences that necessarily follow from it unacceptable or simply unbelievable. However, in your very own letter, you seem to stop short of articulating that which, had you pushed into the ‘realms of thought’ you are resisting, would likely have taken you some way towards grasping the possibility of Humbert’s disappearance being very much related to your own perception of a ‘shadow world’ beyond the physical.

It is my duty to tell you, Gerald, that what you are perceiving is not an illusion. The shadow world, as you call it, is real. I know this because I have myself stepped into this world, as has your father and so too Gregory Alford. A great many individuals besides myself, Humbert and Gregory, in fact, have entered the shadow world, or ‘astral realm’ as I will from this point designate it. For those individuals, it is a highly exciting occurrence when someone such as yourself, who will not be able to enter the realm, has been affected by the suggestion of its presence. You are perhaps one of four or five persons throughout and indeed before recorded history to have perceived the astral realm without being able to assume a presence within it.

To cross the threshold and exist in the astral realm, an especially advanced creative mind is and has always been required. For persons in possession of this creative gift, a self-willed absorption into an intangible space existing within or beyond the physical environment known as Earth (the extent of this distance having never been truly understood) is not only possible, but an ineluctable eventuality in the course of existence, or even preceding the conclusion of the biological lifecycle. Humbert Marston possesses an outstanding level of creative sensibility, and thus, inevitably, has found his way to the astral realm. You yourself,

Gerald, are a man of undoubted excellence, yet do you not possess the creative vibrancy that would enable you to leave your physical environment behind and will thus always remain there.

If my words have the effect of exacerbating your present apprehensions and perhaps causing you fresh terror, it may be of some comfort that I can assure you of an eventual end to your suffering. For those others who have seen what you have seen and were also unable to consummate its presence, the effects of witnessing an impression of the astral realm wore away over the course of a year.

Before I conclude, I must needs apologise: it is my fault alone that you have been forced to suffer the effects of such a profound shock to your intellectual and nervous systems.

Crossing from the astral realm into the physical world, it was I that returned Humbert’s journal to his study and assembled his letters from Gregory Alford beside them, as you found, on the writing desk. Foolishly, I half-believed, though you had not evinced the same urge as Humbert had, you yourself could be drawn away from the intellectually restricted physical world and thus into the astral realm. After you had undergone the likely difficulties of assimilation such that Humbert experienced, I had presumptuously supposed that you would, in the same manner, gradually cast off any residual perturbation and thenceforth enjoy unreservedly and into the infinite future the blissful, everlasting wonder of the astral realm. I have countermanded established mores in attempting to manufacture a reception of the astral realm, and as such, the resulting trouble has confirmed why I should never have acted as I have. The contents of your letter amply demonstrate why those who are not suitably conditioned to cross into the astral realm cannot be trained or coaxed into the realisation of such a condition. Seduced by Gregory Alford though it may seem he was, your father desired in the end to enter the realm and possessed the requisite constitution to do so.

It is likely that your sentiments regarding this letter will incline towards a desire for vengeance or general antipathy. To this end, I would be remiss in forbearing from advising you against the solicitation of those whose job it is to root out and punish unorthodoxy in the commonest manner. Not only would any attempt to recapture your father be impossible, but in point of fact, efforts to elicit aid or interest in this matter would never come close to the clinching moment of tawdry heroism you might think possible. Much more likely it is that you would vitiate your position in society by bruiting about such a litany of bizarre allusions

as already existed in your missive to me and that have now been additionally burdened with my outrageous validation of your deeply abnormal claims.

All that remains is to wish you a pleasant life. Once the affects that you suffer from have faded, you will rejoin society and experience the happiness that you knew before this unfortunate episode occurred.

Yours, Phillip Turner

Me again, Kenneth, for the final time. I probably could continue The Terror of Swinfell Wood in this email, but I’ll leave it for now. Admittedly, unanswered questions present themselves, such as: 

What are ‘the wicked things’ that Humbert Marston sees in the astral realm? Humans?

Something else?



Is Humbert Marston OK?



Will Gerald Marston refrain from seeking his father as Dr Phillips has suggested he should?

Perhaps I will be stirred to write the full story and answer these questions in turn after visiting the eponymous wood itself. However, I reckon on the ‘real’ Swinfell Wood seeming rather tame next to the phantasmal wilderness whose aspect I have tantalisingly described in the journal entry and letters. We shall see…

Until next time (two days at the most) and with best wishes, Gerald Briars

Behind Swinfell Introduction The writing of my Project Portfolio has been chiefly influenced by three main subjects that will be seen to overlap in reference to their application in the story I have written and also simply by themselves. These three subjects are decadence, particularly but not limited to the ideas surrounding decadence in the fin-de-siècle era, Weird Fiction and the nature of creativity. The first two of these influences were areas of interest to me before I had written the story, whilst the last of them emerged in the writing. The way in which these three topics have influenced the process of writing and their mutually communicative abstractness, suggestiveness and mutability will be the focus of this essay.

Decadence and the 1890’s Before I came upon the idea of The Terror of Swinfell Wood, I had first considered two ideas that, though they were discarded, both possess the thematic link of apocalypse or global peril that looms in the background of The Terror of Swinfell Wood. In my story, an apocalypse is mooted in the introduction: the gene pool of humanity shrivelling to nothing as a result of declining birth rates. This idea is one that brings up the subject of decadence that I feel pervades the story.

I became interested by decadence after reading The Picture of Dorian Grey. In fact, I feel in some way that Gerald Marston’s descent into a kind of aesthetic horror of altered perception occurring after he has read a journal and letters was influenced by the way in which Dorian Grey changes after he reads a book, À Rebours, a change reflected on by Lewis J. Poteet: “In fact, the direct influences of A Rebours on Dorian Gray are pretty much limited to Chapters X and XI, in which Dorian encounters the "yellow book" and imitates the protagonist by collecting sensations—musical, artistic, gemological, religious. But even this

is only one of several exercises in Dorian's progressive initiation into aestheticism: it has its appropriate place, I suggest, in a larger scheme.”1 The era of the 1890s interested me generally, as it seemed to behold a scene of great social insecurity. H.G. Wells, writing in 1891, offers definite proof of this when he makes the following assertion: “There is, therefore, no guarantee in scientific knowledge of man’s permanence or permanent ascendancy.”2 Also, there seems to have been a binding ideology in literature and art that was radically and even iconoclastically creative: “In the 1890s, "art for art's sake" was the philosophy of poets and painters condemned by the well-fed establishment for refusing to make their art subservient to prevailing social mores.”3 Moreover, the way in which decadence could apparently be associated with anything or at least a wide variety of things is suggested by the following quote: “By the turn of the nineteenth century, the period of its greatest dissemination, the concept of decadence could figure a striking array of changes, from the decline of bodily health and the loss of social cohesion to the increasing linguistic complexity of modern poetry. Each kind of decadent change could seemingly serve as a metaphor for any other.”4 How the decadence of the period entered my project was suggested in the writing, and once suggested, the work as a whole had to be coloured and influenced by this suggestion.

Setting an appreciable portion of the story in the 1890s would enable to me to gratify my interest in the era, as well as try my hand at an epistolary style that is perhaps most obviously exampled in Dracula.5 I was also interested by the Yellow Books that were published during

Lewis J. Poteet, ‘"DORIAN GRAY" AND THE GOTHIC NOVEL’, Modern Fiction Studies, 17.2 (1971), pp.

239-248 (p. 240), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26279102 2 H.G. Wells, ‘Zoological Retrogression’ in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c. 1880-1990, ed.

by Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (Oxford University Press, 2000) pp. 5-12. (p. 12).

3 Frederick Burwick, ‘"Art for Art's Sake" and the Politics of Prescinding: 1790s, 1890s, 1990s’, Pacific Coast Philology, 34.2 (1999), pp. 117-126 (p. 118), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1316445 4 Matthew Potolsky, ‘Introduction’, New Literary History 35.4 (2004), pp. v-xi (p. vi), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20057857 5 Bram Stoker, Dracula (Penguin Classics, 1993 [1897]) pp. 62-70, pp. 107-108, pp. 109-110, pp. 114-117, pp.

120-125.

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the 1890’s, with Stanley Weintraub describing “The Yellow Book”6 as “the epitome of the finde-siècle years”7 as well as “a rallying cry, a term of opprobrium, a ventilator of the stuffy 19th-century literary air, and – briefly – an institution.”8 Weintraub continues by stating that the “Yellow Book was not meant to be faddish, or to foster any clearly defined "movement," but neither was it meant to be "respectable" in the Victorian sense of the word.”9 This description seemed to align with my thoughts on the story I was telling as well as the time in which a portion of my story is set, and also characterised the era as one where disreputability was seemingly a cultural mode and something that made the events and certain details of my story make sense in the context of the 1890’s.

A book that my adviser in Semester 1 lent me and that was helpful to me in understanding the era as a whole was The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c. 1880-1990. I was most impressed by the strength of opinion that the notion of decadence seemed to provoke across the culture that the book showed many examples of. In a scientific approach, Edwin Ray Lankester, in 1880, writes: “As compared with the immediate forefathers of our civilisation – the ancient Greeks – we do not appear to have improved so far as our bodily structure is concerned, nor assuredly so far as some of our mental capacities are concerned. Our powers of perceiving and expressing beauty of form have certainly not increased since the days of the Parthenon and Aphrodite of Melos.”10 Max Nordau may be said to represent an extreme form of the above argument, stating in 1895: “the physician, especially if he has devoted himself to the special study of nervous and mental maladies, recognises at a glance, in the fin-de-siècle disposition, in the tendencies of contemporary art and poetry, in the life and conduct of the men who write mystic, symbolic and ‘decadent’ works, and the attitude taken by their admirers in the tastes and aesthetic instincts of fashionable society, the confluence of two well-defined conditions of disease,

Stanley Weintraub, ‘THE YELLOW BOOK: A REAPPRAISAL’, The Journal of General Education, 16.2 (1964), pp. 136-152 (p. 136.), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27795922 7 Ibid., p. 136.

8 Ibid., p. 136.

9 Ibid., p. 151.

10 Edwin Ray Lankester, ‘Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism’ in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c. 1880-1990, ed. by Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (Oxford University Press, 2000) pp. 3-5. (p. 4).

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with which he is quite familiar, viz. degeneration (degeneracy) and hysteria, of which the minor stages are designated as neurasthenia.”11 These two opinions show pushback on the artistic merit of the age, and one can perhaps find a suggestion of this in my project, where there are two extremes of opinion, there being persons advocating for more creativity and those who gradually, whether knowingly or not, shut it out of the world or fear its manifestations and potential.

Weird Fiction There are aspects of my story that I believe conform to those one may find in Weird Fiction texts. There is in my story an intrepid adventurer, or knowledge-seeker, in Gerald Briars, who describes a journey to a place that readers will note with an expectance of gloom or fear. One may find such a character in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Picture in the House, the narrator of which, “travelling for some time amongst the people of the Miskatonic Valley in quest of certain genealogical data”12, describes seeking shelter in an “antique”13 and “repellent”14 house on an afternoon where “a rain of such chilling copiousness”15 made “any shelter preferable to exposure.”16 There is also a Lovecraftian style of heightened expression in the form of Humbert Marston’s final diary entry, with the vivid prose I have utilised intentionally aping that style.

One may find an example of such a heightened style in The Picture in the House: “My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the terror I had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew that I loathed the ancient and abhorrent creature so near me with an infinite intensity.”17 Another example of such language is to be found again in The Picture in the House:

Max Nordau, ‘Degeneration’ in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c. 1880-1990, ed. by, Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (Oxford University Press, 2000) pp. 13-17. (p. 15).

12 H.P. Lovecraft, ‘The Picture in the House’, in The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, ed. by S.T. Joshi (Penguin Books, 1999) pp. 34-42. (p. 35.)

13 Ibid., p. 35.

14 Ibid., p. 35.

15 Ibid., p. 35.

16 Ibid., p. 35.

17 Ibid., p. 41.

11

“A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts; blasting that accursed house of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion which alone saved my mind.”18 Also in my story, again in Humbert Marston’s final diary entry, is a description of a horrible, unwelcoming setting. This is something one can perhaps see a parallel of in Dagon: “Though one might well imagine that my first sensation would be of wonder at so prodigious and unexpected a transformation of scenery, I was in reality more horrified than astonished; for there was in the air and in the rotting soil a sinister quality which chilled me to the very core.”19 In these examples, there seems to be a common sense of some truly unbelievable thing witnessed, or at least, something witnessed that goes beyond the norm of everyday life. This sense is similar to that which has been described and related in the work of Arthur Machen, as Helen Lynch states of the Welsh author: “I have heard that the Welsh are often visionary; at any rate, for him, city clerks in London, starving gutter-babies, and daughters of provincial parsons all travel from mundane actuality to celestial territories. Some find release through strange loneliness and ascetic abstinence into vivacious radiance. By way of thorny realms they arrive at the mad dance and deep hidden pools of cool water. Others come to utter doom through the irresistible urge to pierce the veil of Pan. There are suspicions of the Great Evil, incarnate, of Diabolus, or Pan, or Lucifer, and of the Great Good, but always in all things is an interfusion of overwrought mystery. The sense of yearning or drive to unwrap the vestment of materialism, and to discover in that vestment the symbol and its meaning. And throughout is wrought the heavyhanging plaintiveness; the wistful gloom which envelopes, and the inescapable mournfulness.”20 I feel that Gerald Briars and Augustus Euridius are characters in my story that manifest the desire to see outside of the norm that is characterised here by Lynch. They are capricious, doing, attempting and suggesting things that come from a desire to break through the traps or

Ibid., p. 42.

H.P. Lovecraft, ‘Dagon’, in The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, ed. by S.T. Joshi (Penguin Books, 1999) pp. 1-6. (p. 2.)

20 Helen Lynch, ‘Arthur Machen’, The Sewanee Review, 47.3 (1939), pp. 424-427 (pp. 425-426), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27535582 18 19

conventions that their environments present, the consequences of which might be awful, yet they continue on.

The Nature of Creativity As my story is partly set in the 1890’s, it was interesting to note a comment from Robert Nisbet proclaiming that the “fin de siècle was rich in poets and painters who were pronounced geniuses, not so much for the quality of their work as for their highly mannered eccentricities and pathologies.”21 One may imagine that there might be something mysterious about this creative self-satisfaction or knowing assumption of separateness, and not altogether for the good. This being the case, it struck me – perhaps because of the tone of chilling weirdness with which I had invested the astral realm – that creativity in itself can actually be quite a terrifying prospect to consider. If one thinks of a creative act as one that makes a thing exist which didn’t exist before, the very act presupposes that the thing that existed before was insufficient. Extrapolated over a wider level, thinking creatively, thought of by many as fun, frivolous and generally beneficial to that person and to the world around them, is actually akin to seeing the world as deficient or inherently and constitutionally lacking. This is suggestive of a realisation that is generally relatable, that of the real world not being the magical, inspiring thing perhaps one sees it as in childhood. In fact, the real world is limited, can be extremely ugly, and is a scene of endless structural compromises that appear to substitute aesthetic beauty for efficiency. Following a discussion with my adviser that concerned the notion of creativity as a potentially fearful process, I was encouraged to look into Plato’s perspective on creativity, an argument of his here related by Berys Gaut: “poetic emotions are fundamentally irrational, since they are felt even when there are no events that would justify them.”22 Gaut goes on to explain: “Plato's charge of irrationality is made specifically against the poets: in contrast, he holds, in some dialogues at least, that painters, musicians, and sculptors, whom we would now regard as artists, are following a craft (technē), and craft for Plato is a rational activity.”23

Robert Nisbet, ‘Genius’, The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), 6.5 (1982), pp. 98-107 (p. 99), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40256393 22 Berys Gaut, ‘Creativity and Rationality’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 70.3 (2012), pp. 259270 (p. 259), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43496511 23 Ibid., p. 260.

21

As well as setting me on the path of Plato’s views on creativity, the same meeting with my adviser threw up questions concerning the whys and wherefores of presenting a world in 2097 where creativity is in peril. Whilst I had originally explained the perilous state of creativity in this future time as a consequence of unrestrained capitalism, my adviser’s suggestion that AI might also detrimentally impact creativity was something I could not neglect to add to the story, such was its appositeness and clear link to the nature of creativity.

I wondered then about how creativity and robotics might serve to limit the creative nature of the world. In a way, in the year of 2024, one can already see how creativity, or what we might call original creativity, is one the wane or at least under threat. It is not an original concept that society or culture can seem to be becoming less creative, and the entertainment that people are seeking out – at least in the mainstream – appears not to take the risks that one might expect to be an essential part of creativity, though this may have always been the case for as long as there has been popular culture. Whatever opinion one takes, on consideration, it did not seem strange to me to suggest as I do in the story that by 2097, AI has essentially taken over from human ingenuity in the practice of creative work.

I have used the term ‘genius’ in the story, relating it to the inhabitants of the astral realm, and it is interesting to note two opinions on the source of genius from Helvétius and Diderot, as related by Herbert Dieckmann. First, on Helvétius, Dieckmann writes: “The extraordinary power characteristic of genius is, for Helvétius, by no means an innate faculty of the individual, but is caused by external circumstances.”24 Diderot’s idea of genius’ root seems to be much less explained by the influence of the outside world, as Dieckmann relates: “The peculiar quality which separates the genius from the rest of mankind is – Diderot maintains against Helvétius – not to be explained by chance or circumstances, but by the genius himself or by Nature which creates him.”25 The two sides of opinion demonstrated by Dieckmann here are perhaps reflected in my story, as it is said of the residents of the astral realm that they have a special conditioning that enables them to cross into the realm, suggesting that they were possessed of a gift that was there regardless of the influences of the physical world. On the other hand, the astral realm is imperilled by the declining creativity of the physical world, implying that genius or creative

Herbert Dieckmann, ‘Diderot's Conception of Genius’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 2.2 (1941), pp. 151182 (p. 157), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707111 25 Ibid., p. 159.

24

singularity is dependant on a suitably rich cultural environment. That the astral realm endeavours to put a stop to its decline by abducting children from the physical world would suggest that the realm’s inhabitants also buy into Helvétius’ notion that ‘external circumstances’ will be the thing that fosters and produces the genius that the realm requires to go on existing.

Conclusion I hope that I have given the reader a greater insight into the three strands that function as the clearest themes in the story that constitutes my Project Portfolio, and that have influenced its construction, both from the beginning and now looking back at the work upon completion.

Given the word limit of the dissertation, there is only so much detail on any one of the strands that one can perhaps provide, but I think that the suggestive nature of the strands, all of which have great capacity for abstract discussion as to their meanings and objectives, is demonstrated in this essay by the seeming overlaps between the topics.

Bibliography

Burwick, Frederick, ‘"Art for Art's Sake" and the Politics of Prescinding: 1790s, 1890s, 1990s’ Pacific Coast Philology, 34.2 (1999), pp. 117-126, doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1316445 Dieckmann, Herbert, ‘Diderot's Conception of Genius’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 2.2 (1941), pp. 151-182, doi: Gaut, Berys, ‘Creativity and Rationality’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 70.3 (2012), pp. 259-270, doi: Lankester, Edwin Ray, ‘Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism’ in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c. 1880-1900, ed. by Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst () pp. 35.

Lovecraft, H.P., ‘The Picture in the House’ in The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, ed. by S.T. Joshi (Penguin Books, 1999) pp. 34-42.

Lovecraft, H.P., ‘Dagon’ in The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, ed. by S.T. Joshi (Penguin Books, 1999) pp. 1-6.

Lynch, Helen, ‘Arthur Machen’, The Sewanne Review, 47.3 (1939), pp. 424-427, doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27535582 Robert Nisbet, ‘Genius’, The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), 6.5 (1982), pp. 98-107 (p. 99), doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40256393 Nordau, Max, ‘Degeneration’ in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c. 18801900, ed. by, Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst () pp. 13-17.

Poteet, Lewis J., ‘"DORIAN GRAY" AND THE GOTHIC NOVEL’ Modern Fiction Studies, 17.2 (1971), pp. 239-248, doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26279102 Potolsky, Matthew, ‘Introduction’, New Literary History 35.4 (2004), pp. v-xi, doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20057857 Stoker, Bram, Dracula (Penguin Classics, 1993 [1897]).

Weintraub, Stanley, ‘THE YELLOW BOOK: A REAPPRAISAL’, The Journal of General Education, 16.2 (1964), pp. 136-152, doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27795922 Wells, H.G., ‘Zoological Retrogression’ in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History, c.

1880-1990, ed. by Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst () pp. 5-12.

B.

But love is impossible and it goes on despite the impossible. You’re the muscle I cut from the bone and still the bone remembers, still it wants (so much, it wants) the flesh back, the real thing, if only to rail against it, if only to argue and fight, if only to miss a solve-able absence.

Ada Limón

There’s no way to describe what it’s like to be torn apart. Even when you think you know pain intimately. You don’t expect it when the axe lodges into your shoulder, parting skin.

Shattering bone. For a moment you don’t even feel it. All you feel is numb surprise. All you hear is the distant sound of the other shoe dropping after a lifelong wait.

You only understand what happened when the axe lifts and the sticky sound of flesh drags you back into your body, the body that’s been cleaved in two. A searing ache starts at the gap where your skin used to hold your shoulder together, spreads through your veins like fire.

When you turn around, you see your mother.

You’re not sure what she sees, only that it isn’t you. Recently, you’ve come to realise that you are more than what she thinks of you. More than the fears that haunt her. It shouldn’t be your responsibility to hide from the sun just so she won’t have to flinch from your shadow.

This realisation is freeing. But it does not save you.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. That’s how this usually goes, isn’t it?

So how about this: Sometimes I picture my birth. My mother, ripped apart as I clawed my way out, as I flinched from the light. How I dug sharp nails into her inner thighs, the soft and supple skin breaking. How we screamed, our voices a horrible harmony.

Sometimes I picture my birth in all its bloody filth, and I imagine my mother holding me to her chest anyway.

But I was told the truth at a young age: when I was born, I didn’t scream. I made no sound at all.

Dad picked me up from school one day, about half a year after he left my mother. We shared chocolate cake in a café mostly frequented by pensioners. My dad always insisted on avoiding caffeine in the afternoon, so I drank chamomile tea and he rooibos with extra sugar.

“Your mum is trying, you know,” he said quite suddenly, after we’d exhausted the usual topics. “Even if it doesn’t always seem that way.”

I hummed, only half-listening. My attention was on the other guests: the old couple eating silently by the doorway, the man on the phone at the table beside us. I lingered on a woman sitting in the corner. She was alone, her hair short and completely white. In her early seventies, I guessed. There was a slice of cake on a small plate in front of her. Yellow. Lemon drizzle, maybe?

“Things haven’t been easy for her. She worked hard to get where she is now.”

There was something about that old lady. I felt enraptured as she picked up the slice and brought it to her mouth, her palm hiding her pink lips. When she lowered it, the slice was completely gone, though I could’ve sworn I didn’t see her jaw move at all. A crumb was stuck to her upper lip.

I waited for her to pick up a napkin, but instead she lifted the same hand again. Her palm was slightly tilted towards me this time, just enough that I could see the dark line stretched across it. Just enough that I could see how that line parted, and a dark, flat tongue slipped out, licking the woman’s lips before disappearing again.

She dropped her hand under the table and met my eye. It startled me, but she only smiled, tight-lipped, and winked.

“Beatrice, when you were born…” dad hesitated. I turned to him, surprised, and that appeared to be encouragement enough for him to continue. “There was a moment when we thought you wouldn’t make it. I think that hurt her more than you can imagine. For some time I feared she wouldn’t recover from the loss.”

But I’m right here, I’d wanted to say. I bit my tongue.

“I’ll never forget when she held you in her arms for the first time. You were so still, looking up at her with those big eyes.”

He chuckled, fond. A beat. His expression grew more serious again. “Then your mother looked up at me and asked, ‘Can you hear that?’ I didn’t know what she was on about, and I said as much. ‘The baby crying. It’s so loud, how can’t you hear it?’”

I took a sip from my lukewarm tea. It tasted like mud.

“Some time before we… before we went our separate ways,” he continued, “she told me something. I don’t think she meant to.

But she said, she said to me, ‘I still hear her crying some nights.’” He stopped, gave me a meaningful look. Like he was searching for something.

At length, he must’ve found what he was looking for. Staring down at the bottom of my cup, I asked if we could order another slice of cake. The tension dissipated, and my dad seemed relieved. When I turned to watch the old woman again, her table was empty.

I still dream of the night my mother buried me. For years it was a recurring nightmare. The impossible pressure squeezing my lungs, that terrible taste. Oddly enough, it haunts me more than anything else she did to me.

These past few months, though, the dream has been different.

It starts out like it always does. I try to open my eyes, only to realise I can’t. There’s something stuck in my throat and I choke when I try to clear it, dirt slipping between my lips and up my nose. I urge my body to move, but it’s like being stuck in cement. I’m light-headed, and though I try to dig upwards I somehow know the surface hasn’t come any closer than it was before. Pain blossoms in my chest. I realise I am going to die.

But as my body stills, I become aware of the soil moving. At first just a tremble, but it grows stronger. Then, a firm grip around my wrist. This must be it, some part of me thinks. This must be the end. The hand pulls with enough force that my wrist almost pops out of its socket, though at this point I doubt I would feel it. Pain hardly even registers, because that’s the wind I can feel against my hand, my arm. More soil falls away and finally, finally, I take a breath.

Gold eyes greet mine in the dark. I’ve never felt safer.

When I told Aina about my dreams, she reminded me of what I already knew: that she’ll always be there for me, no matter where I am. No matter how little of me remains.

The first time we met, Aina was standing by the edge of the playground, where trees were planted in a neat line to hide the primary school’s ugly metal fence. Anyone could tell she wasn’t a pupil; she wasn’t wearing the blue-grey school uniform, and dark scales covered her scalp where most kids had hair, glinting in the sun. She didn’t notice me, even though I was definitely staring.

I didn’t exactly approach her, but I did inch closer, feigning interest in whatever was happening on the playground. Once I was just a few steps away, I raised the apple my mother packed for me as a snack, red and plump and unbitten. Then I turned it, and turned it, and turned it.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. When I glanced sideways, Aina was staring at my hand, at the apple. I raised it and our eyes met, hers the colour of liquid gold.

“Hungry?”

She nodded, causing me to pause. I wanted to give it, but… I took a step closer, apologised. Tried to explain, but couldn’t find the words, so in the end I showed her.

Both my hands cupped the apple, thumbs pushing into its skin.

Then, with far too much ease, I split it in two.

A sharp inhale. I waited for the inevitable – the sound of disgust, of footsteps scrambling backwards, away from me.

But no other reaction followed. I kept my face down as I watched the squirming maggots try to burrow into the apple’s brown flesh. They seemed almost luminescent in the shadows of the trees.

Aina’s hand reached for one of the halves. The back of it was scaled too, and from up close I could discern a green hue where previously I believed them to be brown. She took the half, unbothered by the larva crawling onto her thumb. Then, without a hint of hesitation, she brought the apple to her lips and bit into it, maggots and all.

It was my turn to be stunned, then, but like her I tried not to show it. She chewed slowly, a repetitive crunch the only sound between us. There was a speck of white at the corner of her mouth. She swallowed, then took another bite.

I looked down at the other half, wondering.

The school bell rang far too soon. I watched as the kids all converged towards the main building, and when I turned to speak to my new friend, to say goodbye, she was already gone.

I felt oddly disappointed. A maggot slid over my hand, reminding me of the apple half I was still holding.

Beyond the school fence was a forest. I knew that must’ve been where she disappeared to, even though I couldn’t see any holes in the fence. When the school bell rang a second time, I quickly placed the apple down on a patch of grass, casting one final look at the forest before hurrying to class.

When I returned later, no trace of the apple remained.

The day I developed my first crush, I confided in my mother over the dinner table. She clearly hadn’t been expecting a response beyond my usual “fine” when she asked me how school was. A stunned silence followed my confession.

Then, against all odds, she smiled. “A crush? My, you’re becoming grown. What is he like?”

So I told her the little I knew, about his kindness and his red cheeks and his blond (or was it brown?) hair. All the while my mother listened, smile never faltering, and I preened under her undivided attention.

“I still remember my first crush,” she sighed later as I helped her clear the table. “I was about your age. Jonathan, his name was. Not as sweet as your boy, but he always made me laugh.”

Her eyes sparkled in a way I’d never seen before. I could hardly imagine it: my mother as a young schoolgirl, giggling.

In love. Even now, when I try to picture her, all I can see is a stranger.

Before I went to bed, she encouraged me to talk to him again the following day. She tucked my hair behind my ear, and I leaned into the touch. “You could even invite him over, if his parents agree.”

With those words, the last of my excitement dissipated.

Because I knew, even then, that nothing would come of it.

That my crush would stay hidden until it was no more than a distant memory, and dinners with my mother would turn silent again. There would be no more conspiring smiles or gentle touches. No more illusions of being on the same side.

[Imagine a picture glued to this page. In the picture, a young girl smiling over her birthday cake. Five pink candles. Her brown hair is separated in two neat braids, tied with white bows. Her smile is wide, though her lips are pressed together to hide a missing tooth.

That little girl isn’t me, though we have the same eyes, the same smile. That little girl never existed, only the outline of her. Like the odd gap between two crooked teeth. She thought she existed for a long time. Felt her heart race and her lungs burn whenever she ran. But you can feel many things if you want it bad enough. It took a while for me to understand that.

Now imagine tearing the picture out.

Slow, careful not to rip it. Imagine turning it around and reading the back: Beatrice’s Birthday, 1999.

What you do next is your choice. Frame the picture. Fold it, tuck it into your pocket. Tear it to shreds, I don’t mind. And I promise that little girl will never find out.]

I must’ve been about eight when I became aware of the thing under my bed. It was only ever there at night, and only when I was alone.

At first, I asked my father to check. He would laugh, ruffle my hair and make a big ordeal out of getting on his knees and searching below my bed. Sometimes he’d reassure me, saying that he wouldn’t let anything do me harm, and other times he’d pretend to be dragged under by something, with a look of panic I was too young to recognise as pretend. He would just laugh again when I cried out, poking fun at my fear in a tone he must’ve thought gentle.

It didn’t take long before I stopped asking for his help at all.

Not that it mattered much; my parents split up soon after. Dad moved out with a sad smile, a kiss to my temple and a promise I’d see him again soon.

The presence under my bed remained. I could hear its shallow breaths, could feel my mattress move as it pressed up against it. I hid under my duvet to muffle the sounds, hoping that one day it’d go away.

My mother buried me on a moonless night. I remember watching the stars as she carried me out to the garden and laid me down in a shallow grave. The soil was soft, warm. I didn’t struggle. No one had taught me to recognise constellations, so I made up my own, found an angel in the night sky and imagined it was watching over me.

The panic only set in when dirt hit the side of my face and I had to bid the stars goodnight. Soon, I was entirely covered.

The moist ground pressed down on me, an unforgiving weight. I was alive for a whole minute, I think, embraced by the earth. Then I suffocated.

Dirt blended with my spit, forming an uncomfortable concoction. The process of awakening and dying repeated at least three times before I managed to dig my way out. The stars greeted me once more, but so did the moon. Later, I would learn I was gone for over a week.

When I appeared by the side of my mother’s bed, she did not seem surprised, only coldly resigned. She did not say anything, not even when I began to convulse, then retch. Only when I spat out a blend of bile, dirt and worms on her pristine white sheets did she begin to scream.

The name of my crush had been Oliver, and we had a single conversation with each other when we were ten. He had blond or brown hair and was somewhat shy. Polite, too. Good at multiplications, but not arrogant about it. The kind of boy people instinctively like, whom teachers praise and parents encourage their children to befriend.

I recall our conversation vividly, though I must’ve changed some of the details over the years. I was seated at the desk before him. He tapped on my shoulder, startling me, and then immediately apologised for it. I didn’t reply, too taken aback that he was talking to me at all. He asked to borrow my green pencil because he forgot his own at home. His face was all red, and I smiled in the hope it would make him seem less uncomfortable. I said “sure” and grabbed two different shades of green, letting him choose which he preferred. He picked the lighter one.

His eyes lifted from the pencil to something over my shoulder.

“Whoa, cool drawing!” he said, and this more than anything I remember. The tone of his voice, the genuine wonder.

I thanked him, then turned around. We did not speak to each other again.

This interaction was by no means significant. But it stood out against the bleakness of my early childhood, and therefore it lingered, igniting a warmth in my chest I could only connect to the feeling I’d read about in books. I was certain: I’d fallen in love.

I don’t think my mother likes me, I told Aina one day before school. I took an earlier bus so that we could spend more time together, but the entire ride there I couldn’t get my mother out of my head. The way she’d looked at me from where she was lying in bed that morning, her eyes half-lidded. She didn’t say anything when I told her goodbye.

Aina was quiet for a moment. Then, without any judgement or disbelief: what makes you think so?

So I told her bits and pieces. How my mother treated me, how she seemed to begrudge my existence most days. But I also told her there were good moments, that at times my mother would smile at me, or cook my favourite meal, and everything would feel alright. I thought it would be wrong to leave that out. Ungrateful. Disingenuous. As if I was trying to depict her as something she wasn’t.

There were also things I didn’t mention at all. The burial. The fights I overheard between my parents. Oliver, and how my mother reacted when I told her about him. That last one had been plaguing me, but it seemed like such a silly thing to bring up in the midst of my other troubles.

Aina just listened, quietly offering support with a cool hand on my shoulder. She didn’t try to argue, or appease me with meaningless reassurances that of course she likes you, she’s your mother!

I’m sorry, was all she said when I finally ran out of words.

I shrugged. My mouth was dry.

Then Aina added, with far more fervour than I expected: screw her.

It made me laugh in surprise, so Aina said it again, louder this time.

Seriously, she’s an idiot if she can’t see how great you are.

I just laughed and laughed, and eventually she joined in, though not before assuring me again of how much she meant it.

Secondary school wasn’t a big change. The same kids, the same loneliness. The classes themselves were better, though. I enjoyed most of them, and my teachers seemed to like me well enough. Biology in particular caught my interest, and though I was still hesitant to speak up in class, I began to make exceptions for that one. It helped that the teacher took me under his wing, seemingly proud of me in a way that distantly reminded me of my dad.

“Well done,” he said one day with a wink as he returned my test, quiet enough that only I would hear. A perfect score. It was the most accomplished I’d ever felt.

That day I came home with a smile on my face. A smile that lasted even as I greeted my mother, even as I walked up the stairs.

Then she called for me. I paused, the stair creaking loudly.

Slowly, I retraced my steps. By the time I faced my mother, the smile was gone.

“Have you heard?” The tone of her voice was strange. Intense.

My look of confusion must’ve been enough of an answer, because she continued, “A boy passed away earlier today.

Around your age. Gabriel. Did you know him?”

I shook my head. There’d never been a Gabriel in my class, and I barely knew any kids outside of that. But even as I tried to say as much, I knew my mother wouldn’t believe me. I knew it from the moment I heard her accusatory tone. From the moment I saw that familiar look of contempt on her face, carved into the downturn of her lips, the white of her wide eyes.

Around that time I had my first bad period. They’d always been sporadic, with months passing at times without a drop of blood between my thighs, only for me to wake up one day to my bedcovers drenched in red. I asked my mother about it, the first time that happened; it’d seemed like the type of thing girls ask their mothers. But she just told me to throw out my covers and sheets, purposefully misunderstanding my worries.

I didn’t care too much about it. Blood didn’t bother me, and my health had never really been a concern growing up. Once, when I was feeling curious, I asked Aina if her periods ever got weird, but she’d just shrugged.

Then one month I woke up in the middle of the night to a terrible pain. Far from the worst I’d ever experienced in an objective sense, yet it felt worse. It was a betrayal of my own body; the pain came from within me, like I was being torn apart from the inside out, and I knew instantly that I would take being buried alive again over this.

I didn’t notice the blood that’d soaked through my pyjamas, or the fresh stains on my sheets (white, like my mother’s – they’re easier to bleach clean that way). The cramps were allconsuming. Sweat ran down my forehead. I curled up into a ball, lying on my side while my hands clawed at my abdomen.

It was surprisingly easy to tear skin. I remember thinking that in the aftermath. I’d expected my skin to resist, but then again it never did protect me much. Besides, I’d been growing out my nails. I used to clip them every week, since they grew faster than most people’s do and mother would call me unhygienic if I went too long without cutting them. But I liked it that way. I felt safer with my nails long.

That night, those sharp nails were aimed at the hellish pain eating away at me. I heard a thick, wet pop when one of them punctured the abdomen, and my fingers turned warm as blood oozed over them. It wasn’t enough. I had to reach the part that hurt. So I dug deeper, flesh ripping until my hand fit into the hole I created, the moist muscles clenching around it as if they were trying to suck me in.

I sobbed when I reached it, the cause of my anguish, and I clenched my fist around it, causing more blood to spurt out. It relieved some of the cramps, but not all.

Ripping it out wasn’t a decision; it was pure instinct.

I woke up the following morning to a bed covered in blood and skin, feeling stiff but otherwise okay. My lower stomach was a mess of scars, already white, like they’d been there for years. When I picked up a piece of gore, it twitched, as if hoping to re-attach itself to me. I threw it out of my window before it had the chance to try.

Later that day, I went into the garden to clean up the mess, realising I probably shouldn’t leave those strips of flesh where my mother could find them.

I needn’t have worried, though: by the time I went out, most of it was already gone. What remained had been turned into an anthill, so completely covered in tiny insects that I could barely spot the rosy colour of skin. Some flies circled it, buzzing over to me once I stepped closer. I swatted them away, then crouched down to take a closer look at the ants.

Some of them carried morsels of pink or red, torn off from my insides. From this close I could recognise flaps of skin, could see how they trembled as ants moved within the crevices.

I decided to let nature run its course. Sure enough, when I checked again the morning after, no traces remained.

Can I walk home with you, I asked Aina after school.

She still lingered around, but I didn’t see her as often. The local secondary school wasn’t near the forest, and perhaps that was why. Perhaps that was also why I felt brave enough to ask, eager to spend more time with my friend. Though I think it mostly had to do with my mother. She’d been angry the night before. Not at me, but over the phone. The argument I overheard is long forgotten now, but I know it left me feeling unsettled. I couldn’t quite meet her eye in the weeks that followed.

Aina accepted the offer with ease, as if this was something we did all the time. She was understanding like that, taking my whims in stride, never appearing surprised by what I had to say. We walked side by side, and Aina listened attentively as I rambled on about the classes I had that day. When we had to cross the road, I was too enraptured in what I was telling her to notice a car coming our way, so Aina grabbed my hand to stop me.

Careful, Bee, she told me with a chuckle. I felt embarrassed at the time, though looking back I wonder whether the blush warming my cheeks had more to do with her holding my hand than it did with me almost walking in front of a car.

We entered the forest, and neither of us let go until we reached a house by the outskirts of town. I was preparing myself to part ways, but then Aina did the unthinkable: she invited me in.

Her family greeted me with exaggerated politeness, no doubt taken off guard. I probably did a terrible job of hiding my own surprise. Aina rarely mentioned her family to me, nothing

besides the off-hand implication that they expect her home before nightfall. Though really, it was her family’s appearance that bewildered me most.

They were clearly related. Aina shared her father’s smile, his small hands. The cheekbones of her mother. Aina’s sister was a smaller, younger version of her, with round cheeks and a high-pitched voice.

But their eyes were all brown. Where Aina had scales, her sister had long, dark hair.

I didn’t comment on it, didn’t say anything as I followed Aina to her room. Once there, it was easy to be distracted. We spent the afternoon going through her stuff, and I believe Aina spoke more in those few hours than she had in all the time I’d known her. It marked a new point in our friendship, a sudden proximity; from one day to another, Aina went from being an occasional bright spot in my life to being utterly indispensable to my happiness.

When her mother called Aina down for dinner, we struggled to say goodbye. For the first time, I asked her when I could see her again. And for the first time, she promised to find me tomorrow.

There are times when my memories blur at the edges, and I can’t quite tell which parts are real and which I only imagined.

This is one of those memories.

I’m fourteen, maybe fifteen. The thing under my bed is still present. My bedframe shakes whenever there’s a storm, and I imagine it hanging onto the wooden slats, trembling so hard the world seems to tremble with it. Other times it’s just sounds, usually on the quiet nights. The ones when I come home to an empty house, without a note from my mother.

When I make my own dinner and go to bed with a tongue that feels numb from disuse. On those nights, I can hear whimpers, muffled cries. They keep me awake, audible even when I press a pillow to my ears.

I barely sleep anymore. The bed is shaking and I can’t sleep.

The monster hiding below me is crying and I can’t sleep. It’s quiet but I can sense its presence and I. Can’t. Sleep.

I’m not sure what happens after that. I remember two versions of the events, each as clear as the other. One ending begins with rain hammering against the window. The thing under my bed is sobbing, and nothing I do blocks out the noise. My eyes burn from all the sleepless nights. Without thinking, blinded by anger and exhaustion, I reach below the bed and pull. The monster is smaller than I expect, but I don’t let that deter me, don’t give it the time to recover – I leap from under my duvet, jump on top of it so that my knees bracket its body, and my hands, my hands grasp and reach almost instinctively until they wrap around– I push down. My eyes are closed, I think. I hear strangled gasps, feel sharp nails clawing at my arms. I don’t let go.

Eventually, the trashing stops. The creature becomes still. I peel my eyes open, look down at my hands. The purple stains they’ve created. I look higher and see crooked teeth, the front one chipped ever so slightly. My stomach churns as my gaze continues to travel up, already knowing what I’ll see.

Cheeks stained with dirt and tears. Wide, terrified eyes. Dark.

Dull. I never went to a funhouse, but I’ve seen films. I imagine this is what it’s like to look in one of those mirrors, the ones that change you ever so slightly. Her neck feels impossibly small between my hands, and I can’t let go.

But maybe that never happened. Maybe, it ends like this: Not with rain hammering, but with a gentle pitter-patter, the occasional flash of lightning. The noises make me drowsy, pull me to the edge of consciousness, but I can’t quite cross that line. Because my bed is trembling again, a slight shake that reminds me of sleeping in the backseat of my dad’s car. With each lightning strike, it jolts. I lie and listen, closer than I ever have before. Once I tune out the rain and the creaks of the house, I hear stuttering breaths. Quiet whimpers, like a child’s.

Like those of a child who knows that to make a sound means trouble.

My hand slips from under the duvet, hovers. I hesitate until the room lights up again, and another jolt shakes me. Slowly, I lower my hand next to my bed until I’m almost touching the floor. I let it hang there, a silent offering. The trembling stops.

The breaths do too, just for a moment. I resist the urge to look down and instead stare at the ceiling. I’m almost asleep when it happens, when something cold brushes the side of my hand.

I swallow a gasp, wondering whether the creature below is listening to my breathing too. I stay very, very still.

A minute or so passes before a small hand slips into mine.

Instinctively, my fingers wrap around it. The hand is icy to the touch, but somehow it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. When I glance down, I see that the hand is dirty, the nails too long, blackened at the tips. I squeeze it once, and the creature squeezes back. Neither of us lets go. There’s no more trembling that night, and the gentle sound of the rain is all I can hear.

I like this ending better. But the image of a bruised neck lingers in my mind, too vivid to discard.

Hanging out became a regular thing. Some weeks I saw Aina more than I did my mother, and that was fine by me. But as I spent more time at Aina’s, I became aware of something. It took me a while to piece it together since we mostly spent our time hidden away in her room, but once I realised what was bothering me it became impossible to miss.

There was something off with how her family saw her. Or rather, how they didn’t.

When her mother told her dinner was ready, her eyes seemed to glaze over, as if they were looking through her daughter rather than at her. Her father never met her gaze, looked away when she bared her teeth. As for her sister, her affectionate little sister, she hugged Aina and tugged at her clothes, but never touched her scales. One time, when she tripped, Aina helped her up, the back of her hand brushing her sister’s bare arm, and she burst into tears. It was a bad fall, I told Aina, hoping it would convince her that was the only reason for her sister’s tears. But I could tell she didn’t believe me, and I never saw her touch her family after that.

I tried to make up for the loss, latching onto her arm when we walked to her home, hugging her at every opportunity. It felt odd, at first. I wasn’t used to casual affection, not since my dad left. But once I pushed past my hesitance, it was nice.

Comfortable. And though I knew I couldn’t replace her family, Aina seemed to feel the same. We spent our evenings on her bed, lying on our stomachs with our arms touching, her scales cold against my skin.

You’re beautiful, you know, I told her on days her family didn’t seem to see her at all. Her cheeks would darken, and she

would gently push me away, sometimes causing me to fall off the bed. When that happened, we would dissolve into laughter, and I would feel proud knowing I’d put that smile on her face.

Years would pass before I realised it wasn’t just Aina’s family who had a skewed vision of her. Most people’s eyes slid off any feature they’d rather not see, determined to know only the palatable version of her.

When I tried to bring it up, Aina shrugged it off.

It’s better than the alternative, she would say.

To this day, I can’t decide whether I agree.

The day I witnessed my mother killing a garden snake was the day I knew time was running out.

It was the weekend and I had spent the day at Aina’s again.

We watched films together, hiding from the stormy weather. I stayed until the rain ceased, the sun already low in the sky, and then I said goodbye with a kiss to her cheek and the promise of coming back tomorrow.

When I got home, the house was silent. No TV playing in the living room, no music coming from the kitchen. Apprehension crept up on me as I went up the stairs, growing stronger with each step. My mother’s room was empty. I dropped my bag in mine, then returned downstairs. When I called out for her, no reply came.

I tried to tell myself it was nothing. She was probably just at the grocery store, or working overtime. Was she working today? A pang of guilt hit me when I realised I didn’t know.

I wandered to the kitchen, planning to rummage the fridge for something to eat, when a movement outside the window caught my eye. I stepped closer and there she was, my mother.

Her mouth stretched into a grin.

The expression was so foreign to me that it took a moment before I was able to look away from it. Eventually, I followed my mother’s gaze downward. And my hand lifted to cover my mouth in horror.

She held a spade firmly in her hands, her knuckles white with the force of her grip. Splatters of red dotted her skirt, its hem covered in dirt. And the blade, the blade had been rusted for years, ever since dad forgot it outside on a rainy day, but now

there was another colour, vibrant, trickling down, dripping onto the grass. Fleshy chunks hung from the spade’s edge, and from where I was standing I couldn’t tell whether they were brown or black. All I could see was red.

My stomach churned when I finally looked at what remained of the garden snake, a dozen thick lumps cut up like sausages, some of them still twitching. The snake couldn’t have been longer than my arm, but it was hard to tell for sure. That twisted smile was still on my mother’s face, and it was enough to push me over the edge, bile flooding my mouth.

I bent forward, throwing up in the kitchen sink. Green-yellow sludge oozed towards the drain, remnants of the soup I’d had for lunch. My throat burned, yet I continued to gag, dense saliva hanging from my bottom lip. I tried not to look at the larger scraps of food in the basin, tried not to think of how much they resembled the sliced up pieces of that garden snake.

By the time I was able to look up again, my mother had lowered the spade, her expression blank. Her eyes met mine through the window. Widened a fraction, then narrowed. I was used to her suspicion, but this was something else entirely. Maybe this was what the snake saw, moments before it met its end.

It happened on the patio.

We were playing a card game, sitting opposite one another on the carpet floor. I was distracted and Aina was winning. I knew she could tell something was off, because she didn’t even tease me about my shitty cards. As usual, she didn’t push, simply waited until I was ready.

My mother, I started quietly. Aina froze for a moment, then played her card, humming.

I hesitated, unsure how to share what I’d seen. Unsure whether I even should. We finished our game in silence, and then Aina pushed the cards aside and wriggled closer to sit next to me. Almost by instinct, I dropped my head onto her shoulder.

The feel of her skin, the sound of her breaths, all of it eased my racing thoughts. I took a deep breath, savouring the calm.

I’m scared, I admitted into the crook of her neck, words muffled. I felt Aina tense.

Why? Her voice was soft, worried.

I shrugged. I didn’t want to talk about the snake, or the way my mother would stare at me when she thought I couldn’t see.

I don’t think she knows what to do with me anymore, I said.

Aina’s hand curled into a fist, then relaxed again so it could take hold of mine. I closed my eyes, hoping it would stifle my tears.

Bee, she whispered to me. Bee, maybe we should go.

Go?

Away from this place. We could do it, start anew somewhere far away.

I thought of my mother, who had no one but me. Who wouldn’t talk to me. I thought of my father, who said he loved me, but never offered me this. A chance to leave it all behind.

I squeezed her hand. When do we leave?

I came home to my mother cooking. An unusual occurrence those days. Most of the time she ate at work and left money for takeout on the kitchen table. She stopped bothering with leftovers years before, tired of rotten smells coming from the fridge.

When she saw me hovering by the doorway, she didn’t smile.

A sting at the base of my neck. That’s the first sensation I became aware of. A sting, followed by the feeling of something sliding through me, a trickle of warmth down my back. Bit by bit, my senses returned. I felt the ache of my shoulders. The persistent itch by my elbows, below my knees, my thighs. Like ants crawling under skin.

Besides that itch, my legs felt numb, my muscles tense. My right hand didn’t feel like anything at all.

I became aware of a soft humming. A cold but gentle hand supporting the side of my face. Aina. I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry as dust. With great effort I peeled my eyes open, saw my muddied legs resting on green grass. Trees surround us.

I’m almost done, Aina said quietly.

Again I tried to speak, to ask what happened, but I didn’t manage more than a groan.

Don’t worry, she said. Another sting, the side of my neck this time. You’re safe now. I won’t let her hurt you again.

I remember feeling confused, unsure who she meant by her. It was just the two of us, wasn’t it? In a way, that’s how it had been for years. Aina and I, a world away from the rest of it all.

At some point I looked down. Strangely, I didn’t panic at what I saw. The messy stitches tying my left forearm to the rest of my body. The empty space where my right hand should be. I looked around and saw the missing hand, resting on a tree stump.

You were starting to wake up, Aina explained when she noticed me looking. I decided that one could wait.

I continued to stare. Aina finished her last stitch, securing the thread. I leant into her touch, my mind racing. She kissed my nape.

After a moment I told her: I fought back. She hit me from behind, but I fought back.

It was important to me that Aina knew this. Even more important that I said those words aloud. I was pliant the first time, but not again. Never again.

I recalled then how I bit down on my mother’s hand, breaking skin. Her blood coating my tongue, my teeth, slipping down my throat. How she screamed. It’d been her right hand. I think that was the first time I hurt her on purpose.

The hand on the stump twitched, as if it could sense me looking. At first I thought it was me, that I was somehow causing the movement, but then it continued to quiver, until finally a thin worm pierced through the back of the hand. Pink with blood, it squirmed, curled into itself before the rest of its long body emerged. I wondered how much of the itching I felt was caused by my wounds, and how much by worms claiming me as their new home. In the weeks that followed, I would often wake up to bleeding skin, small white heads poking out of me, and Aina would grab tweezers and gently pull them out.

If the tweezers didn’t work, she would bring her lips to the wound and suck gently until the worm slipped out of my skin, into her welcoming mouth.

For the moment, though, I could only stare at that infested hand. Could only imagine those worms burying into my mother instead, slicing through the bite marks I left. Imagine them slowly dying, one by one.

I licked my lips and tasted dried blood. Her dried blood.

How do you deal with an inhospitable host?

“It’s so nice out,” she said casually. “We should eat outside.

It was odd, but I didn’t think much of it.

The table outside was dirty, cobwebs connecting its legs. A fat spider hung from a thread, dangling side to side with the wind. I think that each time I return to this memory, the spider grows bigger and bigger and maybe one day all I’ll see is that spider not my mother’s cooking not her strained voice not what she looked like when

No matter how hard I try, I can’t put it down in words. I can’t describe how she killed me, can hardly remember what she said to me that day. Each time I try, I get stuck on the details.

I can tell you it was a remarkably sunny afternoon.

I can tell you the table on the patio was dirty from months of disuse, and that there was a spider hanging from it.

I can tell you she made my favourite meal, a casserole that reminded me of the days before my dad left.

But no more than that. I’m sorry, but I can’t.

This will have to do.

My father once told me I never released my first cry. I think I recognise it now – that ever-present pressure on my tongue. A cry that has been building up for over twenty years, flooding my lungs and crawling up my throat.

This is me, finally letting it out.

- B.

it was as if Death might be dying I stood and said

is it the end

when I asked

she only answered

Wait and see

Chase Berggrun

01

CEMETERY – MORNING

This project began in the shadows. I was aware of its presence, felt it growing larger, but could not tell where the darkness ended and it began. When I stepped closer and reached out, my hands touched something solid. The core of what would become my dissertation. I knew what I wanted to write: a queer horror story, one with gruesome bodies and a hopeful ending.

Plenty of academics have delved into queer readings of Gothic literature, horror films and the body horror genre.1 The figure of the monster has long been associated with ‘deviant’ sexualities and genders, yet instead of resenting them, many queer people have found comfort in these characters. So what is it that draws us queers to horror?

Queerness, by definition, dictates a parting from the norm, the crossing of boundaries. In that way, it relates to the idea of abjection, which Julia Kristeva defines as ‘what disturbs identity, system, order […] the in-between, the ambiguous, the composite.’2 Abjection is essential in horror, and therefore part of what ties the genre to LGBTQ+ identities. However, Laura Westengard argues that while queerness is inherent in the Gothic ‘since its monsters, ghosts, and transgressive desires expose a world outside of normative structures’, the opposite is also true: Gothicism is inherent in queerness.3 An example of how gothic language permeates queer theory can be found in Kathryn Bond Stockton’s The Queer Child (2009). Therein she uses the term ‘ghostly gay child’ to describe how the phrase “gay child” is a gravestone marker for where or when one’s straight life died. Straight person dead, gay child now born, albeit retrospectively (even, for example, at or after the age of twenty-five). This kind of backward birthing

1

See the bibliography for the full list of works I consulted.

Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 4.

3 Laura Westengard, Gothic Queer Culture: Marginalized Communities and the Ghosts of Insidious Trauma (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019), p. 179–180.

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mechanism makes the hunt for the roots of queerness a retrospective search for amalgamated forms of feelings, desires, and physical needs that led to this death of one’s straight life. And yet, by the time the tombstone is raised (“I was a gay child”), the “child” by linguistic definition has expired.4 We examine our past for evidence of our queerness, but unearthing this evidence is bittersweet – it affirms our identity, but also evokes a sense of regret for the version of us who was too young, or perhaps too frightened, to understand what their feelings meant. Through the act of coming out (even if it is only to ourselves), our child-self is irrevocably torn from us, now a separate entity that shares our features. As such, ‘the child is precisely who we are not and, in fact, never were. It is the act of adults looking back. It is a ghostly, unreachable fancy.’5 The ghostly gay child creates a bridge between queer identities and the concept of death, a bridge that continues to exist beyond childhood. Popular media perpetuates this idea with the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope, which equates queer futures with death. Haley Hulan explains how closeted queer authors initially created the trope out of necessity, in order to write about their experiences without putting their lives at risk. However, over the years (straight) creators have appropriated it as a means of exploitation and shock value.6 Nowadays, authors are more aware of the trope and its harmful impact, but many members of the community still feel anxious about the fate of queer characters in media, all too aware of how easily they are discarded. It was with this anxiety in mind that the character of Beatrice began to take shape, a queer girl who cannot stay dead. An image kept returning to me, one I had been drawn to for

4

Kathryn Brond Stockton, The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century (London: Duke University Press, 2009), p. 7.

5 Stockton, p. 5.

6 Haley Hulan, ‘Bury Your Gays: History, Usage and Context’, McNair Scholars Journal, 21.1 (2017), 17–27 (p.

24).

years at this point: a lonely grave under the moonlight, dirt gradually beginning to stir. Then, in one sudden movement, a hand breaks out of the earth, clasping around air.

Incidentally, one of the first books I read as part of my research has a cover with a similar image of a hand sticking out of a grave. It Came From The Closet (2022) is a collection of essays by queer authors about their relationships with horror films. Many of them return to their childhood in order to retrace their first interactions with the horror genre and see how it shaped them. They delve into the intricacies of their own queerness by drawing upon the issues raised in these films, their recurring tropes and archetypes.7 While the entire collection was a crucial source of inspiration, one particular quotation truly stuck with me over this past year: Some of us are the scars of society, the admission of a wounded world. We break open publicly, a tearing of ourselves both literal, via the physical assault of marginalized people, and figurative, in the untethering of ourselves from the narratives we were born into. Our breaking bears evidence to the liquidity and resilience of the human form, a fluidity that some experiences never melt into. To be queer is to be a wound.8 [emphases are my own] In the horror genre, this tearing is not isolated; it spreads, it disturbs. Part of the allure of monsters is how, even for just a moment, they manage to disrupt the heteronormative status quo. They upset the society built to exclude them, wreak havoc on those who doubt their existence, kill those who call for their deaths. Even when they are ultimately defeated – which they usually are – there is no erasing the destruction they caused. Society returns to a new

7

An example of a discussed slasher film trope is that of a heterosexual couple being killed either during or after intercourse, which can be interpreted as a criticism of heteronormativity. Films this trope appears in include Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Fear Street Part Two: 1978 (2021).

8 Sachiko Ragosta, ‘On Beauty and Necrosis’, in It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, ed. by Joe Vallese (New York: Feminist Press, 2022), pp. 266–276 (p. 274).

definition of normal, but the scars the monsters inflicted, the scars of society, remain. One day, the presence of those scars may be enough for the next monster to realise their power.

02

HOSPITAL – DAY

While researching the usual story beats for a horror novel, I noticed most of them revolved around the main character interacting with ‘the monster’. But what do I do when my main character is the monster? Not in the sense that she becomes infected, or possessed – no, what if she is the monster, and always has been?

I considered working with metaphors. The ‘monster’ could be a larger societal problem, or perhaps Beatrice’s abusive mother, but often the story beats did not lend themselves to this possibility. Take the following example of a horror plot structure, wherein the fourth beat is ‘Meeting the Monster’: While your reader will have had hints at the Monster, this is where your character will have their first brush with it. It will be their first realisation that the reality they thought they knew is not their reality at all, and that something lurks in the darkness. […] Here, your characters can choose to downplay the threat that the Monster poses.

They may even be in denial about its existence and believe they’ve imagined it. It’s the perfect chance to highlight the conflict between a character’s rational mind and the Monster.9 In the world I had created so far, this beat would make little sense. Though the mother does become worse as Beatrice grows older, and some of her actions are monstrous, her attitude

Pamela Koehne-Drube, ‘A Plot Structure for Writing Terrifying Horror Fiction’, novlr <https://www.novlr.org/the-reading-room/a-plot-structure-for-writing-terrifying-horror-fiction> [accessed 17 April 2022].

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towards Beatrice does not ‘lurk in the darkness’ – Beatrice is aware of her mother’s distaste of her. If anything, it is the mother who is uncertain of what her daughter is, and who over the years becomes more aware of the things ‘wrong’ with her.

So perhaps I did come up with a more traditional horror story than I initially believed. I had simply been considering it from the wrong perspective. Through the mother’s eyes, this is a tale of demonic possession, of an evil that destroys her life and must be defeated. I returned to the story beats, this time using them to outline Beatrice’s life as her mother experienced it.

From there on, I was able to rewrite Beatrice’s perspective around that outline, through all the emotions and events her mother would not know about.

Considering my story was built from these gaps, it made sense the result would be disjointed, fragmented. By the end of B., Beatrice has literally been taken apart and put together again, and I wanted the writing to reflect that. I decided to write her story in a journal-like format, as a series of recollections. Epistolary writing is prominent in Gothic literature, the most popular example of course being Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), which is compiled from various journal entries, letters and transcripts. This type of writing also led to the creation of found footage films, a popular subgenre in horror, which ‘elaborates on the Gothic’s exploitation of epistemological and ontological terror’ by further erasing the barriers between the story and its audience.10 However, typically the ones filming the footage or writing the journals are those who encounter monsters, not the monsters themselves – they remain, as usual, voiceless.

After all, the monster’s inner world does not matter. The monster only exists to die; they are the scapegoat, the representation of an evil that must be eradicated. As such, to queer a horror narrative means to embrace the wrongness, to find liberation in what is traditionally seen as evil. By placing Beatrice at the centre of my dissertation, I hope to offer my own monster to Neil McRobert, ‘Mimesis of Media: Found Footage Cinema and the Horror of the Real’, Gothic Studies, 17.2 (2015), 137–50 (p. 140).

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the world, one who fellow queers can recognise themselves in. One who survives, no matter how many times she is buried. One who finds love and keeps it. The traits that make her unusual, that mark her as wrong in her mother’s eyes, are ultimately the same traits that allow her to find happiness.

Though my intention always remained to focus on queer horror, having a woman as the main character made it impossible to ignore the troubled history between femininity and the horror genre. The topic continuously arose in my research, and since my work revolved around Beatrice reflecting upon her (pre)pubescent years, incorporating it came naturally. The female body has long been used as a site of horror; her emotions are too much, her body unreliable, her desires unseemly. Stephen King’s Carrie (1975) is a prime example of this, though by far not the only one.11 Horror films portray (cisgender) women as distressed, undressed, screaming. Either they are slaughtered in an overly eroticised scene, or they survive by maintaining their ‘purity’, taking on the role of final girl. The final girl is modest, she is smart, she is virginal; she is a lesson. Feminist readings of horror films eventually led me down a rabbit hole of research about other marginalised identities within the horror genre. I became very aware of the scope of this dissertation and realised I would have to shelve many interesting ideas in order to keep my focus on that original core, the one centred on queer horror. In the event that I expand this project into a larger work, I aim to spend more time researching the relationship between race and horror, and disability and horror, both of which It Came From The Closet touches upon too.12

11

For more about the film version of Carrie and other horror films centred on female characters, I recommend Yhara Zayd’s video essay ‘A Monstress Comes of Age: Horror & Girlhood’.

12 A good starting point to learn about the relationship between horror and disability is Ria Cheyne’s chapter in Disability, Literature, Genre, titled ‘Horror: Fearful Bodyminds’. To know more about horror’s relationship with race, I would recommend Khadija Mbowe’s video essay ‘Rac(ism) & Horror’. David Greven also offers a compelling discussion of how race relates to the final girl trope in ‘The Women of Get Out: Femininity, Race, and Betrayal in the Contemporary Horror Film’.

03

UNKNOWN LOCATION – NIGHTFALL

Queer subtext has always been a part of horror, but now queerness is becoming part of the main text.13 What does that mean for the future of the horror genre and its monsters? Many recent horror works have sought to answer this question, and now B. counts among them.

Authors like Alison Rumfitt lean into the politics of horror and its history, as seen in her novels’ themes and references, and so horror takes a radical new shape under her penmanship and through the eyes of her trans characters. Leigh Janiak’s Fear Street trilogy (2021) uses the formula of classic slashers, but its main lesbian couple – and most importantly, their survival – takes the horror genre into a new direction, with an ending far more hopeful than that of the solitary final girl.

We now live in a time that no longer requires us to keep to the shadows, at least for the most part. That does not mean we can forget the darkness, or that it has not left a mark. We may savour the sunlight like flowers blooming after a long winter, but it is not so easy to rid ourselves of the chill that has long since settled in our bones. So we reach down, break skin with our bare hands until we reach those bones, until we can tear them out and place our bloodied parts directly under the sun. Only then, once we have dismantled our bodies and expelled the cold from our marrows, will we possibly be able to leave behind those allconsuming shadows. For now, in this process of dismantling, in stacking bones into piles, we have found our own definitions of beauty.

I do not expect everyone who reads this to understand. But for those of you who do, who know what it feels like to hold your insides in the palm of your hand: remember you do not

Claire Sisco King, ‘Un-Queering Horror: Hellbent and the Policing of the “Gay Slasher”’, Western Journal of Communication, 74.3 (2010), 249–68 (p. 256).

13

need to carry them alone. There are people who will see you, gore and all, and won’t flinch.

People who will notice your wounds and offer to stitch them together again. One day, you will meet these people, if you haven’t already. You will meet them, and experience warmth unlike anything you have felt before.

Until then, all you need to do is live.

WORKS CITED Cheyne, Ria, ‘Horror: Fearful Bodyminds’, in Disability, Literature, Genre (United States: Liverpool University Press, 2019), pp. 27–52 Fear Street, dir. by Leigh Janiak (Netflix, 2021) Friday the 13th, dir. by Sean S. Cunningham (Paramount Pictures, 1980) Greven, David, ‘The Women of Get Out: Femininity, Race, and Betrayal in the Contemporary Horror Film’, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 22.3 (2021), 192–205 Halloween, dir. by John Carpenter (Compass International Pictures, 1978) Hulan, Haley, ‘Bury Your Gays: History, Usage and Context’, McNair Scholars Journal, 21.1 (2017), 17–27 King, Claire Sisco, ‘Un-Queering Horror: Hellbent and the Policing of the “Gay Slasher”’, Western Journal of Communication, 74.3 (2010), 249–68 King, Stephen, Carrie (London: Hodder Paperbacks, 1975) Koehne-Drube, Pamela, ‘A Plot Structure for Writing Terrifying Horror Fiction’, novlr <https://www.novlr.org/the-reading-room/a-plot-structure-for-writing-terrifying-horrorfiction> [accessed 17 April 2022] Kristeva, Julia, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) Mbowe, Khadija, ‘Rac(ism) & Horror’, online video recording, YouTube, 29 October 2021, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of97EFcgtho> [accessed 25 April 2024] McRobert, Neil, ‘Mimesis of Media: Found Footage Cinema and the Horror of the Real’, Gothic Studies, 17.2 (2015), 137–50 A Nightmare on Elm Street, dir. by Wes Craven (New Line Cinema, 1985) Ragosta, Sachiko, ‘On Beauty and Necrosis’, in It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, ed. by Joe Vallese (New York: Feminist Press, 2022), pp. 266–276 Stockton, Kathryn Brond, The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century (London: Duke University Press, 2009)

Stoker, Bram, Dracula (London: Penguin, 2010) Westengard, Laura, Gothic Queer Culture: Marginalized Communities and the Ghosts of Insidious Trauma (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019) Zayd, Yhara, ‘A Monstress Comes of Age: Horror & Girlhood’, online video recording, YouTube, 16 October 2020, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkUbP2KVVl8> [accessed 25 April 2024]

Bibliography Academic Benshoff, Harry M., Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997) Boylan, Zaira, ‘Becoming The Monster: The Use of Monstrous Role with Queer Adults in a Partial Hospitalization Program’ (unpublished master’s thesis, Lesley University, 2022) Cruz, Ronald Allan Lopez, ‘Mutations and Metamorphoses: Body Horror Is Biological Horror’, The Journal of Popular Film and Television, 40.4 (2012), 160–68 Drouin, Renee Ann, ‘Games of Archiving Queerly: Artefact Collection and Defining Queer Romance in Gone Home and Life Is Strange’, Alphaville, 16, 2019, 24–37 Dyer, Hannah, ‘Queer Futurity and Childhood Innocence: Beyond the Injury of Development’, Global Studies of Childhood, 7.3 (2017), 290–302 Halberstam, Jack, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Durham, N.C.; London: Duke University Press, 1995) Jerslev, Anne, ‘Violence and the body in contemporary action and horror films’, YOUNG, 4.4 (1996), 39–53 Jones, Stacy Holman, and Anne Harris, ‘Monsters, Desire and the Creative Queer Body’, Continuum (Mount Lawley, W.A.), 30.5 (2016), 518–30 Pelish, Alyssa, ‘The Problem with Being a Final Girl’, New England Review (1990), 41.3 (2020), 59–67 Salomon, Roger B., Mazes of the Serpent: An Anatomy of Horror Narrative (London: Cornell University Press, 2002) Rapoport, Melanie, ‘Frankenstein’s Daughters: On the Rising Trend of Women’s Body Horror in Contemporary Fiction’, Publishing Research Quarterly, 36.4 (2020), 619–33 Non-Fiction Febos, Melissa, Girlhood, 1st edn (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2021) It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, ed. by Joe Vallese (New York: Feminist Press, 2022)

Singh, Julietta, No Archive Will Restore You (Montréal: 3Ecologies Books, 2018) Fiction, Film and Poetry Armfield, Julia, Our Wives Under The Sea (London: Picador, 2022) Armfield, Julia, Salt Slow (London: Flatiron Books, 2019) Berggrun, Chase, R E D (Minneapolis: Birds, LLC, 2018) Carrie, dir. by Brian De Palma (United Artists, 1976) Carson, Anne, Autobiography of Red (New York: Random House, 1998) Guess, Carol, and Kelly Magee, With Animal (New York: Black Lawrence Press, 2015) Jackson, Shirley, The Haunting of Hill House (London: Constable and Robinson, 1999) Limón, Ada, Bright Dead Things (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2015) Machado, Carmen Maria, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2017) Rumfitt, Alison, Brainwyrms (London: Cipher Press, 2023) Rumfitt, Alison, Tell Me I’m Worthless (London: Cipher Press, 2021) Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text, ed.

by Nick Groom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) Us, dir. by Jordan Peele (Universal Pictures, 2019) Vuong, Ocean, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (London: Jonathan Cape, 2019) Further Resources Armfield, Julia, ‘Guts’, < https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/guts> [accessed 25 April 2024] Armfield, Julia, ‘On Body Horror and the Female Body’, <https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/81363-onbody-horror-the-female-body.html> [accessed 25 April 2024]

‘Decomposition – Body Changes’, Australian Museum <https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/decompositionbody-changes> [accessed 25 April 2024] Frederick, Candice, ‘In “Fear Street,” a Lesbian Romance Provides Hope for a Genre’, <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/movies/fear-street-lesbian-romance.html> [accessed 25 April 2024] ‘Garter Snake’, Wikipedia, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garter_snake> [accessed 26 March 2024] ‘Hookworm’, Wikipedia, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookworm> [accessed 20 March 2024] ‘Maggot’, Wikipedia, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggot> [accessed 26 March 2024] Martin, Felicity, ‘Queer body horror: On the grotesque dysmorphia of self’, <https://archermagazine.com.au/2018/07/queer-body-horror-grotesque-dysmorphia> [accessed 25 April 2024] Zayd, Yhara, ‘The Catharsis of Body Horror’, online video recording, YouTube, 25 July 2022, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VosvAUS8Ww> [accessed 25 April 2024]

Changeling: A fiction of reality

James McLeish

This work couldn’t have been done without the aid of friends, family, and many others, who offered their time and expertise into making this work what it is.

To all those who’ve aided me,

Thank you.

DISCLAIMER:

This story is fiction, though it draws from reality.

Do not make this work a selling-point.

Dear Mr. Armitage,

I’ve arrived on your island on the West Coast, and have already plotted out my explorations in the coming hours. No one’s taken notice of me, so we should be able to find our prize with little difficulty.

Will keep you updated through developments.

Sincerely, E.M. Swavey

A gunshot echoed, and a ruddy brown body fell into the undergrowth. An older man, his moustache and suit both neat, cheered and marched forwards, his gun smoking, as another shadow followed after him. Further behind, a short distance away, were two others. A younger man, with dark hair and bright, yet faintly shadowed eyes, was passing glances at his companion, a woman. Against his bright suit, she was in plainer, functional hiking dress, black hair pulled into a tight bun, as her dark eyes and wire-framed glasses glinted in the sunshine. Her gaze fell on the two ahead stepping into spindly trees, but his eyes lay heavily across her, sliding down her face, circling her earthy-red throat.

His hand thrust in front of her, holding a lit cigarette.

‘Wouldn’t have thought you’d join us,’ he said, taking a pull as she declined. With a too-easy smile, he purred, ‘Though I’m pleased you did.’

Pausing, she said, ‘It’s good to know who you’re dealing with, Mr. MacLeod.’

‘Of course! Say, what accent am I hearing from you, it’s delightful! And please, call me Donald – Ms. Matheson’ he finished, words hanging in the air. His smile flickered as she moved on, and he raced after her, brambles snagging him where she’d slipped through unhindered. Muttering, pulling free several threads, he watched as the ghillie’s large black dog joined beside her, lolling tongue slobbering over her outstretched hand. He caught up as the trees shade came over them, leaving them standing before Cotton, gun hanging in the crook of an elbow as the ghillie, an older man, laboured, heaving the dead doe over his shoulder.

In a breath, Anne was in front of him, dark eyes boring into his own, stony face offering nothing.

‘Perhaps, Mr. MacLeod, once your business with Mr. Rainy is concluded, we can know each other properly.’ Then, she was moving towards the ghillie, deftly stepping around trees and the floppy dog pelting around her. Words failed him, and faltered as Cotton barked, laughing towards him.

‘What’cha think, Donald?’ Not bad for a bugger like me, hah! Come, come, have a swig!’ he ranted, shoving a flask into his hand.

‘Excellent shot,’ Donald affirmed, smile returning.

‘John, please,’ Cotton said, clapping him over the shoulder, earning a genuine flicker on Donald’s face.

As they spoke, Anne sought the face of the ghillie. Greying-hair became greying-eyes, his worn face smiling as his dog, wagging and weaving between them, yipped and sniffed at the doe’s hanging hooves.

‘Mr. MacCrimmon?’

‘Very same, Ms.,’ he answered, as they began moving, weaving between trees and leaving the chatter of Donald and John behind. The sparse forest, if it could be called that, was filters of red and green, sunlight threading through as a toned gloom. Kicked up soil, faint breezes fluttering leaves - the world seemed richer. Even the weather, a plain day growing cloudier, seemed riper, as if there was more here than just the rushing wind and Cotton’s overbearing voice.

Then they breached into a clearing. Eyes blinded in the light, they reopened onto grass, heather, brambles, and boulders, cast in monochromatic hues from the overcast sky above. Chill air cut through Anne’s lungs, but it was fresh, sparkling through her. The stone heaps, lined with ferns and moss, sat gap-toothed and splattered with green-and-yellow lichen.

A bird, chirping, flitted from stone to boulder to snaggle-toothed wall.

‘And call me Anne,’ she whispered to MacCrimmon.

‘Angus,’ he replied, smiling as he lay the doe, glassy-eyed, across the grass.

‘No!’ Cotton barked, the bird catapaulting over the trees. ‘Higher – here!’ he said, pointing to a flatter heap of stones. Dutifully, Angus took the doe up, and his knife began playing. The air filling with smell and sound, the white boulder and green-and-yellow lichens disappeared beneath spilled red. Something, around Anne, seemed to disappear.

‘That’s dinner!’ Cotton laughed, astride another stone, shotgun hanging in an elbow, flask in his other hand. Swigging from it, sighing, he stared off the hillside to the water, where the ferry shuffled from Skye, churning water into lacy swirls.

‘God I love this.’

Anne’s eyes fell elsewhere, far off over other hills, past a distant shore to a tiny black boat, a speck, slowly trailing over the grey ocean.

A lick over her hand, the probing nose of Cú, Angus’ dog, brought her back, just in time to find Donald, ever-smiling, stepping behind her and ready for some other discussion beyond her caring. Instead, her eyes shifted to Angus, labouring with his knife, gutting the deer over the ruins of someone’s home.

Dear Mr. Armitage,

The number of guests have hampered my efforts, but there are many quiet spots to explore - I’m sure it is here.

Sincerely, E.M. Swavey

The mists rolled around them on the hillside, bracken and trees flexing, scratching in the breeze. Wrapped up, too-warm-too-cold, sweat mixing with rain, they didn’t speak as they marched through overtrodden paths. Past the wind, swirling around them, only their breath and Cú’s occasional snort and bark echoed around them, between the notes of the wind.

Cotton and Donald were back at the House, the latter telling tales, the former nursing a sleep-deprived headache, waiting with the other tourists for the weather to break. It never had, only growing darker since their late leaving. Overburdened with paperwork foisted upon her by MacLeod on top of her regular work, Anne had flown out the House as soon as she was able, finding Angus waiting patiently outside, bag packed and ready. They left the House and its disappointed residents behind to the warm fire and on-demand drinks, with the Twees, a couple from London, posing in gleaming tartan as they sat in awe of Cotton’s adventures and images of his study wall, studded with his trophies, a roaring lion’s head centre stage, its eye blown out by Cotton’s killing shot. He’d brandished it to Anne himself drunkenly, showing it off and asking if she’d one before.

As they’d walked, Angus had rarely spoken, pointing to a boulder or tree, and sharing a memory of a time gone by, of a childhood or early marriage, or just a day working a decade past, noting a hunched mine, or even an abandoned railroad. But he never spoke of the lines of stones, toppled, moss-heaped walls, or other sad heaps, only passing by with a glance and not a word.

And suddenly, they were there.

It was the same as the one before. A gnarled clearing filled with stones lying about, stunted trees picking through clipped emerald grass. A gathering of sheep scattered ahead of them, picking into the trees and disappearing, as Anne followed the old pathways, picking between mounds. She turned, nose crinkling, as she found someone’s makeshift toilet beside one crumpled home.

‘I’ll wait here,’ Angus called from behind her, sitting outside the village on a wall, hand dipping into his pack, his eyes averted.

Passing around, each mound was the same to the last. Everything beyond the stones was swallowed up, lost to the undergrowth or time. The mists rolling around her, even Angus disappeared, but a small silhouette, hidden in the clouds, blurring with the landscape.

Dead silence surrounded her, save the faintest, flickering wind above. Even Cú, slinking behind her, sat quietly, watching. Waiting.

The stones, fallen bones encircling her, sat heavily. The wind stopped, and an unseen bird took off cacophonously, swallowed up, and leaving deafening silence behind. Only the mist and rain fell on her, her eyes swivelling, breath catching as her boots sunk down into the mossy, damp grass and soil.

But something shifted again, something else was around her. Indefinable, shifting, flitting like a bird, watching her. The mists curled and rolled, swaying back and forth in a tide, as shadows marched and tramped around her. Then the fog broke, and she was left standing in front of Angus, flask of tea in hand, eyes wide with surprise. He offered her the flask, and drinking, she sighed out, as normalcy sank back into her bones.

‘What is this place? What’s it’s name?

‘Nothing important, Ms.,’ he murmured, looking out past her, through the mists to the grey ocean beyond it.

‘Anyone who was here is long gone, now,’ he continued, fingers entangling, disentanglig as he spoke. ‘Australia for some, but all over. Hither-and-thither – not much to make here for most. Too much to lose any more.’

They sat in silence, drinking tea and having small, crushed sandwiches. Sound returned in a soft rain shower over them, pattering gently in the grey-smear afternoon.

They moved off promptly once Angus, swearing, realised someone else had fouled the rocks near where they sat, the stain ineffectively covered with a napkin. Moving off, Angus noting the passing day, they left the village behind, with Anne giving but a small look behind her, hand wrapped around a tiny tin in her pocket. Cú prodded her with a black nose, and she strode to meet Angus’s stride.

The ruins were left in silence, mist swirling to reveal in the distance, a boat paddling along silently.

Dear Mr. Armitage,

I’m afraid our luck has worsened. Two individuals you might know have been pestering me: one Donald MacLeod, and a Sir John Cotton. Both have their businesses in local fishing and foreign trade, so I’m sure their names will have come across your table beforehand.

They’re prying hasn’t caused much issue - my discretion seems to be keeping them off, but they do concern me. Keep an ear out for their efforts.

Sincerely, E.M. Swavey

The day ended hours before. The darkness rolled over them as they tramped down, the House and the homesteads glittering faintly in the distance. Though the chill grew, the mists cleared, and Cú brightened up, barking happily and sniffing about them as they met the gravel road, caught between the House where she and the others stayed, and the homesteads where the locals lived.

‘Thank you, Angus – the company today was much appreciated.’

‘No worries, Ms.’ He replied, nodding. His eyebrow raised as she turned towards the homesteads, away from the House, but he relented as Cú, happily, sauntered beside her, ears, tail and tongue flopping. The trees swayed around their crunching boots, and another silence came between them, ever so slightly.

‘Why the villages, Ms.?’ Angus finally asked, eyes turning to her face. In the dark, her eyes shifted as she paused, before she finally spoke. To Angus, it was as if, some part of a veil lifted.

‘Old connection,’ she said, chuckling softly. ‘People from long before I came about, who never made it back. Figured I might do it for them.’

Angus nodded, murmuring. ‘Very lucky you’re working for Mr. Rainy.’

‘Quite.’

‘Wouldn’t have thought he’d sell,’ he countered. ‘Not after all the work he put in.’

He looked on to the tiny hamlet ahead. ‘Not many left, after he got involved; very particular man, you see.’

‘I can imagine,’ Anne murmured.

They were passing the husk of a home, it’s windows dim and cracked. The buildings, shadowed by the tinkling lights spread throughout, were eerie, haunted by the voices, laughter and cheers drifting around them. A black cat streaked ahead of them, and set Cú barking for a spell, chasing it down with his tail wagging.

By the time they saw him again, he was sitting, waiting patiently at the door of a small, white-walled cottage, curtained windows glowing faintly.

‘This is me,’ Angus said, nodding somewhat awkwardly.

‘Right,’ she replied. ‘Thank you again – perhaps another village sometime?’

‘Perhaps,’ Angus said, smiling politely. Then, light spilling from the door across his pink face, he stepped inside, Cú giving a quick glance before following. The door shut, and Anne was alone.

Walking back along the gravel road, the House ahead glowed in the dark, windows blinking past the manicured trees stretching up around her. The wind picked up, setting another chill through her as she clamped her coat around herself. The clouds above split, and the world emerged into glistening dark-blue grass and roaring, waving trees. The sea lit up into polished metal as the moon punctured through, over the silhouette of something moving along the distant water, a speck in the distance. The wind settled once more, and as encircled by the stones, something was there with her. There was nothing to see save the sea and trees in the moonlight. But the shadows were long and deep, and sounds carried on the wind. Waves crashing, calls, songs, instruments playing.

And then, at the House’s door, the latch clicked, the light rolled out, and the feeling retreated, fleeting into the darkness.

Inside, the House’s warmth enveloped her, its plush interior rounding everything in an intoxicating daze. Voices murmured from the living room: the Twees by the sound of their yammering. Slipping her boots off, she tiptoed up the staircase, smiling at a haggard staffmember running past with heaped towels.

Her mind was running through her own unfulfilled tasks and the efforts needed to explore the island further, when familiar voices slipped from a cracked doorway she was passing.

Stepping beside it, and peering round the ajar door, she spotted them. Hunched over an outspread map lit by a lamp, were Cotton and Donald. The latter, rubbing his eyes tiredly, was nonetheless enraptured on the map, as Cotton whispered excitedly to him.

‘This will lead us to it, my good man,’ he said, finger swinging over the paper, depicting the island and its House. ‘The Cave of Gold!’

‘It is real, then?’ Donald asked, face silhouetted in the lamplight.

‘Hah!’ Cotton said victoriously. ‘I knew you were here for it!’

‘Ah,’ Donald stammered, deflating.

‘No worries, Donald,’ Cotton countered, very particularly. ‘I’m more than aware of all you are. And it’s fine, provided we resolve our situation.’

Donald met his eye with a hard frown, but leaned forwards.

‘There’s some explorer called Swavey on their way, if he isn’t already here, to search for this cave. But there’s something that neither he, nor you, know about.’

When Donald blinked confusedly, he pulled a selection of reports and papers of varying ages.

‘There’s something that’s been seen around the islands, and in the water. Some creature, a monster, roaming around, snatching people to who-knows-where. It’s true – the same source that told me about you gave me these notes. Now, I came prepared…’ he said, nodding to his gleaming gun resting on the wall, before continuing.

‘It’s like nothing I have dealt with before; not in India, Africa… I’m the only one who can kill it. So, since I’d get the treasure anyway, how about you help me, and I’ll put in a good word for you back in London.’ He leaned in, before finishing, ‘and all your secrets are safe with me.’

Placing a firm hand around Donald’s shoulder, he offered the other.

‘Do we have a deal?’

Barely a moment passed before Donald shook it, and they chuckled to themselves.

‘We start in the morning then,’ Cotton stated, reaching for a bottle pilfered from the lounge.

‘To our quarries,’ Cotton toasted, nudging MacLeod with a wink.

‘Right – say, you know where she’s from?’ Donald asked, as her blood chilled.

‘No, she sounds all over – definitely worth the hunt, though.’

They laughed together at that, and she took the chance to retreat, slinking back to her room, her mind whirring, thinking about the papers she’d gathered in her room, and all she was still learning of the two men.

Unaware that behind her, Cotton was peering from the door, his eyebrow raised.

Dear Mr. Armitage

The pair are stuck to me like flies – I fear we may be compromised. For this, all I ask, is investigate MacLeod’s linen industries, and Cotton’s habits when he was last in Africa. That should bring you to speed with their methods and characters.

Sincerely, E.M. Swavey

Coats hung on a rack, dripping into puddles melting from their sodden boots, as outside the downpour continued, as it had all day. The fire, crackling, waved heat through the room, and the three figures within lay under blankets, or for the third, lay heavily across it, body steaming, mixing with the haze from the mugs of tea, nestled between fingers.

Another delaying morning of work had set them hours behind again, but to a thankfully unintruded day, all other visitors hunkered down in dry warmth. They’d even managed to avoid Cotton and MacLeod, who’d departed at dawn, leaving Angus behind, citing Cotton’s skill, and their desire for privacy.

And so, alone, Angus took her on a circuit around several ruins, tumbles of rock amidst heather. All the same as the ones before: just as plain, just as empty. All they left with were the memories, and their rain-sodden clothes hanging off their bodies. Now, here they were here, melting and drying in the fires heat, the crackling filling the silence.

‘I need a favour,’ Anne said. A burning log popped.

Angus sipped his tea.

‘For?’ ‘Keeping a secret - an important one,’ she reaffirmed, meeting his gaze.

Embers hissed.

‘It’s to do with the villages,’ she continued. ‘Why I’m here.’

He nodded, but asked plainly, ‘Why the secrecy?’

She didn’t reply. The fire filled the silence with pops and crackles. Cú’s rose up, probing and sniffing at Anne’s lap, tail wagging softly. She scratched at him, earning a nuzzle and whine.

‘It’s complicated,’ she finished.

Angus turned, facing the fireplace and its orange glow, before he spoke.

‘You know, that second village today – a man lived there once. When he got married, against the laird’s instruction, he was kicked off. Even when he took shelter in a sheep’s cot, it was burnt down. Made an example of him; no one let him stay. Then, even they didn’t get to keep their homes. All doomed to go.’

The fire quietly sizzled beneath his voice. But when he turned, Anne too was staring into the fire, her eyes and thoughts a thousand miles away.

‘They never did tell me much about this place,’ she murmured. ‘Save past-midnight, when they were drunk. Only Nan told me anything, but even then it all was muddied for her.

What happened here… what happened where we were, it all blurred together for her.’

‘It’s difficult,’ Angus nodded, his eyes falling on Cú resting his head in her lap. Anne’s hand, scratching Cú’s damp brow, shifted beneath a fold of her blanket.

‘When she died, she asked me to bring her back,’ she continued as her hand rose from the folds, holding a small, beaten-up tin box.

‘All I have of her, and a few others who joined in.’

‘Ashes?’ Angus quietly questioned, to which she nodded.

‘I don’t know where to put them,’ she said, voice faintly cracking.

Another pause.

‘Home’?’ he asked her, finally.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed, uncertainly. ‘Only…’

‘You don’t know where it is – but I might,’ he continued.

Then, he asked very steadily, ‘Is Matheson your real name?’

She shook her head.

‘And you can’t tell me? Why?’ ‘Same reason as to why no one took in that man after he got married.’

A pause.

‘Who are you,’ Angus said, almost incredulously.

A sigh escaped her. ‘Someone spread too thin. Someone nameless, placeless.

Someone, from everywhere.’

‘So – is everything a lie? What’s the truth?’

‘What I just said, is real. The rest, well… needs must.’

‘You’re being very honest for a liar,’ he said.

‘You’re decent – much more than those other two.’

‘They’re typical – seen the likes of them plenty often here. They won’t make much difference,’ he said, looking down into his mug. The fire popped, sparks flying across the hearth.

‘Perhaps,’ Anne murmured, and as he looked up, her eyes flickered in the firelight, yet were as murky as the mist on the hills. ‘But, they’ve got their histories, and they do catch up with people.’

The fire snapped, and Angus’ eyes shifted down, eyes falling onto the tin held in her hand, dark skin glistening from where Cú’s nose brushed against it.

Dear Mr. Armitage

The two are here for the cave - I overheard them discussing it.

We’re running out of time.

Sincerely, E.M. Swavey

Shuffling back to the House defeated, the day’s slate skies turned to coal. Rain came down on them, blurring into their clothing, sodden from the hour of helpless chattering with the Twees and their frumpy dogs yapping around them. An hour of absentminded small-talk, before the couple remarked on the time, and left them on the hill, disappearing from sight.

Left in the dark, never reaching their village.

But on the gravel road, Angus turned to the Homesteads, a smile on his face. But a new one, just as there were new sounds filtering to them. The buildings lay quietly, but ahead, around a corner, light and sound spilled out. Music, chatter – the pub. A torch in the night, crackling and burbling, with Angus pulling her into it, into the fray.

Warmth and bustling hubbub washed around her. Chairs scraped to let them through, people pulling at Angus to welcome him in before they turned to her. One stranger became five, catching and holding them every second.

Nice to meet you!

Where you from?

What brings you here?

Passing through the space like this, she did notice one thing. There was a wall.

Invisible, just to the side. Here in the hubbub, friends of Angus, and then there, another lot.

In a mix of clothes from all over, sitting and watching with amusement. A world apart there, looking at the locals, with Anne, in her sodden coat, hiding amidst the latter.

‘Anne!’ Angus called, and she turned to see him beside a woman whose coppery hair was threaded with grey.

‘This is Mary – my wife,’ he introduced as they settled around a tiny corner table, knees bumping together. The noise boiled around them, but its bounce left Anne smiling as she spoke with Mary, Angus prying through to the bar. Quickly enough, Mary’s story emerged, firstly through her faint accent. Coming from Germany for Edinburgh’s medical school, she’d met Angus there as he worked on his own studies. They’d been together since: even when he wanted to return home, she joined him, seizing an opportunity to work for Rainy just like he did. Hidden in the House, she’d laboured and bustled around for years, occasionally bandaging a cut when the need arose.

Just as Angus returned to chime in, the pub’s tone shifted, a soft hush coming-andgoing with the twinging-thrumb of a fiddle erupting into music. Others joined in cascade, a flute‘s whistling meeting a rumbling drum, as an older woman began belting out in Gaelic.

Feet stamped, hands clapped, and Anne saw around her something in the people around her – especially in Angus. Some release, a breath out, that she hadn’t seen even on the hillside with her. Just as a frown appeared on her face, her thoughts were interrupted as the song finished amidst both applause and chairs scraping as several people rose and shuffled out the door, chill night-air shuddering inside.

‘Early starters,’ Mary murmured, pointing out a shepherd, several ferrymen, and the House’s morning chefs. As the next song began, lively and rushing, newcomers arrived and claimed the empty table, Sunday best and screaming toddler so loud the singer was drowned out. And that relaxation disappeared as backs straightened and people shuffled, as beside Anne, Mary and Angus became just a fraction cooler.

The new arrival table waved to them; Mary winced.

‘Arrivals today,’ she whispered quietly. ‘Barely a minute without fuss.’

The trend continued throughout the evening – locals shuffled out, others shuffled in, until the singer was looking over a crowd of strangers. And with it, she too lost that little grace, standing a little straighter, smiling a fraction less. And she hollowed out the room with a single song.

Voice cracking, thrumming, she called in a duet with the sorrowful fiddle, humming like a widow. Neither Mary, Angus, or Anne herself moved, but sat still, a little island watching out onto a thrumming old pub, with all the bustling and crying falling beneath the singer’s voice, a wave crashing over stormy wind.

Angus, sitting quietly beside Anne, was watching her, and her misting eyes, as her glasses and hair steamed. Her lips, moving ever so softly and quietly, matching the singer’s own. When the song finished, trailing to somewhere else, she blinked and turned to face them, as Angus and Mary whispered to one another in a pidgin of English, German, and Gaelic. She turned away, but not before her eyes met his, filled with recognition.

‘I know the song… but I never did learn its name.’

As the next song began, the pub door slammed open, napkins and hair flying. People swore and turned, as two bustling figures stomped in, dripping wet and covered in muck.

‘Angus!’ Cotton hammered, dripping gun held in one hand, evidently saved from the fall that plastered him with mud. Beside him, Donald was rallying, straightening his coat though it clung to a smear of mud and grass across his backside. A sprig of heather, glued to him, nearly caught someone in the eye as he turned, his eyes frantic, as if he’d seen a ghost.

But he cooled himself, and catching Anne’s eye, winked sickeningly.

‘Angus! Come on!’ Cotton repeated, stomping back outside, Donald at his heels. The silence echoed, and shattered as Angus and Mary rose from their chairs. With a quick, sad glance, they left her there on the island, leaving in one last rush of chill air out the door.

She sat there, but something didn’t quite sit right with her. Looking around as the lady sang, little warmth remained. The handful of remaining locals met her gaze, but offered a mix of their own. Smiles and frowns sat beside one another, alongside some darker expressions, and querying looks.

Who are you? They said.

Where are you from?

What are you?

Breath catching and skin crawling, she too left, quickly escaping into the cold, wet dark, the music dying out behind her, as she looked back to the statuesque singer, her hope dying out as she turned into the night, where, unseen, unnoticed by anyone, she slunk back to the House, glowing windows gazing out into the darkness.

Armitage,

The two know who I am. I’m certain of it, though they haven’t yet approached me. The situation is growing tense; if you can, take them off this island!

Swavey

The week flew past beneath overcast skies. Howling wind turned over the island, twisting trees and rattling windows, as Anne watched from her bedroom, seeing hunched figures shuffling beneath the gale. Somewhere out there, Cotton and Donald were hauling Angus back and forth, re-exploring and double-checking the coastlines and hills. They’d returned late each night soaked through and quietly raging, bringing Angus to a commandeered office to examine various maps, failing to whisper of ‘their Cave.’ Indeed, many of the guests, including the Twees with their yapping rats, began their own expeditions around the island – at least, until the weather worsened.

For herself, Anne had gone out alone. Leaving when the weather allowed, she scampered around the windswept hillsides, kept company by Cú. Despite her efforts, Anne never did find anything that felt right, haunted as she was by that something around those empty villages. She found the villages other skeletons, however, in the library. Amidst the works of Rainy’s friends and acquaintances, sat older records and maps, and a great many accounts from Reverends, and of businessmen.

Around the House she laboured, gathering maps and records, aided by Mary, who made an excuse to be around her. Plied with coffee, they pried and peeled through ledgers, reading wherever was a quiet space, settling for a time in the kitchen with Cú, chatting with the staff and lending a hand when needed. Even though the weather closed the House down, with the visitors becoming ever grouchier, Anne herself found her eyes opening in time, buried deep within fading pages, or the voices of the slowly-warming staff members, all sharing similarities to Angus and Mary’s own stories, and ties to the island, and Rainy himself.

Her day worsened when Cotton and Donald ever appeared. Each passing day, they changed. Cotton’s eyes became wirier, looking into distances and searching at some unspoken problem, before she’d catch his eyes resting on her, before he turned his gaze aside. Donald, on the other hand, was looking more exhausted with each passing moment; his eyes fading and sunken, blinking at nothing. Still, he often pestered her in the evenings, offering his company, or just so happening to stumble in whatever nook she’d find.

It was on one of these days, the storm rattling the House to its foundations, with them pouring over their map, when Donald, glasses of wine in hand, turned away from Anne to face Angus, who was warming himself with a bowl of soup.

‘Are there sea-caves?’

‘Aye,’ Angus confirmed, frowning slightly when Cotton erupted into a cheer, upsetting a sleeping baby by the family behind him.

‘That’s the way, Donald!’ he laughed, ignoring the looks around them, his eyes settling on Angus.

‘Show us.’

And, when the storm finally broke, they were taking off from the pier, on a boat owned by Angus’s friend Alan, who’d take people on trips around the islands coast. Angus inevitably joined them, leaving Cú with Anne to watch them disappear around the islands shore.

When Anne returned to the House, she found Mary waiting for her, dressed for a hike. And so within minutes they were up a hill, Cú happily sprinting around them. But Anne lead them, leaving Mary frowning behind her. Eventually, she lead them off the path, tramping through heather and twisted branches. Delving down, passing beneath trees and boulders, walking over mud and running burns, until Anne stopped, standing before another village of heaps.

The boulders, slumped as they were before, were encrusted in lichen and flowers, as the shore nearby washed softly, the sound filling their ears. Mary knew it, visiting on a date with Angus years before, but Anne seemed to know it even better than she did, moving with the same purpose as she had through the House’s library. Mary followed, watching as Anne hunkered down by a small hollowed tree, and drew out a tin from her pocket. It was then that Mary felt the weight, and left her to it, moving to the shore.

A minute later, Anne joined her, hair undone and playing in the breeze as a long, shaky breath escaped her. Cú snuffled next to them, nose prying into their hands, whining as the water lapped, plopping softly as a shadow flitted across it.

But Anne’s mind was elsewhere. Running a mile a minute. She’d done what she came to do, but the world pressed down on her once more. So much time spent on the hills, so little left… MacLeod and Cotton were close behind, she knew it, but escape was just there.

Within a few hours, as the evening first peeked over the horizon, Anne was a flurry in her bedroom. Mary dropped by intermittently, curious at Anne’s flying through paper and writing, gulping down the coffee and snacks that she brought. Brief conversations ended as they were both subsumed into work, with Mary herself helter-skelter after demanding guests caused havoc. It was later, with the sun setting when Anne found Mary in the kitchen, dressed in her coat, but visibly relieved, smiling.

‘Went out?’ Mary inquired, mixing batter.

‘Something for the ferry,’ Anne replied, hanging her coat, and moving to join her at the counter.

The evening passed quickly, until finally near midnight Cotton, MacLeod, and Angus finally returned, the latter bewildered, the former two dark and brooding. Joining them in the kitchen, Angus helped scrounge food together, quickly devoured by Cotton and MacLeod as as they examined their map, glasses of whisky beside them.

‘Time for bed, then,’ Mary finally said, eyes pulling Anne from her seat, as Donald and Cotton finally turned from their map. Even when saying goodbye to Angus and Mary, watching them disappear into the drizzling night, before she crept up to her bedroom, locking the door behind her, Anne could feel them listening intently from downstairs.

Across her bed, everything was laid out. Excuses prepared, documents ordered, her suitcase was packed, and two letters, written, sealed and signed, sat ready to be slipped into Angus’s pocket when she had A shift came around her. In the soft orange light of her lamp, she turned to look back upon the door. Nothing changed – but something was there. Not like before, but similar enough.

Cracking it, she found herself looking into Cú’s happy face, his tail brushing against the floor. Quickly pulling him inside and relocking the door, he quietly watched her as she worked, before finally nudging her back into bed, leaping on and across her legs to keep her there. In time, she submitted, sinking into the pillows.

The ferry’s in the morning – I’ll be free soon enough.

And with one last glance to the door, Anne fell into a deep sleep, filled with odd dreams of water and hidden rooms.

But Cú stayed awake, dark eyes watching the door intently, ears twitching, his entire body rising and falling with strain as he waited and waited. Eventually, his body untensed, but his eye and ear remained locked, else the man returned to behind the door.

Armitage,

Send help.

Swavey

The boat rocked in the water, waves thumping against its underside. Anne sat by its stern, rocking as she watched Donald and Cotton fuss over steering the boat. It was just the three of them, rolling around the island’s shoreline. Far behind them, Angus and Alan would have returned from Cotton’s errand to find a boat missing, and the ferrymen asking for a Ms. Matheson, due to sail with them.

She was alone with them, but had to step in when a wave knocked them both onto the boat’s floor. Helping steer, Cotton sat away from her, watching, his gun resting in his lap, lazily pointed around her feet as his eyes slid over her. He was hiding it, his shifting gaze betraying no small unease as he faced either the bare, snarled cliff-face, or turned to look across the many miles of open water that stretched out endlessly behind him beneath the shaded sky.

An hour passed before the silence changed. Shifting, she found herself looking into questioning eyes. Rising, back straightening, she exhaled deeply, releasing everything out onto the sea breeze that played in her loosened, curling hair. Her glasses glinted in a flicker of sunlight, before the gloom darkened her irises to a void-black.

‘So.’ ‘Yes?’ Donald answered with a hiss, though Cotton’s pensive, white-knuckled grip was what drew Anne’s eye.

‘You’ve dragged me all the way out here-’ ‘Dragged you! And what about us all over this fucking-’ ‘Donald,’ Cotton silenced him, resting on the pause before he turned to face her properly, gun poised in his hands.

‘Where’s Swavey?’

‘I don’t-’ ‘I’ve got ears everywhere, in everything – I know you’ve been writing on his behalf.

What are you, his secretary?’

‘Nothing-’ ‘Fuck off,’ he countered. ‘We know he’s on the island, in the House somewhere – who is it?’ After a pause, ‘Not that Twee twit?’

A black streak on the shore caught her eye, flashing along the clifftop.

‘Swavey…’

‘Yes?’ Cotton growled, hand twisting around his gun. ‘…doesn’t exist.’

The water lapped at the boat, the only sound filling the insensate silence. Donald sat confused, reddening, whilst Cotton paled, eyes shaded white pinpricks.

‘What?’

She remained silent.

‘Explain!’ Cotton demanded, standing, gun aimed right at her. Donald, growing manic, hands fidgeting, shifted between the gun and Anne, who’d never taken her eyes from Cotton’s face.

As this happened, elsewhere, unseen, a dark shape slid into the water, melting in as a shower of rain pattered down across the water, darkening their clothes as they sat in a stand-off.

‘Answer me!’

‘No.’ The gun fired, straight into the air, the world turning upside down as the boat capsized in a rush of wind and black claws.

The water, chopping and churning, hung over them in a storm of foam. Thrown and tossed around, crashing into another, Anne found herself swirling around for what might have been a second or an hour. She saw Donald flailing helplessly, Cotton struggling against the black thing railing at him, and behind them, past the sinking boat, saw the many dark shapes lurking in the distance, or crawling over the storm-water-surface.

The water shifted, and she was thrown up, up and into the air, falling and diving and splashing until everything was still. Coughing and spluttering, she crawled over hard, windswept rock, into soft moss and heather.

A heavy thud and crack sharpened her mind, her eyes swinging around to see Cotton, bedraggled and dripping, fiddling with his jammed gun, something black laying at his feet.

Behind him, standing over splintered wreckage, Donald was staggering to his feet, eyes searching before resting on her in a glare. She didn’t wait – she just ran.

Hair streaking in the wind, boots sucking on mud, she pumped and charged up the rise, crawling up the bank with moss-filled handfuls. Her fingers, digging, wrapped around a solid root, and she was over, up and sprinting, breath and steps pounding through her.

Behind her, two beating drums chased.

One slowed, and her heart stopped, but her legs kept pumping, desperate. The heather curdled and turned around slender trees, and she flowed through them, sodden skirt catching as she hurled through the trees. Barely a breath and Donald, swearing, arm outstretched, was tangled amidst them.

Behind them, forgotten, stood Cotton. His eyes, wide, focussed on a nearby rise, where a shadow was standing, wreathed in fog. Hulking, snorting, pawing, it stood there, as real as he imagined. Stock still, patient, as any real hunter was, he turned, raising his gun, eye running down the barrel and across toward the beast’s heart.

He exhaled.

Easy, he thought. Easy.

Anne broke through the mist and heather, Donald fingers lashing out somewhere behind her. Eyes flashing, she was surrounded by rolling land, divided by fences running for miles and miles, threaded through with winding, grey river-roads. But there, nestled in one corner beneath the shoulder of a hill, was a collection of glimmering, white-walled houses, tiny ant-like figures running around busily.

The ground hit her, hard. The wind was knocked from her. Gasping, bleeding, she rolled over to see Donald, clothes stripped and torn, standing over her, a heavy log held in his hands. It came down upon her again, smashing into her raised arm as she kicked out his knee, earning a stumble and shout. Scrambling, she pushed up, only for another strike to smash her down again. The log, cracking, wrapped around her head, the world smearing in throbs. Her head nearly burst, then hands were around her throat. Sharpness returned, pain and desperation filling her as she scratched and gouged, Donald yelling as she tore at him, before in a breath, he was gone.

Aching, rasping, she lay there. And a nose came, soft, wet, sniffing and licking at her face. Another figure, broad, tall, appeared standing over her. Then she was in the air, lolling

in and out, the world dimming, with Donald, unconscious and bloodied, left in the earth behind her.

Rainy,

What the hell did you sell me?

Armitage

The police descended within hours.

The alert came when a beaten, half-blinded woman, found on the western shore of Skye, was carried into a clinic by a farmer named McKenzie. Wrapped up and resting, two men would follow, both knocked cold and bleeding. One, subdued by the farmer as he attacked the lady, the other, found beneath McKenzie’s bull, broken and bloodied on the ground, his gun shattered beside him. Though, with the bleeding gunshot in the shoulder of Dubh, the bull, meant that the only attention he received was from a vet, administered to at the bull’s favourite spot by the shore.

Yet as the two were observed by local officers, watching as they were wrapped in gauze and casts, the situation only grew stranger when two other cabals of officers arrived just hours later.

The story, kept within the locked and guarded rooms of the clinic, nonetheless spread out amidst the locals and tourists alike. The first group, investigators and government officials, arrived for dirty dealings and old histories, kicked up and sent anonymously to Scotland Yard, had set them like hounds to the scandal. The second, came on behalf of one Mr. Armitage, whose agent, a Mr. Swavey, had shared fears of harm to him, asking for aid, which came in the form of burly uniforms. When Cotton and MacLeod awoke, they found nothing but prying eyes, the reading of rights and various demands, but most notably of the location of Swavey, who was, by all accounts, missing. Pleading ignorance offered nothing, for Swavey’s own writings named and described them.

When the lady awoke in the room next door, their situation only worsened. She cried about how, when going for a morning boat ride, a fight had broken out between the two men with a third, who was shot and dumped overboard. Yet, before they’d turned the gun on her, she was saved thanks only to the black dog that followed them along the shore, attacking them and capsizing the boat.

That such a dog was found, shot in the wrecked boat, only further damned the two men.

Later that day, when the sun was setting into a burnt orange hue, an older couple arrived, all the way from Armitage’s island. Rushing to the woman’s room, they identified her as one of the island’s guests, who they’d come to know, but also of Cotton and Donald’s

own overbearing natures, especially the latter’s infatuation with her. A day passed in the clinic, the clear evening passing into night, as the couple recounted all that they knew, but everything stretched far beyond the borders of their little island, with hounds from across oceans coming to tear a piece from the duo.

The scandal became the next big thing. Tours passed by, eyes peering through windows, sneaking around doorways. Nothing was sacred, and the police spent hours fending them off like flies. The clinic was cornered off, guarded by stern-faced men whilst the rest of them ran around lifting stones to piece together the truth. In the rush and hubbub outside as convoys passed by and flailed, inside, the clinic was timeless, beneath clean white cottons and routine.

On the second night, the investigators having left for Armitage’s island that day, an officer left his post for five minutes. Returning with a cup of tea, he peered into the lady’s room that he guarded, content to see her still form sound asleep. Shutting the door softly, he sat all the way through to the early morning, when one of those same investigators returned, bursting into the room to only find puffed up pillows beneath the covers.

Swavey,

Who are you?

Armitage

Blinking heavily, she awakened in soft darkness. The window glimmered in the night, as a clock ticked patiently in the quiet.

Moments came before the pain, and the plan, returned to her.

Escape in the night with Mary, tucking out to find Angus waiting for them by the road, to rush along old tracks to their friend’s house. Morag, a tiny lady nearly bent-double, fed her soup and tucked her into bed, sending her into a leaden sleep.

The cottage was quiet, but breathing. The curtain wavered, and she heard the odd creak somewhere else – perhaps Morag, Angus, or Mary asleep, rolling around in ancient beds. It was a simple home, stuffed to the brim with things gathered from a lifetime, pictures and monuments laying all around.

Lots of little stories, that she’d likely never hear.

She sighed deeply, groaning with an ache, when she stopped.

A sound found her ears. The song.

The living room was dim, with only the soft glow of twinkling, dull red embers in the fireplace. The rugged carpet and old furniture swirled, patterns appearing as she shuffled in, her one eye adjusted to the gloom. Peering through the little square window, a not-too-far hall glimmered and glowed, people moving around its door. Music swelled out, dredging up memories from inky depths.

Crisp air crackled through her lungs. The sky above was stars, picking through wispy, dancing clouds. The street was, despite the music spilling out, quiet. A cat slunk ahead of her, sliding into shadows and disappearing, as somewhere else a dog barked ferociously, until its efforts faded into the gloom.

The wind swirled again as she leaned on a fence, breathing deeply, and that odd feeling, of being around others, returned once more. Moving slowly, limping and clutching herself, her hair danced and her skin tickled in the wind, as something else moved just out of the corners of her eye, in the swathing darkness around her, disappearing before the incandescent light spilling out the doorway.

And she left the darkness behind her, moving through the doors to the music within, leaving the street to its quiet, peaceful busyness as she reached for an answer.

Framing It could be then/now/yet-to-be.

Three figures arrive on an island, searching for their Cave of Gold.

An English big-game hunter.

A Scottish businessman.

And a fugitive of nowhere/everywhere.

‘A broken land broken by history and the actions of men makes all choices into snakes that have multiple intricate windings.’

-

Iain Crichton Smith, Real People in a Real Place1

H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines,2 where Alan Quartermain, the archetypal GreatWhite-Hunter, discovers and restores a lost African kingdom to its rightful ruler, leaving victorious with diamond-filled pockets. Haggard’s own colonial attitude was at play, for he believed that an Englishman’s true nature was as an adventurer, unlike ‘the Highlander, the Welshman and the Irishman[,]’3 and was ‘proud [… for] the spirit of warlike adventure’4 that he inspired. Likewise, his adventure-fantasies took on other aspects, when in She5 the protagonist uncovers his long-lost royal heritage of an African crown, presently ruled by the white-skinned sorceress, Ayesha. Yet, where all others crawl on hands-and-knees before her, he walks straight up to her as an equal – and faces no consequences.

It was this arrogance I was working against; I wanted a better adventure story, yet still fun. ‘Indiana Jones with werewolves’ was my initial concept, but 1930’s Africa was too

1 Iain Crichton Smith, Towards the Human (Loanhead, UK: Macdonald Publishers, 1986), p.21 2 H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines, (1885) on Gutenberg (Updated May 2021) 3 Problems of population and parenthood being the second report of and the chief evidence taken by

the Nation Birth-Rate Commission, 1918–1920 (London, 1920), p. 259, quoted in James Watts, ‘Land Reform, Henry Rider Haggard, and the Politics of Imperial Settlement, 1900–1920,’ The Historical Journal, Vol. 65, Iss. 2, (2022),p.423 4 James Watts, ‘Land Reform, Henry Rider Haggard, and the Politics of Imperial Settlement, 1900– 1920,’ The Historical Journal, Vol. 65, Iss. 2, (2022),p.422 5 H. Rider Haggard, She, (1881) on Gutenberg (Updated 6th April 2006)

distant, too unfamiliar a subject to write about. What statement could I give of a place I’d never been to, of people I didn’t know?

‘Make it personal – it’s powerful.’

-

Caitlin Turnbull, artist and childhood friend

In the Portree archive, looking through photos of estates, the archivist raised one, saying ‘Oh you’ll love this.’6 A black and white photo of two well-to-do ladies, posing with a Gaelic family from Skye.

Titled in pencil: ‘Natives.’

The Isle of Raasay, the closest reflection of my unnamed island, provides one small insight to the Highland Clearances. Originally well populated over several villages, in 1846 it was bought, and subsequently cleared, by George Rainy, using both his wealth and experience as a slaveowner of Demerera to do so.7 His cruelty leads to the true story of a man’s home and shelter being destroyed, his abandonment by his neighbours out of fear, for the fact he married against Rainy’s decisions.8 All done under the idea of ‘improvement,’9 people found themselves torn around the world, these stories were my work’s threads, the lines between my fanciful adventure to the reality I faced, which stretched beyond any one island’s borders. Just as Rainy owned more than one island, more than one slave-owner owned the Highlands: it was part of a new tradition of laundering wealth. After the abolishment of the slave trade, former slave-owners bought lands in the Highlands to

6 Catherine MacPhee, Archivist at Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre, interviewed by James McLeish,

31st August 2023 7 Chapter ‘Landowners, Caribbean Wealth and Highland Identities’, in David Alston: Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean (Edinburgh, 2022: Edinburgh, UK) 8 Account of Donald McLeod, in Evidence taken by Her Majesty’s Commissioers of Inquiry into the Conditions of The Crofts and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Vol. 1 (1883), p.447451 9 Allan Kennedy, Professor at University of Dundee, interviewed by James McLeish, 18th January 2024

legitimise themselves and make their wealth more ‘respectable’10 – and which continues today.

The Cheviet, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil.11 A play, exploring and navigating the Clearances on the stage, moving through time. It details the major shifts of the Clearances, with peoples displacement to make way for Cheviet sheep, to lands transformed into hunting estates for the Stag, until finally, businessmen, the Scots themselves, returned home only to take the Black, Black Oil from Scottish waters. And so comes the confusion, for the Highlands is not like other colonial spaces – it was Scottish people that made the Clearances.

Just as Rainy himself cleared land, another prime example lies in Sutherland, an area subjected to tyranny excused as‘progress’ that was utilised to justify the clearances.12 There’s a monument to these displaced people, and on it, an inscription:

‘The Emigrants commemorates the people of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland who, in the face of great adversity, sought freedom, hope and justice beyond these shores. They and their descendants went forth and explored continents, built great countries and cities and gave their enterprise and culture to the world. This is their legacy. Their voices will echo forever thro the empty straths and glens of their homeland.’13

Unfortunately, this memory isn’t true – for there were already people where they went. An Tinne,14 The Link, recalls a Kilmuir families displacement to Australia, and their eventual involvement in a massacre of indigenous people, but in one vision of the atrocities committed by the Cleared people themselves: ‘Scotland and its people were – and still are – agents of settler colonialism[.]’15 Furthering this blurred vision come other unacknowledged 10 Iain McKinnon, Andrew Mackillop, ‘Plantation Slavery and Land Ownership in the West Highlands

and Islands: Legacies and Lessons,’ in Land and the Common Good, November 2020 11 John McGrath, The Cheviet, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil (Scotland, 1973) 12 ‘George Granville Leveson-Gower,’ on Scottish Places.com 13 Inscription of stature, from Rona Ellis, ‘The Emigrants Statue’ on discoverhighlandsandislands.scot 14 An Tinne (The Link), SEALL Arts Skye (Skye, 2022) 15 Francesca Sobande, & Layla-Roxanne Hill, Black Oot Here (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022: London, United Kingdom, 2022), p.47

elements, such as the fact that Rainy, like many others, had mixed-race daughters16 as another forgotten part of colonialism,17 and further muddying racial identity in such contexts. Indigenous populations were morphed and melded with outside Scots, creating complex circumstances that are still at play today.

And indeed, just as the Clearances have many uncertain aspects, its ending is similarly vague, for the Cheviet play I saw, ended with AirBnB. But I could have told you this: I know people who rent caravans with money earned from cleaning holiday homes, or how I myself spend my summers behind doors, serving endless lines of tourists. Lines that stretch back to Walter Scott putting on a pageant for George IV’s 1822 visit to Scotland,18 following into the pleasant tours of A Summer in Skye19 only several years after the Clearances themselves. Endless romantic tales churn out, painting and fantasising the land, for example, Outlander. Both the novels20 and the T.V. adaptation21 bring deluded thousands for their own (mis)adventures. Tourguides transplanting, morphing stories to sell to their convoys, like one of Skye’s most famous, must-see sites, the Fairy Pools. Lost, magical, secret – but it has no fairy stories.22 Instead, any real history is crumbling beneath millions of feet, as the pools themselves fall apart.

Though I didn’t know the stories, I felt them. That odd feeling the hills and in the wind, of a something else happening. I sometimes understand the romantic view of the mountains and sea, just as I see the appeal of monsters, of kelpies, hobgoblins, and fairy women, but indulging both just feeds the fantasies. Make people forget that people make their normal lives here. I couldn’t have fairies dancing and shrieking right there, ready to be hunted down. And indeed, those stories are gone. Just as Quartermain and real colonialists expanded outward, ‘English grammar invaded the highlands… [and] the fairies retreated

16 Chapter ‘Children of Colour,’ David Alston, Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland

and the Caribbean (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, 2022) 17 Daniel Livesay, Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Jamaicans in Britain and the Atlantic Family, 1733-1833 (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press: Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, 2018) 18 Robert Mudie, A historical account of His Majesty’s visit to Scotland (Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh, UK, 1822) 19 Alexander Smith, A Summer in Skye, Vol. 1 & 2 (London: Alexander Strahan, Publisher, 1865) 20 Diana Gabaldon, Outlander (United States: Delacorte Press, 1991) 21 Outlander, Left Bank Pictures (Starz, August 2014 – Present) 22 MacPhee, interviewed by James McLeish, 31st August 2023

before it,’23 with their impact, the names of places from stories, being forgotten just as Gaelic was. I’m writing of a place separated from its original voice - but which yet persists.

Conversations were my projects foundations. Conversations with friends like Caitlin Turnbull24 became interviews with research authorities, with archives opened by Catherine MacPhee smashing assumptions and showing truths amidst tales I didn’t even know were twisted. Endless repetitions and outreaches lead the way to Maoilios Caimbeul, a Skye poet, who showed his own reality of fairies.25 There were no dancing sprites or monsters lurking in the night, but a picture of Christ, falling when his friend passed his door. She was ill with cancer, and when the picture later fell again, her illness had returned. No pixies or selkies, but ‘vague and amorphous’26 phenomena drawing to the ghosts of those not yet dead: a face resting in a man’s coat, who would later pull a body from water, and carry her home in it.27 Yet, it was Caimbeul’s Agus Mar Sin Car A’ Mhuiltein: And So Somersault,28 that showed the path. A drunken wedding-goer falls into fairy for a year-and-a-day. Or did he just hit his head off a rock?

This ambiguity lead to a river of meaning. Water, running from hills to sea and ocean, carrying people to and fro around the world across time. Water lifted from the Caribbean falling as rain on the highlands, as amorphous and changing as the fairies themselves.29 Water, ‘fraught with meaning; yet [which] ceaselessly carries away all prospect of meaning[,]’30 gave me the space to work. There’s too much to be blunt, but hints carry on far further. Some may identify Cú as MacPhie’s Black Dog,31 or my drawing upon the MacCrimmon tales,32 but others may yet see more, from elsewhere in the world. Perhaps,

23 Lizanne Henderson & Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief (Tuckwell Press: East Lothian, UK,

2001), p.29 24 Caitlin Turnbull, Artist, interviewed by James McLeish, 23rd February 2024 25 Maoillios Caimbeul, Retired Teacher and Storyteller, interviewed by James McLeish, 25 th January 2024 26 Henderson & Cowan, p.16 27 Second Sight, dir. by Alison McAlpine (Second Sight Pictures, 2008) 28 Maoilios Caimbeul, Agus Mar Sin Car A’ Mhuiltein: And So Somersault (Strath Print: Broadford, United Kingdom, 2021) 29 Michael Morris, Professor at University of Dundee, interviewed by James McLeish, 7 th February 2024 30 Scottish Literature and Postcolonial Literature, ed. by Michael Gardiner, Graeme MacDonald & Niall O’Gallagher (Edinburgh University Press, 2011: Edinburgh, UK), p.104 31 John Gregorson Campbell, The Gaelic Otherworld, ed. by Ronald Black (Birlinn Limited, 2021; Edinburgh, United Kingdom), p.58-65 32 Campbell, The Gaelic Otherworld, p.74

when someone encounters my island, they might think of it as set just after the Clearances through Swavey’s letters, whereas another might see today, in his emails. And perhaps, just as I saw Skye in Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place,33 others may see their own islands in mine.

Cross these tempestuous waters, I needed a suitable hero. Anne is, by design, undefinable, impossible to pin down. Evolving from a clerk alienated from their family’s culture, set to return at a morons behest, she’s now an individual painfully aware and navigating through histories and the whims of dangerous, abusive people. She’s no passive witness - she becomes the dangerous woman, Haggard’s Ayesha, but no chanting or spellcasting. Yet, a trickster. A survivor, putting everything to bear against her opposition, like those who survive fairies encounters, or who are themselves, partly fairy. So, in the guise of a clerk, an aid to the powerful, she’s the vague, uncertain, amorphous fairy that twists desires and processes, into karmic punishment. Indeed, her writing as Swavey, the guise to enter the island through the altered-reality story of the Cave of Gold,34 a classic adventure title, is her bending the fantasies that others feed themselves, playing through their systems.

That Donald pursues Anne, his own ‘hunt’ as Cotton sees his prey, his own truth is hinted, only for his threat to die as Anne thrashes him herself, leaving him defenceless to the police she sets on them, using authority against itself.35 As he sought legitimacy on the land, she invades the mechanisms by which he would succeed, and strips all the façade away, to expose the truth. No heroic hunters of explorers, but criminals to be dragged off.

What did they do to deserve it?

What histories did they take part in?

And so, Anne’s role as fairy woman and trickster, she’s a Changeling. For just as the island itself is unnamed, so that it could be anywhere, anytime, she too is outside of any time or place. Is she a descendant of displaced islanders, or from the locals of where they ended up? Was she poor, or wealthy? Were her family responsible for an atrocity?

33 Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (Penguin Books Ltd.: London, United Kingdom, 1988) 34 Otta Swire, Skye: The Island and its Legends (Origin, 2018: Edinburgh, UK), p.60 35 Campbell, The Gaelic Otherworld), p.56-57 ‘Donald thrashed by the fairy woman’

But her Changeling state comes, partly, from my own feelings. If Norman MacLean marked his ‘dual consciousness […] cultural schizophrenia[,]’36 then my own would be an isolation, or an alienation. Gaelic language, music and dance has surrounded me, yet I only feel my lack of speaking, my distance from it, ever growing. I’m as local as they come, despite my English parents; we’re a part of the new reality, alongside my Spanish coworker, the German baker, or the Dutch regular at work. For so often, with ‘Scottishness [being] coded as white,’37 people don’t see the reality of life there; a melting pot of modern problems, actively being worked at by people today, which stretch back to issues from long histories, that people don’t want to speak about. Even MacPhee recalled her own childhood, without Gaelic, and unable to visit certain places, for the simple fact that some places were ‘just for rich people.’38 A sentiment I feel, for despite seeing Skye every day from my bedroom window, only ten minutes away, I rarely visit it.

That my adventure transformed into a crime thriller summarises reality. Anne’s a hero caught between systems and histories that leave her adrift, forced to work like the locals themselves, cut off whilst those around her either play, or are forced to feed, fantasies. Even her escape isn’t a complete victory, for like so many others, she’s unable to stay. Even by those on the island, of the locals who reject her, come from the reality ‘that structural racism, xenophobia and interconnected oppressions […] are not an English import[,]’39 but which already existed amongst its people, just as good folk reside themselves. Even in my own life, people I knew revealed unpleasantness truths of themselves, that made me question how welcome my home really was to those who cared.

Anne’s escape, isn’t really one of victory, but necessity. It came from my first conversation, when we shared our lives from towards our home. Pulled about, caught between needs and wants, with the Highlands unable to provide all that we need, for the simple fact of its uncomfortable realities, and the people who both use it, and live there.40

36 Norman MacLean, The Leper’s Bell: The Autobiography of a Changeling (Birlinn Limited:

Edinburgh, UK, 2009), p.6 37 Sobande & Hill, Black Oot Here, p.145 38 Catherine MacPhee, Archivist at Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre, interviewed by James McLeish, 31st August 2023 39 Sobande & Hill, p.113 40 Anonymous, interviewed by James McLeish, 9th November 2023

That’s the simple truth. The situation’s too complex to make a stand – my own biases and life shape my answer, so I can’t speak for all touched by it. All I can do is show part of the truths at play, of the skeletons in the closet. The haunting of reality and history, of a contested past, an uncomfortable present, and an uncertain future.

On Raasay, by a cleared village, are stones set with brass plaques. Inscribed, in both original Gaelic and translated English, is Hallaig,41 by Sorley Maclean, a poet, and former Rector of my high school, before I was ever born.

Tha fhathast ann a Hallaig Clann Chill-Eain’s Clann MhicLeòid, Na bh’ ann ri linn Mhic Ghille-Chaluim: Chunnacas na mairbh beò.

They are still in Hallaig, MacLeans and MacLeods All who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim The dead have been seen alive.

41 Sorley MacLean, ‘Hallaig,’ From Wood to Ridge: Collected Poems in Gaelic and English (Vintage:

London, UK, 1991), p.226/227-230/231

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Campbell, John Gregorson, The Gaelic Otherworld, ed. by Ronald Black (Birlinn Limited, 2021; Edinburgh, United Kingdom)

Cohen, Margaret, ‘The Right to Mobility in Adventure Fiction,’ NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 42, No. 2, Theories of the Novel Now, Part 1 (Summer 2009) on JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/27764318> [Accessed 16th January 2024]

Devine, T.M., Exploring the Scottish Past: Themes in the History of Scottish Society (Tuckwell Press, 1995: East Lothian, UK)

Devine, T.M, ‘Highland Migration to Lowland Scotland, 1760-1860,’ The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 62, No. 174, Part 2 (October, 1983) on JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/25529535> [Accessed 18th January 2024]

Gavalerr, Chris, ‘The Imperial Superhero,’ PS. Political Science and Politics, Vol. 47, No. 1 (January 2014) on JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/43284493> [Accessed 23rd January 2024]

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Howard, Robert E., The Haunter of the Ring & Other Tales, compiled by M. J. Elliot, ed. by David Stuart Davies (Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2008: Hertfordshire, UK)

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Archaeology, Memory, and Oral Tradition (June 2012) on JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/23258946> [Accessed 16th January 2024]

Kincaid, Jamaica, A Small Place (Penguin Books Ltd., 1988: London, UK)

Livesay, Daniel, Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Jamaicans in Britain and the Atlantic Family, 1733-1833 (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2018: Williamsburg, Virginia, USA) on EBSCOhost <https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=32dd3c7a-1203-4351-8cf5c5047357855a%40redis&bdata=JmF1dGh0eXBlPXNoaWImc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPX NpdGU%3d#AN=1683183&db=nlebk> [Accessed 13th February 2024]

Mack, Douglas S., Scottish Fiction and the British Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2006: Edinburgh, UK)

MacKinnon, Iain, Mackillop, Andrew, ‘Plantation Slavery and Land Ownership in the West Highlands and Islands: Legacies and Lessons,’ in Land and the Common Good, November 2020 on Coventry University <https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/publications/plantationslavery-and-land-ownership-in-the-west-highlands-and-i> [Accessed 15th January 2024]

MacKinnon, Iain, ‘Somersaulting out of a Cave of Gold: thoughts on the current and future conditions of the Gàidhealtachd,’ ed. by Luke Devlin and Mike Small, LESS – A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland, No. 4 (September 2022) on Enough! <https://www.enough.scot/somersaulting-out-of-a-cave-of-gold-thoughts-on-the-currentand-future-condition-of-the-gaidhealtachd/> [Accessed 9th February 2024]

MacLean, Norman, The Leper’s Bell: The Autobiography of a Changeling (Birlinn Limited, 2009: Edinburgh, UK) on archive.org <https://archive.org/details/lepersbellautobi0000macg o6h3> [Accessed 12th February 2024]

MacLean, Sorley, From Wood to Ridge: Collected Poems in Gaelic and English (Vintage, 1991: London, UK)

Mudie, Robert, A historical account of His Majesty’s visit to Scotland (Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh, UK, 1822) on Internet Archive <https://archive.org/details/historicalaccoun00mudi> [Accessed 20th March 2024]

Ostdiek, Katherine E., ‘Mathilde Blind, the Highland Clearances, and the “Trappings of Nationality” in the British Isles,’ The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Fall, 2018) on JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/45151158> [Accessed 18th January 2024]

Richards, Eric, Debating the Highland Clearances (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 2007) on JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r205v> [Accessed 16th January 2024]

Robertson, James, Joseph Knight (Fourth Estate, 2003: London, UK)

Robertson, James, News of the Dead (Penguin Random House UK, 2022: London, UK)

Robertson, R. Macdonald, Selected Highland Folk Tales, ed. by Jeremy Bruce-Watt (Oliver and Boyd: Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 1961)

Smith, Alexander, A Summer in Skye, Vol. 1 & 2 (London: Alexander Strahan, Publisher, 1865)

Smith, Iain Crichton, Towards the Human (Macdonald Publishers: Loanhead, UK, 1986) on alastairmcintosh.com <https://www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/resources/1982-IainCrichton-Smith-Real-People-Real-Place.pdf> [Accessed 10th February 2024]

Sobande, Francesca, & Hill, Layla-Roxanne, Black Oot Here (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022: London, United Kingdom, 2022)

Stott, Rebecca, ‘The Dark Continent: Africa as Female Body in Haggard’s Adventure Fiction,’ Feminist Review, No. 32 (Summer, 1989) on JSTOR <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1395364> [Accessed 16th January 2024]

Sussi, Carla, & Heijnsbergen, Theo van, Within and Without Empire: Scotland Across the (Post)colonial Borderline (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 2013) on EBSCOhost <https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=b45b9b84-608b-44fe-a905a5fb613b5d1c%40redis&bdata=JmF1dGh0eXBlPXNoaWImc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPX NpdGU%3d#AN=685819&db=nlebk> [Accessed 8th February 2024]

Swire, Otta, Skye: The Island and its Legends (Origin, 2018: Edinburgh, UK)

Trafford, James, The Empire at Home (Pluto Press: London, UK, 2013) on Archive.org <https://archive.org/details/the-empire-at-home-james-trafford/mode/2up> [Accessed 5th February 2024]

Watts, James, ‘Land Reform, Henry Rider Haggard, and the Politics of Imperial Settlement, 1900–1920,’ The Historical Journal, Vol. 65, Iss. 2, (2022) on Cambridge University Press <http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X21000613> [Accessed 18th January 2024]

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Scottish Fairy Tales (Senate: Twickenham, United Kingdom, 1994)

Scottish Literature and Postcolonial Literature, ed. by Michael Gardiner, Graeme MacDonald & Niall O’Gallagher (Edinburgh University Press, 2011: Edinburgh, UK)

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Writing on Water, ed. by David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus (The MIT Press, 2001: London, UK)

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Filmography & Recordings Atlantis: The Lost Empire, dir. by Gary Tousdale & Kirk Wise (Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, 2001)

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, dir. by Steven Spielberg (Paramount Pictures, 1989)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, dir. by Steven Spielberg (Paramount Pictures, 2008)

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Interviews Black, Andrew, Artist and Filmmaker, interviewed by James McLeish, 4th February 2024

Caimbeul, Maoilios,, Retired Teacher and Storyteller, interviewed by James McLeish, 25th January 2024

Farley, Erin, Historian, interviewed by James McLeish, 17th January 2024

Fulton, Heather, Producer at Atlas Arts, interviewed by James McLeish, 9th January 2024

Kennedy, Allan, Professor at University of Dundee, interviewed by James McLeish, 18 th January 2024

MacKinnon, Iain, Professor at Coventry University, interviewed by James McLeish, 8th February 2024 and 21st February 2024

MacPhee, Catherine, Archivist at Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre, interviewed by James McLeish, on the 31st August 2023 and the 9th January 2024

Morris, Michael, Professor at University of Dundee, interviewed by James McLeish, 7th February 2024

Turnbull, Caitlin, Artist, interviewed by James McLeish, 23rd February 2024

Anonymous, interviewed by James McLeish, 9th November 2023

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On Top of You – A discussion of identity, friendship, and compromise, presented as a teleplay.

Sophie Pass With supervision from Dr. Mark Robson.

MA (Honours) English & Creative Writing

University of Dundee School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law.

ON TOP OF YOU (Pilot) By SOPHIE PASS

FADE IN: SCENE 1 INT. MESSY BEDROOM, EARLY MORNING Light sunshine breaks through the crack of drawn curtains, resting on the eyes of a young woman. ABBY (22, tomboyish, generally unavailable) is asleep in her bed.

The room around her is noticeably messy; posters of indie bands and video game characters plastering the walls, with piles of washed and unwashed clothes everywhere. She stirs slightly as her phone begins to ring. ABBY raises her hand to click her phone to silent before turning over in bed to remain asleep.

The phone then rings again and ABBY rises to check it. The screen shows the name ‘ZARAH’, along with a multitude of texts varying between phrases such as “Pick up the phone!” and “Call me ASAP!” The ringing continues. ABBY reluctantly answers on speaker.

ABBY (GROGGY) Hello?

ZARAH (O.S) Abby, mayday! SOS my soul!

ABBY What.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM, EARLY MORNING ZARAH (21, feminine, put-together) is sitting on her made bed. The room around her is pristine and fresh. The posters on her walls are of ballerinas, specifically from Swan Lake, with an occasional motivational phrase post-it noted next to it. There are spots of sun damage opposite her windows that highlight the absence of multiple medals.

ZARAH is holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder as her hands scramble over her laptop keyboard. There are multiple tabs open on split screen and sheets of paper surround her.

ZARAH I have bad news.

ABBY (O.S) What is it?

ZARAH Have I just woken you up?

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY sits up and wipes sleep from her eyes.

ABBY No I’ve been up for ages.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH scoffs then furrows her eyebrows.

ZARAH Aye right, liar. Well anyway... I have to tell you something.

ABBY (O.S) Tell me.

Pause.

ZARAH We lost the flat.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY What?

ZARAH (O.S) The flat!

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH clicks through flat listings as she talks.

ZARAH (CONT’D) The stupid bitch in charge emailed me literally a few minutes ago saying that we’re no longer going to be the tenants because she’s “chosen someone else”.

ABBY (O.S) Can she even do that?

ZARAH Apparently she can! She said her mates are now moving in.

ABBY (O.S, GROANS) But we’re meant to be there.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY (CONT’D)

I wanted to move in today, it’s soups week with the hockey club.

ZARAH (O.S) I know!

ABBY (SADLY, TO HERSELF) I was gonna make my carrot and coriander..

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH starts closing old tabs as her laptop starts to audibly overheat.

ZARAH I have called and called and called her but she’s not picking up her stupid fucking phone. Plus my emails keep bouncing back so I think she’s blocked me or something.

ABBY (O.S) .. my dad picked out his good CDs for the car ride too.

ZARAH Are you listening to me?

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY Of course I am. But didn’t we sign some agreement or something? I remember you gave me that piece of paper to sign that you said she gave to you.

There’s pause.

ZARAH (O.S) Um, yeah we did.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH looks down to the signed lease agreement in her hand.

ZARAH (CONT’D) But it turns out that I actually ZARAH (CONT’D)

forgot to send it back to her.. and I didn’t actually have any stamps on me anyways.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY has her head in her hands.

She groans.

ZARAH (CONT’D, O.S) Yeah..

ABBY (LIGHTLY) So it’s your fault.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH (DEFENSIVE) No! And I don’t think that just one person should be put to blame here please, we’ve both forgotten to send things away sometimes right?

Plus the post office had no supply of single stamps when I was there it would have cost me almost £45 for a bundle of them; no one needs that many stamps.

ABBY (O.S, DISMISSIVELY) Right, okay.

ZARAH But I am taking it upon myself to fix this.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY What are we gonna do? Stay at a hotel?

She looks around to her decrepit room.

ABBY (CONT’D) Because I’m all packed, I’m ready to leave.

ZARAH (O.S) No I’m finding us somewhere else.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM

ZARAH is hunched closer to the laptop screen, her eyes straining under the pair of blue light glasses she now has on.

ZARAH (CONT’D) There’s not much available mind you, everything’s been snatched up already. Seems like everyone and their mother’s decided to move to Lumbso this semester. Which is funny because it was an absolute wasteland last year, we could have squatted across a whole block of flats and gotten away with it. But anything that is actually available now is either too expensive for us or frankly very very ugly.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY Zaz does ugly really matter right now?

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH Absolutely it does. And it insults me that you need to confirm that.

ABBY (O.S) Sorry.

ZARAH Don’t worry I forgive you.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY stands up and starts to throw clothes into smaller piles as she talks, sniffing out items that are clean.

ABBY Okay well what about those student houses the unions advertise. Barely anyone moves into those, they’ll have rooms.

ZARAH (O.S) No, absolutely not. There’s a ZARAH (CONT’D, O.S) reason why no one lives there, they’re shite and they smell bad.

ABBY sighs and tries to think.

ABBY I said hotel before, what about a cheap hotel?

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH Abs, I love you but we’re not getting a hotel room, I refuse to share a bed with you.

ABBY (O.S) We can get separate rooms.

ZARAH With what money? It’ll cost triple to book something like that so last minute. Plus, hotels take the piss with their pricing; £60 to sleep in a bed? Put me in a nice dress and I can get that for free thank you very much.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY Yeah and chlamydia again.

ZARAH (O.S) Oi! ABBY Fine no hotel. Could we maybe not just give it a week or two then look for stuff? Once people have settled?

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH No way, I need to be in the city tonight. I need to be in that studio at 7am tomorrow for my daily rond de jambe’s and isolations, if ZARAH (CONT’D) I miss any more weekend classes in my school career then I will one hundred percent be booted to the

back of the stage for final recital; not happening.

ABBY (O.S) Do the first weeks of uni really matter though. Who even goes?

ZARAH Abigail are you insane. Scouts don’t watch for the dumps who’re on stage pretty much just to hold up the backdrop, they like the nice girls that are up in the front. I have to be there.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY Well maybe don’t pick classes that start on a Saturday then.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH repeats ABBY’s retort in a mocking manner before coming across a listing. She aggressively taps on her laptop to forward the page to ABBY. ZARAH Wait Abby I’ve got something! Look at this place I’m sending you, do you think it’s any good? Should we just go for it? It might sell soon should I call them?

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY doesn’t look at her phone.

ABBY Oh yeah that’s nice.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH It does look a bit small actually... a tad grubby. But it ZARAH (CONT’D) says ‘two rooms’..., ’shared bathroom’..., ‘available NOW’ with the now in capitals. And there’s

big windows in the living room! You love big windows.

ABBY (O.S) Is it cheap?

ZARAH Yeah lookit, it’s just over £600 per month. That’s about 315 each, pretty good for the area if you ask me.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY is picking at her face in a mirror.

ABBY Oh yeah I see now.

ZARAH (O.S) I think I’ll send them an email.

CUT TO: INT. TIDY BEDROOM ZARAH (CONT’D) Let them know we’re interested and need to move in today. I think they’d like that given the capital ‘now’, y’know.

ABBY (O.S) Go for it babe.

ZARAH I’m doing it! Holy shit I’m excited. Okay I’ll call you back when they reply, my breakfast has gone cold and I need to shower.

CUT TO: INT. MESSY BEDROOM ABBY Okie dokie. Love you bye.

ZARAH (O.S) Love you bye!

ABBY Bye. ZARAH hangs up the phone. ABBY takes a breath and moves around her room, starting to pick clothes up off of the floor.

After a beat, her phone rings again. She picks it up.

ABBY (CONT’D) Hello?

ZARAH (O.S) Grab your shit bitch we’re moving!

CUT TO: TITLE CARD: ON TOP OF YOU The opening credits run over a brief montage of ABBY and ZARAH separately driving to the city of ‘Lumbso’. The sky gets progressively darker.

ABBY is with her dad in a small green car. Shots of their journey include the pair stopping at several service stations for food, and enthusiastically singing to the car radio.

ZARAH is with her mum and younger sister in a mid-size white car.

Shots of their journey include ZARAH fighting with her sister from the front seat, and sleeping with her mouth open.

The two cars soon meet as they pull up in front of a small block of flats. ABBY and ZARAH exit their cars, unload bags with their help of their families, then kiss them goodbye.

CUT TO: SCENE 2 EXT. QUIET STREET, EARLY EVENING ABBY waves continuously at her dad’s car, waiting until he has driven around the corner to stop.

ABBY (CALLING OUT) Bye! ZARAH waves off her mum’s car, shivering with excitement. She turns to ABBY to grab her shoulders. ABBY grins.

ZARAH We’ve done it!

ABBY We’re here.

ZARAH We are adults now. We’re moving into our own place. On our own!

ABBY We’re free.

ZARAH We are women who are on a mission.

ABBY (NODDING HER HEAD) For sex.

ZARAH Yes, but also for life!

ABBY Right.

ZARAH We can be ourselves; we have space to grow! We can go to the pub and not worry about waking anyone up when we come in. There’re no more weird flatmates, no unannounced afters in the kitchen ABBY (INTERJECTS) No flatcest fallout.

ZARAH God what a nightmare! Poor boy was ready to jump out his fucking window at the sight of Janey’s new boyfriend.

ABBY (LOOKING AROUND) You think the neighbours are nice?

ZARAH I’ll be honest I couldn’t care less right now. I’m shattered after that drive, couldn’t get a moments peace.

ABBY Yeah, I kind of need to pee..

ZARAH Me too, let’s get inside.

ZARAH and ABBY pick up their bags and make to the front door of their new apartment building. They stop at the sight of a young woman, ISA (25, gaunt, goth-ish) shrouded in the front doorway.

It’s unclear how long she has been there.

ISA (CALLING OUT) Is one of you Zarah Barnes?

ZARAH That’s me! Are you Isabella?

ISA

It’s Isa. Follow me.

ISA turns and disappears inside the building.

ABBY (TO ZARAH) Landlord?

ZARAH Letting agent, I’m sure.

ABBY I never knew goths liked real estate.

The pair shrug then squeal at each other.

They follow ISA inside.

CUT TO: SCENE 3 INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - FLAT 7, EARLY EVENING ISA leads ABBY and ZARAH into the flat through the front door. The walls are painted a cold beige, and there’s a pile of unopened mail on the floor. The circular carpet that’s laid on the browning panel flooring looks like it hasn’t ever been washed.

ABBY doesn’t seem to notice the décor but ZARAH is fuming.

ZARAH (WHISPERING TO ABBY) The pictures looked better online; I swear.

ISA points to multiple rooms in quick succession.

ISA That’s the kitchen, that’s the living room, that’s a cupboard, this is the bathroom.

ISA opens the bathroom door and flicks the light switch a few times showcasing that it doesn’t work.

ISA (CONT’D) The light isn’t working but it’ll be fixed soon, hope you don’t mind.

Beat.

ISA (CONT’D, TO ABBY) You’re not an electrician are you?

ABBY No. ISA steps towards a smaller door in the back corner of the hallway.

ABBY (CONT’D, TO ZARAH)

Do I look-?

ZARAH (QUIETLY) Kind of.

ISA Zarah this is your room. There’s still a bed and desk in there but you’ll need to buy a new cupboard or something. The last person staying here really wanted to take the old one with her.

ZARAH walks to the room and peers in. She gives ISA a reluctant smile, noticeably disappointed with how much smaller it is compared to her one at home. In her head, ZARAH was going to give this room to ABBY. Regardless, she does her best to sound appreciative.

ZARAH Oh cool, thank you! Looks... awesome. Thanks bunches.

ISA nods her head.

ISA I’d like the rent and bills on the fifth of every month please, I’ll text you the paperwork on the first. Please only send the money on the fifth as I have a very delicate system of payments. If you’re having people over then just let me know beforehand and we’ll be okay. If you’re going to throw a party then I don’t want to be involved but if it’s a games night or intersexual potluck then I expect to be invited.

ABBY and ZARAH stare through the awkward air.

ISA (CONT’D) Okay. Goodnight.

ISA walks away towards the living room.

ABBY approaches a door that ISA didn’t point to and touches the handle.

ABBY Is this my room?

ISA snaps around.

ISA (SHARP)

No. That’s my room. You’re not allowed to go in there, get your hand off.

ZARAH Yours? You live here?

ISA Yes. ZARAH But I thought you were the letting agent?

ISA I’m a tenant.

ZARAH You posted the listing.

ISA To look for a new roommate.

ABBY Didn’t the page say two rooms?

ISA Yes. And one of them is mine.

ZARAH Are you sure?

ABBY shoots ZARAH a glare.

ZARAH (CONT’D, DEFENSIVELY) The listing didn’t say that one of the rooms was already occupied.

ISA All it needed was a flat description. I didn’t include a picture of the second room because it is private, I’m sorry I’m confused why is this a problem?

ABBY We’re both meant to be moving in.

See we’re adult women now, we’re on missions for personal space and sex anZARAH (INTERUPTING)

Are you sure there’s only one room here free?

ISA stands confused.

ISA Yes I’m quite sure.

Pause.

ZARAH is rapidly running through different scenarios in her head.

She cannot have messed this up again, she needs to find a solution.

ZARAH What if Abby sleeps on the sofa?

ABBY Why me?

ISA No that’s not okay, this isn’t a bedsit.

ZARAH (CHANCING IT) Okay could we maybe buy that room off you?

ISA Absolutely not.

ZARAH Fair enough. What if..

ZARAH swallows hard.

ZARAH (CONT’D) ...we shared?

ABBY moves to question ZARAH, but ZARAH signals her to be quiet.

ISA I think it’s illegal to have two households in one room. It’s only couples that can share I’m sure, there’s something on the agreements about taxes, and licensingA thought jumps into ZARAH’s head.

ZARAH (FEIGNING SURPRISE) What?!

Pause.

ZARAH (CONT’D) Haha! Well, we are a couple!

ISA looks at ZARAH. She has a wide smile plastered onto her face, trying to sound as convincing as possible.

ISA looks at ABBY. Her face is contorted in confusion.

ISA You are?

ZARAH Yes! Did you think we were asking as separate tenants? Oh my goodness no! Haha I’m so sorry!

ZARAH has her arms outstretched, waiting for a response. The obvious stance of a liar.

ZARAH (CONT’D, FORCEFUL) Babe did you hear that? She- she thought we were not together. That we were only friends. How... wrong she is.

ABBY catches on. She forces a laugh.

ABBY Oh, yeah. Babe.

ZARAH Isa I’m so sorry I should have mentioned it earlier! Me and my girlfriend are wanting to move in.

Together.

Pause.

ISA But you said you wanted two rooms.

Beat.

ZARAH (IMPROVISING) Because.. well.. we are. We were thinking to..

ABBY (DRYLY) We’re on a mission for personal space and sex.

ZARAH Yes! We are!

ABBY speaks out, half shocked and half smug at how she remembered she’d mentioned “space” earlier.

ABBY

We thought that having our own rooms would give our love the space to breathe, right?

ZARAH (NODDING) Uh huh.

ABBY (PERFORMING) It is clear that my dear girlfriend here hath made a mistake whencewhen sending you an email this fair morn. She hath left out that I was also wanting to move in, and that we are definitely in a committed, loving relationship. As lovers.

ZARAH winces at the thought of ‘loving’ ABBY in a sexual manner.

ZARAH Correct.

ISA takes a moment to think. She doesn’t fully buy their performance but doesn’t want to talk any longer.

ISA Okay.

ABBY and ZARAH are surprised.

ZARAH Okay?

ISA Yeah. I’ll let the landlord know the arrangement. You can share that room.

ZARAH Yes! Okay cool thank you!

ISA exits to the living room.

ZARAH (CONT’D, LOUDLY) Come on then girlfriend, let’s move in and test out our new lesbian bed?

ABBY picks up her bags.

ABBY Yeah okay.

CUT TO: SCENE 4 INT. FLAT 7 – SMALL BEDROOM, EARLY EVENING

ABBY and ZARAH stand aghast and essentially out of breath in their new room. The flooring is cold and wooden, and the walls are dark.

ZARAH closes the door behind her.

ZARAH Oh my God that worked?

ABBY What the fuck.

ZARAH You are such a fast thinker!

ABBY I could throw up actually.

ZARAH That was a blur. How did we even manage that?

ABBY I don’t know. How long are we going to have to keep this up?

ZARAH Indefinitely, I guess.

ABBY grumbles with the thought of prolonged effort.

ABBY But I don’t want to be your girlfriend.

ZARAH Yeah well I doubt we’ll ever have to fondle each other in front of herABBY (DISGUSTED) Don’t say things like that.

ZARAH -we’ll only have to occasionally do or say some couple-like things, to ZARAH (CONT’D) remind her that we’re still going out.

ABBY She really bought it?

ZARAH

Obviously! She wouldn’t have agreed to let us stay if she didn’t, right?

ABBY She did seem sceptical.

ZARAH I think that’s just her nature.

ABBY Did you hear her say something about legality? I swear that she did.

ZARAH I can’t remember. Honestly all I can really think about now is paying half for rent. We’re gonna save so much money; I can finally buy some pointe shoes, a fancy leotard, (GASPS) footless tights!

ABBY So we’re good then?

ZARAH I think we actually are!

ABBY and ZARAH high five and take a moment to breathe.

They look around.

Beat.

ABBY It’s a bit small isn’t it?

ZARAH Yeah...

ABBY And that’s a.. single bed.

ZARAH Hmm. ABBY (DOUBTFUL) We’ll be alright though.

ZARAH We will. The more we dwell on...

ZARAH motions to the room.

ZARAH (CONT’D) ...whatever, the worse it’ll feel.

ABBY Right.

ZARAH Instead, we should celebrate. Get ourselves back on track, back to the matter at hand.

ABBY Exactly.

ZARAH We should go to the union.

ABBY (AGREEING) We’ll gather our bearings.

ZARAH Yes, we’ll figure out how long it takes to walk there, what it’s like getting back; perfect before classes start.

ABBY A drink is just what I need right now.

ZARAH A sexy little pint.

ABBY Just the one.

ZARAH A nightcap really.

ABBY We’ll be home by midnight at the latest.

ZARAH Nothing drastic. Just one itty bitty half-pint.

CUT TO: SCENE 5

EXT. SIDE OF A DUAL CARRIAGEWAY, VERY LATE NIGHT Cars zip past as ABBY and ZARAH are stood behind a crash barrier.

The latter is vomiting down a ditch as the former sticks out her thumb, holding back gaseous burps.

The air is damp and bitter, and a light rain falls from the sky.

ABBY What was in those pints.

ZARAH lifts her head.

ZARAH Fuckin’.. arsenic.

ABBY They’ve gotten rid of the good draughts there; the drinks last year didn’t taste like that FUEL. They were tasty, they were crispyZARAH (LIFTS A FINGER) Agree.

ABBY -and the music was better too.

They’d play like, David Bowie or..

Madness I dunno. Not as many ‘oonsa-oonsa’ beats.

ZARAH I love a good ‘onga-onga’. So good to... dance tZARAH vomits.

ABBY Babe you need something ginger.

Like an.. ale, or breadmen to stop the spewing.

ZARAH Bredren?

ABBY No, bread men. Ginger breadmen.

ZARAH stands up.

She wipes her mouth and steps to ABBY. ZARAH I don’t do gingers.

ABBY Aye right. The chemist from first year, he was a ginger.

ZARAH He was strawberry blonde, doesn’t count.

ABBY Strawberry blonde is perhaps the ginger-iest of all gingers.

A selection of cars speed past ABBY and ZARAH. One of the cars gets too close to the barrier and splashes their feet with water.

ZARAH (FRUSTRATED) Gahh, why is no one stopping for us?

ABBY I don’t think my thumb is long enough.

ZARAH Try mine.

ZARAH throws her thumb out close to ABBY’s.

ZARAH (CONT’D) My mum always said my thumbs were too long for my fingers. They’ll fuckin’, hit the cars from here if I’m not careful.

ABBY Your thumbs are beautiful.

ZARAH Aww, thank you girlfriend.

ABBY Nooo don’t call me that.

ZARAH (HUGGING ABBY) Loverrr.

ABBY gags.

ABBY Stop!

ABBY recoils as a black car rushes past before coming to a stop.

The girls look on whilst the car reverses.

ZARAH Whossat?

A sleek, black Volvo stops in front of ABBY and ZARAH before sliding down the front passenger window.

A voice shoots out from inside the car.

VOICE (O.S) Abby King??

ABBY peers into the driver’s seat.

ABBY Aw fuck.

VOICE (O.S) I thought that was you!

A bright stream of blonde hair falls over the wheel as CATRIONA (20, athletic, perfect) looks ABBY over. Her voice lilts with condescension.

CATRIONA (CONT’D) What the fuck are you doing out here.

ZARAH We went out for one.

CATRIONA (CHUCKLING) I can see that. You guys never could handle your drink could you.

ABBY (GRIMACING) We can handle it just fine.

CATRIONA Clearly. Need a ride home?

ABBY NoZARAH (LOUD) Yes! Yes please.

CATRIONA smiles and she unlocks the car, smug that ABBY will now be in her debt for a favour.

CATRIONA (CONT’D) Get in then.

ZARAH reaches for the door handle. ABBY stops her.

ABBY

Zaz we can just walk home.

ZARAH Are you joking?

ABBY You forget that this girl is the worst.

ZARAH Abigail I am shattered. I’ll only walk home if you admit that ska doesn’t belong in the bedroom.

ABBY considers lying, but frowns. ZARAH smiles victorious. She opens the car door and clambers in.

ABBY hesitates, briefly considering daring a walk home. Although as she looks up and down the road, she realises has no idea which direction home is. She grumbles then gets inside the car.

CUT TO: SCENE 6 INT. BLACK VOLVO, VERY LATE NIGHT The interior is as clean as the outside. The leather seats are slippery from thin layers of polish, and the cup holders are completely crumb free. CATRIONA taps on the dashboard touchscreen to play a new song then turns the volume down.

ABBY and ZARAH slump against each other in the back seats.

CATRIONA (SLIGHTLY SNIDEY) I didn’t know you were back in town, Abby. I thought classes didn’t go so well last year.

Beat.

CATRIONA (CONT’D) I heard that you failed all of your assessments?

ABBY Yeah well resits are a thing.

CATRIONA Of course.

ABBY I’ll do better this year, I’ll work harder.

ZARAH (TO ABBY)

We’ll manage it.

CATRIONA I’m sure you will.

Pause.

CATRIONA (CONT’D) So. You’ll be trying out for hockey again I take it.

ABBY I’m already in the club.

CATRIONA Yes but the teams. Will you be trying for the teams?

ABBY I hadn’t really thought of it yet.

ZARAH No you should! You’re actually so good at your hockey Abs, your games were brilliant fun. And there were so many hot boys there. Hot, hot boys.

ABBY I was fine.

ZARAH But the boys..

CATRIONA (INTERUPTING) Y’know, my grandparents came to see CATRIONA (CONT’D, INTERUPTING) our semi-finals.

ABBY Yeah?

CATRIONA Yeah. Both my Nana and Plip Plop said that you could be good if you just tried a little bit harder?

They could tell you were getting lazy, everyone could.

Beat.

ZARAH (SOBERING)

I’m sorry what.

CATRIONA I’m just being honest! They knew what I knew, they said thatZARAH No no. What did you say?

ABBY Plip Plop?

CATRIONA (MATTER OF FACTLY) Yeah. My Plip Plop.

ZARAH and ABBY stare in disbelief, a laugh creeping up their throats.

ABBY Are you serious.

CATRIONA Yes? I don’t get it, what’s the matter.

ZARAH Plip Plop.

CATRIONA Yes! My Plip Plo- don’t you guys have Plip Plops?

ZARAH Sure I do but he’s my Granda, not my fucking Plip Plop.

ABBY (GIGGLING) Wait what was granny’s name again?

Fuckin’ Poom Poom or something?

ZARAH bursts into laughter.

CATRIONA Come off it.

ZARAH (LAUGHING) Was he a fan of taking really small shits or something?

ABBY Does he run a pilates/hip hop hybrid class at the gym?

ZARAH laughs loudly.

ZARAH Is he a little garden gnome that became obsessed with the sound of rain?

CATRIONA You guys are mean.

ZARAH Sorry, sorry but, you can’t let something like that slip without consequence.

ABBY Catty I am warning you now, you will not live this down at hockey.

CATRIONA Excuse me?

ZARAH Oh my God, please can you tell them on Tuesday when I’m there.

ABBY nods.

ABBY It’ll go down well with my carrot and coriander.

CATRIONA You’ll do no sort. And besides, I’m sure plenty of people have names like that for their grandparents.

ZARAH Aye, maybe in the VIP lounge at the races.

CATRIONA (WHINY) I have never been to the races! How many times do I need to tell you that!

ABBY and ZARAH try to stifle their laughter in the face of her frustration.

CATRIONA clenches her jaw and grips the wheel. There is little she hates more than feeling bested.

She swallows her urge to snap back and drives on.

CUT TO: SCENE 7

EXT. QUIET STREET, VERY EARLY MORNING ABBY and ZARAH exit the black Volvo still giggling about ‘Plip Plop’. They reach the path that leads to their apartment building and ABBY turns around.

ABBY Thank you Catty, tell Plip Plop I say hi!

CATRIONA Whatever.

CATRIONA flips the girls the middle finger then speeds away.

ZARAH She has such a douchey car.

ABBY (MUTTERING) Fuck-ass Volvo.

ABBY and ZARAH walk toward their front door.

ZARAH She is a good laugh though. Dead snobbish, but not as rancid as I remember.

ABBY Because you’ve only known her a year or two. Take another fifteen and you’ll want to wring her bloody fucking neck.

ZARAH (GASPS) Abigail! If Plip Plop could hear you now he’d be mortified!

ABBY If Plip Plop’s a smart man he’d agree with me.

Beat.

ABBY (CONT’D) You know I bet she’s going to bring a real fancy looking soup for her day. Something shite that she eats just because she thinks it makes her look cultural.

ZARAH Like a French onion.

ABBY Or a pea and mint.

ZARAH You’re gonna hate me but I do fuck with a pea and mint.

ABBY Really?

ZARAH Really.

ABBY You’re joking.

ZARAH pushes the apartment buildings entrance door open.

ZARAH This are many topics in which I jest. Soup is not one of them.

CUT TO: SCENE 8 INT. FLAT 7 – SMALL BEDROOM, VERY EARLY MORNING ABBY and ZARAH change into their pyjamas. ABBY throws her clothes down next to her suitcase. ZARAH folds her clothes and packs them away. Neither one notice the habit of the other.

ABBY But it’s so.. refreshing. It’s ABBY (CONT’D) weird to have it all thick and hot.

ZARAH Yeah I know, refreshing is the whole point of it. The pea flavour is sweet enough that it complements the mint.

ABBY I can’t believe I never knew this about you.

ZARAH What can I say, I’m enigmatic.

ABBY This really changes how I see you.

I... I think we need to break up.

ZARAH How dare you! Not even twenty-four hours in and you’re giving up on us.

ZARAH flings a top to ABBY. She notices the pile of clothes on the floor.

ZARAH (CONT’D) Abs. Already?

ABBY It’s only a top and jeans. I’ll pick ‘em up tomorrow.

ZARAH knows that ABBY won’t but she’s too tired to protest.

ZARAH Fine.

The girls finish getting ready to sleep. With pillows and blankets in hand they turn to the bed. It stands thin and bare, practically skeletal.

ABBY So, who’s on the floor.

ZARAH Abby you know I can’t, my body is a temple and I can’t dance with a stiff back.

ABBY sighs.

ABBY Can’t we share?

ZARAH winces.

ZARAH I just, I can’t sleep right knowing that if I turn over I’d have you breathing on my face.

ABBY But I barely breathe at night. I sleep like I’m dead.

ZARAH Just the thought of it freaks me out.

ABBY frowns in thought. Then she remembers.

ABBY

What if we did top ‘n’ tail?

Elliott and I had to share a bed all the time as kids, that’s how we did it.

ZARAH So I’ll be sleeping next to your feet?

ABBY Look, it’s that or my face.

ZARAH considers her options. She doesn’t want to share the bed but truly hasn’t got the heart to make ABBY sleep on the floor.

ZARAH Okay fine.

ABBY lights up and clambers to the bottom end of the bedframe.

ABBY Yay! I promise you I’ll start looking at beds tomorrow.

ZARAH gets into bed.

ZARAH If you think I can afford a bloody bed then you’re as batty as my mother.

ABBY smiles and snuggles into her blanket.

ABBY Whatever you say beautiful.

Goodnight.

ZARAH smiles contently and settles into her pillows. She closes her eyes.

ZARAH Goodnight Abby.

ABBY (WHISPERING) You’ll not even know I’m here.

ZARAH raises her eyebrows in acknowledgment.

Beat. The air is cold and the early morning hums with anticipation.

ABBY is quickly asleep, worryingly still. ZARAH rustles. She can’t quite find a comfortable position. She turns a few times then rests on her side.

ABBY’s bare foot is on her pillow, an inch away from her nose. ZARAH senses the presence and opens her eyes.

ZARAH Shit.

CUT TO BLACK. END CREDITS.

THE END

Framing Essay Development The premise for my dissertation script starts where I think most comedic stories start: a night out with friends. On a weekend trip to see my school friend in her university town, she shared how her friends from class had the idea to pretend to be in a relationship in order to snag a single household flat, and get a cheaper deal on the rent. Those friends had each been struggling to find a place to live for the upcoming academic year, so decided to look together. Instantly, the situation that was relayed to me started to play out in my head, nearly shot for shot as a television pilot. The limitations of a small living space, especially for individuals who are not accustomed to being so close to one another, struck me as an ideal setting for a comedy. As the majority of ‘Sitcoms are (…) about trapped relationships’i, it felt almost natural to ‘exploit a predicament’ii that would undeniably ‘generate conflict’iii in the name of humour.

As the plot of my script began to branch into new ideas, it was only natural that the driving force of the story, my characters, evolved too. It felt important during the development process that I had a clear understanding of who my characters chose to be as they grew up, and what kind of moral values they would hold. In order to distinguish my characters from one another, I jotted some mind maps into a notebook, ensuring to write down the likes of their ages and appearance, what their family life is like, and what they hope to do once they finish university. These mind maps can be found further in the document as Figure 1 and Figure 2. By knowing the depths of their backgrounds, and even just confirming their names, I began to realize how the characters’ word choice and sentence cadence would be affected. The dialogue of a teleplay, and its siblings of plays and screenplays, is essential to ‘develop plot, character through conflict, subtext, and exposition.’iv The choice of names for the main characters, Abby and Zarah, originated as a subtextual way to showcase the differences that occur between the friends. As the first letter of their names are respectively the first and last letters of the alphabet, their names provide both an audial and visual clue to said differences. Yet, if one were to present the alphabet in a circular fashion, the letters A and Z would sit directly next to each other. This thought represents the love and bond that Abby and Zarah have with each other despite their superficial differences.

The relationship that exists between my main characters Abby and Zarah is modelled after my own relationships with my best friend, and with my sister. The connections I have

with these women in my life is extremely important to me as I truly feel as though I can be my relaxed self around them without the fear of criticism, and I do not criticize in return. My friendships provide safe spaces in which I can simply exist, and ‘contributes to forging and strengthening’v a real kinship. These ideals of safety and understanding fuel the themes rooted in my teleplay, supported by relatable comedy which welcomes in viewers.

Once I had begun to write out my script, thoughts about the originality of my work crept into my head. Aside from writing a competent script, creating something original was the foremost of what I aimed to achieve. However, after racking my brain for any similar premises, it dawned on me that my script bared strong similarities to Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson’s Spacedvi, and even Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov’s Faking Itvii. The early 2000’s cult classic Spaced, directed by Edgar Wright, bares the closest resemblance to my teleplay as it also features ‘two disillusioned twentysomethings who (…) have to pretend to be a couple to secure the only decent empty flat in London’viii. Although, my work has plenty of its own character which presents differently to Spaced, such as exploring themes of femininity and compromise, instead of ‘miscommunication, lack of direction, and the random collections of people who come to represent family’ix.

Writing Process During the many months in which I have spent writing and re-writing my teleplay, I have taken a lot of inspiration from my favourite comedic shows. The explicit, raunchy humour that is present in Rob McElhenney’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphiax and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabagxi has influenced the strong language and sexual references that occur throughout my own script. I believe that by writing crude characters and showcasing their taboo actions or opinions, the creator(s) of a show is presenting the audience with vulnerable and dynamic human beings, opening up a space that is free from judgement of its audience. The creator(s) are letting their darker side bleed through the pages and onto the screen to simultaneously tell audiences that they’re not strange for thinking or feeling a certain way, but that they are doing better morally compared to those in the show. However, despite the outward flash and shock of the style of humour told in Always Sunny and Fleabag, both series share in soul-twisting dramatics that slap the audience in the face after tickling them for multiple episodes.

Other shows that have influenced the research behind my writing in recent months is Lisa McGee’s Derry Girlsxii, and Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain, and Andrew O’Connor’s Peep Showxiii. Both shows feature a collection of ‘flat (and) round’xiv characters that often find

themselves swept up in bizarre yet ‘simple story ideas’xv; the comedy stemming from the way each character reacts to their environment. It is argued that ‘Flat characters are a staple of satire and black humour’xvi and are made ‘memorable by virtue of their very flatness.’xvii No matter what events transpire, the flat character doesn’t change. My response to a flat character is Abby and Zarah’s new roommate Isa. This character is described as “goth-ish” and speaks very matter of factly with the protagonists of the show, allowing for comedic dialogue to spring from their interactions.

An important factor to writing a televised script is its format. In order to correctly present my work as a teleplay, I referred to a number of literary sources to understand what techniques are used. One of which was a book titled Fleabag: The Scripturesxviii, released by writer and actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge that features ‘the filming scripts of the two series’xix of hit play-turned-series Fleabag. Another source was an online edition of the pilot episode from Dan Harmon’s Community.xx Both sources informed me of how a teleplay should be laid out, highlighting the need for describing new settings and correctly mentioning a continuation of dialogue, and aided my comprehension of the cadence of comedy.

Another factor of research I conducted for my dissertation was gaining the correct knowledge on property licensing laws for singular household accommodations and ‘house(s) in multiple occupations (“HMO”)’xxi. By gaining a general understanding of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014xxii and the ‘Offences in relation to licensing of HMOs’xxiii, I have been able to apply these restrictions to the main setting of my script, securing a legitimate comedic trap. As my show is set in a fictional Scottish city, it was important to learn of the laws that apply specifically to the Scottish government as they differ greatly from the rest of the UK. Whilst it becomes clear that the flat in my script is in fact an HMO and doesn’t correctly match with the restrictions that Isa tells to Abby and Zarah, it feels imperative to take a bit of creative liberty in this situation and warp the rules to produce viable entertainment. Although, it could also be argued that Isa doesn’t quite understand the property licensing laws herself, but enjoys the feeling that she remains in control of the flat.

Beyond the Page In order to truly comprehend the voices and actions of protagonists Abby and Zarah, I chose to capture character portraits. Not only do the photographs help realize the characters, but they also serve as a prototype for potential promotional material. During the development of Abby, I had a specific friend in mind that would fit the likeness of the relaxed tomboy. As shown in Figure 3, Abby would preferably have short and shaggy hair, and sport a boyish

sense of style. During the development of Zarah, I began to model her likeness after my older sister as both character and person share similar interests in performance, and have a strong sense of pride and resilience. As shown in Figure 4, Zarah would preferably have longer hair that she enjoys tying off of her face, and sports a preppy sense of style. The image presented as Figure 5 is used to give a glimpse into the connection between the characters, attempting to capture a close but awkward atmosphere that reflects their living situation.

An extra project I took part in for this dissertation was creating a scale model of the bedroom that Abby and Zarah have to share. I feel as though the room they share becomes a character all of its own right, and so deserves its own visual representation. The term “show, don’t tell” is a vital narrative technique in all creative writing, especially in visual media, that promotes an active approach to ‘scene development and character portrayal’xxiv. When a creator resorts to unnecessary exposition in their work, it can come across as very slow and unrealistic, not to mention just frankly dull. By being shown the information that is important to the story, audiences are actively using logistical skills to understand what the media is trying to say. I have created a miniature set, available as a rough sketch in Figure 6 and final product in Figure 7, in order to provide visual information about my main characters. It is in my wishes that one could learn the fundamentals of Abby and Zarah simply by looking into the set, their world, without needing to read the script.

After completing all necessary work for my dissertation, I couldn’t help but grow excited about the prospect of continuing my work and writing additional episodes. Whilst envisioning this teleplay as a whole series that airs on either cable TV or streaming websites, the show presents itself as a snappy seven episodes. By keeping the series length short, each episode would encourage concise and valid material that would not be slogged down by filler dialogue or unnecessary cutaways. The prospective series provided below reveals the story arcs in which Abby and Zarah would take, including a progression on their university courses, their hobbies, their love lives, and their relationship.

Images

Figure 1

Figure 3

Figure 5

Figure 2

Figure 4

Figure 6

Figure 7

Prospective Series Episode One: Best friends Abby King and Zarah Barnes move to the fictional city of Lumbso together ahead of starting their third year of university. However, due to miscommunication and panic with their new roommate Isa, they formulate a lie that they are in a relationship in order to share the one room available to them. They take themselves out for a drink to celebrate but get a lot more drunk than intended. The girls are picked up by Abby’s old family friend turned hockey enemy, Catriona, who takes them home. Once Abby and Zarah are in their room and ready for bed, they come to an agreement to sleep top-to-tail in the single bed.

Episode Two: First few weeks of classes; Abby for her ethical hacking course and Zarah for her contemporary dance course. Zarah loves her classes and starts to develop an infatuation on a girl, Lacey, in her ballet class. Abby successfully returns to the university hockey competition team where she meets and bonds with Tom, a boy new to the club. Catriona is very clearly jealous of Abby’s natural sportsmanship. The girls go out for dinner one night and discuss the intricacies of their fake relationship before their landlord is due for an inspection. Whilst they are out, they run into their old flat mate, Richard, who tried to jump out of his window. They offer to invite him over sometime out of pity. Isa frequently acts strange about the privacy of her room, and the girls think that they can hear animal noises coming from inside.

Episode Three: Abby’s dad Stuart comes to visit for a week. There is a brief confusion when he asks why they have to share a room and the girls have to say whilst in front of Isa that they’re dating.

Stuart is surprisingly overjoyed at the news, but is then let down when they tell him in private that they’re not together. During the week, Abby gets closer to Tom during hockey practice and Zarah tries to talk to Lacey more. She joins Lacey on a trip to the local shopping center.

Back at the flat, Stuart admits that he and Abby’s stepmother are going through a rough patch in their relationship, and he asks to spend some time in Lumbso. He spends the nights on the sofa and happens to catch Isa moving around pet bowls and collars in the night. Abby and Zarah become convinced that she is hiding a pet.

Episode Four: A bottle episode in the girls’ room. They have a restless night and keep waking each other up;

Abby keeps going to the bathroom due to a UTI, Zarah starts snoring too loud, they keep kicking each other in the face etc. Abby’s dad Stuart is also still sleeping on their sofa. The girls have petty arguments throughout the night but ultimately resolve their problems with mini counselling-style talks. Abby discloses that she’s planning to go on a real date with Tom, and Zarah shares that she has feelings for Lacey, but doesn’t think that they’re reciprocated.

They also talk about their growing theory that Isa has an animal in her room. Despite bickering with each other often, it should be clear that Abby and Zarah care very deeply about each other and their friendship, and actively put in the effort to understand one another.

Episode Five: A month later. Abby and Zarah plan a dinner party at their flat as Isa is meant to be away for the weekend. They invite some old flat mates (including Richard and his ex), Tom (who is now Abby’s boyfriend), Lacey (who is blind to Zarah’s feelings), and Stuart (who has been visiting every other week). Unfortunately, Isa returns home early and joins the party. Abby and Zarah haven’t told their respective love interests about their agreement and the air is tense as they attempt to keep their lie. Eventually arguments arise amongst the party and Stuart tries his best to convince Isa of his daughters lie, but Tom overhears and thinks that Abby is cheating on him. Zarah also drinks too much and confesses her feelings to Lacey who politely rejects her. Abby is mad at her dad and finally asks that he stops coming over, then turns her frustrations to Zarah and accuses her of being too controlling. Zarah calls Abby a pushover and they “break up”.

Episode Six: Tensions are high. Abby is sleeping on the sofa, and Zarah does everything in her power to avoid seeing her. Tom takes Abby out to a farmers market as a break from studying where they run into Catriona. She tells them that their team has been chosen at the last minute to compete in a home tournament. Zarah stops going to class to avoid Lacey and plans to throw her dreams of dancing away. Isa tries to reconcile the girls, as she has come to adore their “relationship” and truly hates the tension that has formed in the flat. She admits that she is a hopeless romantic and knows the depths of trust and love that an honest connection can bring.

Abby and Zarah forget their feelings for a brief moment to discuss the possibility that Isa has a person in her room.

Episode Seven: The end of the first semester. Lacey convinces Zarah to return to class and they begin

rehearsals for their final showcase. Abby completes her exams and attends the hockey tournament where her team loses. Zarah is in attendance to the game and apologizes to Abby who apologizes in return. They go out with the hockey team to celebrate their loss. The girls admit their fake relationship to Isa, but she says that she understands and agrees to keep their secret. Isa then tells the girls that she is a furry, and all of the pet stuff was for her roleplay.

Abby and Tom are together, and Zarah and Lacey remain friends. Flat 7 hosts another potluck party filled with all their collective friends. Abby and Tom sneak off to be alone in her bedroom as the landlord gate crashes.

References Bibliography Bachmann, Laurence., ‘Female friendship and gender transformation’ in European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21.2 (2013), pp. 165-179 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506813515856> [accessed 21 April 2024].

Duncan, Stephen V., ‘Writing for Television’ in The Handbook of Creative Writing, ed. by Earnshaw, Steven., 2nd ed (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

Harmon, Dan., Community, The Television Pilot (2017) <https://thetelevisionpilot.com/wpcontent/uploads/2017/09/Community 1x01 - Pilot.pdf> [accessed 15 April 2024].

Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 (asp 14), UK Legislation <https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2014/14/pdfs/asp_20140014_en.pdf> [accessed 24 April 2024].

Hubbard, Susan., ‘Writing Humorous Fiction’ in The Handbook of Creative Writing, ed. by Earnshaw, Steven., 2nd ed (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

McCann, Graham., Stuck in the middle with you, British Comedy Guide (2020) <https://www.comedy.co.uk/features/comedy_chronicles/stuck-in-the-middle-with-you/> [accessed 15 April 2024].

Noble, William., Show, Don’t Tell: A Writer’s Guide (Sanger, CA: The Write Thought, Inc., 1991).

Perry, Emma., Spaced (1999-2001), BFI Screen Online (2008) <https://web.archive.org/web/20080302033135/http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/966650/ index.html> [accessed 22 April 2024].

Sherry, Jamie., ‘Words in Action: forms and techniques of film dialogue’ in New Review of Film and Television Studies, 14.3 (2016), pp. 402-405 <https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2016.1190566> [accessed 25 April 2024].

Stewart, Robin., HMO law in practice: Unmarried partners in shared accommodation, AnthonyGold (2021) <https://anthonygold.co.uk/latest/blog/hmo-law-in-practice-unmarriedpartners-in-shared-accommodation> [accessed 12 April 2024].

Waller-Bridge, Phoebe., Fleabag: The Scriptures (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 2019).

Filmography Derry Girls, created by Lisa McGee, Channel 4, January 2018.

Faking It, created by Dana Min Goodman & Julia Wolov, MTV, April 2014.

Fleabag, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, BBC Three & BBC One, July 2016.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, created by Rob McElhenney, FX & FXX, August 2005.

Peep Show, created by Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain & Andrew O’Connor, Channel 4, September 2003.

Spaced, created by Simon Pegg & Jessica Stevenson, Channel 4, September 1999.

Endnotes Graham McCann, Stuck in the middle with you, British Comedy Guide (2020).

Stephen V. Duncan, ‘Writing for Television’ in The Handbook of Creative Writing, ed. by Steven Earnshaw, 2nd ed (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), p. 286. iii Ibid. iv Jamie Sherry, ‘Words in Action: forms and techniques of film dialogue’ in New Review of Film and Television Studies, 14.3 (2016), p. 402. v Laurence Bachmann, ‘Female friendship and gender transformation’ in European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21.2 (2013). vi Spaced, created by Simon Pegg & Jessica Stevenson, Channel 4, September 1999. vii Faking It, created by Dana Min Goodman & Julia Wolov, MTV, April 2014. viii Emma Perry, Spaced (1999-2001), BFI Screen Online (2008). ix Ibid. x It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, created by Rob McElhenney, FX & FXX, August 2005. xi Fleabag, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, BBC Three & BBC One, July 2016. xii Derry Girls, created by Lisa McGee, Channel 4, January 2018. xiii Peep Show, created by Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain & Andrew O’Connor, Channel 4, September 2003. xiv Susan Hubbard, ‘Writing Humorous Fiction’ in The Handbook of Creative Writing, ed. by Steven Earnshaw, 2nd ed (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), p. 156. xv Stephen V. Duncan, ‘Writing for Television’ in The Handbook of Creative Writing, ed. by Steven Earnshaw, nd 2 ed (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), p. 287. xvi Susan Hubbard, ‘Writing Humorous Fiction’ in The Handbook of Creative Writing, ed. by Steven Earnshaw, 2nd ed (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), p. 156. xvii Ibid. xviii Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag: The Scriptures (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 2019). xix Ibid. xx Dan Harmon, Community, The Television Pilot (2017). xxi Robin Stewart, HMO law in practice: Unmarried partners in shared accommodation, AnthonyGold (2021). xxii Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 (asp 14), UK Legislation. xxiii Ibid, p. 49. xxiv William Noble, Show, Don’t Tell: A Writer’s Guide (Sanger, CA: The Write Thought, Inc., 1991). i

ii

The Heart of It All In the heart of the Midwest, and the anatomical heart of the United States, sits Ohio, the place that holds every ounce of my own heart. It is the place that created every bit of who I am, including the bit that encouraged me to leave.

Each US state has a nickname describing something they are known for—New Jersey is the Garden State, Florida is called the Sunshine State. Ohio, the Buckeye State for its abundance of Buckeye Trees, or more relevantly, their big-ten college football team.

Along with the quick descriptor nicknames, states possess slogans. Many are generic catchphrases tagged on to the welcome signs at state boarders on sides of highways.

“Dream Big” “To the stars” “Come to life” “Make it here” “Feed your soul” “Unbridled spirit” These phrases frequently change when the state rebrands for tourism or replaces signs.

Ohio has had two or three in rotation over the span of my lifetime, due mainly in part to previous generations perpetuating their favorite despite the one the state assigned.

“Find it here,” was the official slogan for most of my life, although never the one I identified with. As a pre-teen, when the Ohio tourism ads played during commercial breaks on local news channels, I would scoff at the phrase.

The way every young person believes there is nothing in their hometowns, or states, and imagines there are bigger and better things beyond its borders. During one of these angsty tangents, my mother admitted she agreed with me, that the phrase was generic, and she preferred the previous one. She began to set a scene for me when looking at a map of the continental United States, asking me to imagine I was looking at a person. She told me to look at the shape and picture where the heart would be if it was a diagram of human anatomy.

My eyes land on none other than Ohio, who now that I look at it, vaguely follows the shape of a love heart. Its borders at Indiana and Pennsylvania reaching higher than its lowest point between Sandusky and Cleveland. The east and west borders meeting at a near-point at its southernmost city of Huntington along the Kentucky state line.

34135 Victor Dr. They spent the summer before their baby was meant to arrive remodeling the house at 34135 Victor Dr. It was a single-story house set far back from the street in an area with multiple schools nearby and a fenced in back yard. The house’s original, brown siding was removed and replaced with soft yellow siding and larger front windows that brought in more natural light.

While her husband and father worked on the outside of the house, she prepared the inside by painting rooms and rearranging furniture. The living room that opened into a dining room was painted orange using a sponge to create a subtle texture and the rooms were filled with dark wood and leather furniture. Above the dining room table, she hung an iron-looking chandelier that held tealights in each of the arms that extended from the center.

In the back bedroom, after new insulation had been installed, she painted nursery rhyme figures over pale blue walls. They welcomed their new baby less than a week into the new year and settled her into the blue nursery. Though they did not know it at the time, that baby would only spend three and a half years in that house. In those short years, a second baby would join them, and would come to share that blue bedroom with her.

817 Worden Rd. My grandparents bought what I know as their house in 1984 and made the move from the city into the suburbs. It is a corner-lot house with a basement, dormer attic, two bedrooms, and a large back yard for my mother and uncle, and later my sister and me.

My grandfather added a second half-bathroom, an entire edition that came to be the dining room, a dividing wall in the dormer attic that provided a private bedroom, and a two-tier deck that extended off his edition. That is the version of their house that I recognize.

My grandfather installed a white-picket fence around the yard and my grandmother planted lilac trees, lavender bushes, and peonies in flower beds along the front of the house that faced the main road. The pawprints of three Shar-peis were pressed into the cement walkway that led to the side door about twenty-five years ago, and a striped, canvas bench swing sat under a large Oak Tree in the backyard. Throughout my childhood, I spent years living in that house, and when I lived elsewhere, I visited regularly enough to remain a recognized face in the neighborhood.

The couple in the house behind theirs would come talk to my sister and me over the fence when we were young and helped get us home from the bus stop on a few

occasions. The neighbors on the opposite corner had a granddaughter my age who I grew up playing sports with through my teenage years. My grandparents knew near to all the people who lived along Worden Rd. and the side streets the stretch off it. This made going to the grocery stores or wandering the neighborhood difficult to do without being stopped by a friendly face.

1750 Rush Rd. My great grandparents took care of my sister and I often when we were very young. My dad was always close to them in his childhood and when he had us, they were happy to help at a time when my grandma, their daughter, still had not retired. Their house was a short distance from my elementary school, so they could collect us from school and watch us until my dad got off work.

Their house was a baby blue color with large hedges at the front windows and an American Flag flying in the front yard. Despite the house being relatively small, the backyard was large. There was a small patio with a swing and outdoor dining table, a two-car garage, a shed, plenty of grass for playing baseball, and a gated garden where my great grandmother grew fresh vegetables.

My great grandfather collected and created a plethora of knick-knacks that were sprawled across the garage, shed, and house. Most of the trinkets lived in the basement in a way that created the atmosphere of an eclectic bar. The shelves were lined with cartoon character figures that he had cut into wood and hand-painted, including Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny, and Popeye.

His most famous piece of art was hanging in the living room, a large painting of a little cabin along a river in the woods that he had modified by cutting out images of animals, objects, celebrities, and his many grandkids and great grandkids and gluing them to the scenery as though they were meant to be there.

888 E. 331st St. The house is always a little darker than you would expect, but not in a negative way, in the way that makes you feel closer to everyone and everything, warmer. You would struggle to imagine the house empty, and the times you have seen it on your own, it felt cold. The smell of a pot roast cooking over hours floats from the kitchen most days.

Cartoons play on the TV all day, every day, for the past thirty years. Many times there are air mattresses covered in fleece blankets on the living room floor from slumber parties from the night before.

Swing sets and seesaws and inflatable pools rotate through the yard over the years.

There are four patches in the yard where grass does not grow from serving as bases in wiffle ball games for all the kids in the neighborhood. Everyone who visits leaves smelling of campfire smoke regardless of the season. You will be offered a drink every time your hands are empty, a drink which will be served to you in a plastic, souvenir cup from a sporting event or amusement park.

Warm Home Those domestic spaces of my childhood were always warm. Not necessarily warm in terms of temperature, but light and atmosphere. I imagine them all in the spring and summer months when I reminisce, but if I think of times spent there during colder months, I see the rooms filled with floor lamps and those hanging, stained glass lights in corners of rooms. They all look a bit alike in my mind now.

The monotony of midcentury homes lined with white picket fences makes me giddy inside when I think about them now. I did not always feel this way. From the time I realized I would one day grow up and move out of my parents’ houses, I knew I did not want to live in my city or any of the others it shared borders with. It feels like a rite of passage to hate the Midwestern suburbia you were born into, only to age and do the things you said you would and realize how good you had it.

Now I sit on the opposite side of the ocean, soothing myself with images of boring houses with their beige walls and beige carpets and beige couches that I rename “warm”. I find myself buying artworks or trinkets silly enough to fit into my great grandfather’s collection, and buying bed linens in the oranges of that house on Victor Dr. When I smell a bonfire burning, I get the sudden urge to pull the mattress from my bed frame and place it on the living room floor.

Now I live on my own, in an apartment, and know none of my neighbors. It has been an exciting, new experience, but I long for the days when I can live in a house again. By then, I will have family to fill the house, those warm lights, and the comforting smells of fresh flowers growing by big windows.

Cleveland Museum of Art I have a deep love for history and art that I credit to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Every few years, my schools would organize a field trip to visit the museum, but my mom brought my sister and I regularly regardless of the fact that we had seen much of the art countless times. We always found something worth exploring more and fixating on with each visit.

Beyond the works of art, including some of my favorite pieces to date, the museum boasts prestige in comparison to other American art museums. With stats that place the CMA in the top five best art museums in the county—the top spot in my opinion—it has also been host to events and notable visitors. I remember the year they shot a Captain America movie in the museum’s atrium and surrounding parking garages, or the time I met Angelina Jolie, who is an active philanthropist towards the CMA, in the giftshop when I was a teenager.

Little Italy Like most major cities in the US, Cleveland has many little country neighborhoods.

Murray Hill, Cleveland’s Little Italy, surged from the mid-1800s and has yet to be forgotten for its history and culture. Italian heritage is common amongst Clevelanders and the wider Northeast Ohio population, creating many pockets of Italian culture across the region.

Wickliffe has another even Littler Italy that developed when the children of many of the original Italian immigrants made the move to the suburbs. Murray Hill lies within the University Circle area where the universities and cultural districts overlap. This is where my great grandparents grew up, their parents owning and working in the Italian shops of Murray Hill as they assimilated into American society. When my great grandparents moved out of the city, their parents remained in Little Italy until they passed.

My dad and his siblings grew up visiting Murray Hill, so my sister and I did too, mainly to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The Roman Catholic holiday, though still holding religious significance to many, primarily serves as a reason for the annual street fair.

Mayfield Road is blocked off to cars as pedestrians take over the street. All the local restaurants set up street food stalls in addition to their ordinary service as live music, gambling, and carnival rides and games spill across the neighborhood.

We would always eat at Trattoria during the feast, before us kids were coordinated enough to stand or walk with street food. The best part was sharing Italian ice from a Styrofoam cup with my sister while the adults donated to Holy Rosary Church via gambling at the pull-tabs tent. As I got older, I noticed more and more familiar faces in the crowds of Murray Hill, everyone gathering to celebrate their distant heritage over cavatelli and cannoli to the sound of Frank Sinatra.

Cleveland Sports I grew up with professional teams in basketball, baseball, and football with less than impressive track records in Cleveland. Our teams had gone my parents’ entire lifetime, and most of my grandparents’, without any championship titles. Cleveland sports fans

remained intensely dedicated, even those who do not consider themselves sports fans, despite being comically behind other professional teams.

I would not have considered myself a massive fan of sports, but I always liked going to the games as a kid. The Quicken Loans Area, now called Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse but still The Q to locals, is home to our basketball team, The Cavaliers; First Energy Stadium is where the Cleveland Browns play football, and Progressive Field is where the Cleveland Guardians play baseball.

When I was fourteen years old, the Cavs and Guardians made it to the playoffs of their respective leagues and the city felt electric. The Cavs’ playoffs came first in June of 2016, ending the city’s losing streak of fifty-two years on Father’s Day. Four months later, the Guardians made it to the World Series, and despite the final game being held in Chicago, Cleveland fans sold out our stadium to watch the game on the jumbotron.

Place Pride I do not attend many Cleveland sporting events now, nor do I get to participate in potlucks or watch parties in someone’s house. Instead, I tell every person who asks me, “Oh, where is that accent from?” that I am from Cleveland followed by discussing Lebron James or how promising our team’s roster looks. I know there is no easy way to compare the impact of works of art from centuries ago to the impact of supporting my home team or attending a street fair, but they all give me the same feelings.

Every time I see someone wearing Cleveland sportswear, I feel a rush of knowing that is my home, knowing I watched their games live in our home city. When people speak about famous artists, I feel privileged to have regularly seen some of their works in my local art museum. I imagine this is how my great grandparents and their parents felt when they met someone who had some miniscule tie to Italy. Instead of reaching for a place that was no longer in their grasp, they found ways to carry it with them through the suburbs of Murray Hill.

Carter Stadium My Friday nights were spent like any Midwestern teenager, at a football game. The early games of the season were still bright and warm until about half-time, by midseason it was cold and dark upon arrival. There was a designated student section that was further divided by the class hierarchy with seniors closest to the field and freshman at the back of the bleachers.

We knew the call-and-response chants with the cheerleaders, we knew the order the band would play their songs in, and we knew we could not sit until half-time. I, like most

of my friends, picked up the rules of football by watching and following the crowd for when to cheer. After the game ended, and we inevitably lost, we would walk about half a mile back to where the car was parked.

Jindra Park I learned to ride my bike in the parking lot of the rec center that is in the front half of Jindra Park. I would roller-skate on the tennis courts’ smooth pavement that has since been turned into a basketball court where the boys from my school spent most afternoons and weekends. I would play marco-polo in the pool that was almost always empty excluding a rotation of elderly people swimming laps in the designated lane.

I played three or four seasons of little league baseball in the Jindra diamonds. I watched my cousins play their little league all the way through high school baseball in those same fields. I walked all of my childhood dogs around the half-mile track that follows the perimeter of the park. I attended girl scouts troop meetings in the rec center. I experienced my first emergency room trip from an accident in Jindra Park.

Jerry’s Your favorite local ice cream stand will divide friends and family. Those who know Jerry’s Dari-Pride, know it is the best stand amongst neighboring cities. Jerry’s has been open since June of 1952 and has been run by the Jerry and his family since then.

Most children are first introduced to Jerry’s in their first obligatory little league season as the staple post-game treat, making them lifelong supporters.

The stand is on Euclid Avenue at the edge of a large parking lot for the strip plaza behind it. A patch of grass with a few low hanging trees and two picnic tables serves as a little oasis in the vast asphalt desert. Every trip, you would hope for a free picnic table, despite it being horribly uneven and covered in drops of melted ice cream from all those who sat before.

Mentor Headlands Headlands Beach State Park sits just beyond the city of Mentor in Mentor-on-the-Lake, but could easily be mistaken for a beach in the southern states during the summer.

Visitors with families tend to make their way down the west end of the beach, whereas teenagers on summer break find themselves at the east end of the beach near the lighthouse. The lighthouse is one of those spots claimed by young people and decided as a milestone in their development to attend.

One can only reach the lighthouse by walking the entire length of the shore to the large slabs of concrete that serve as a break wall for the waves, none of which sit level.

Excited to finally be making the journey, teenagers balance along the concrete barrier until they reach the base of the lighthouse, but that is not their final destination. They make their way around the rocks that are half-submerged in the water, making them more difficult to stand on, and take turns hoisting one another up onto the higher break wall that extends beyond the structure.

The concrete break wall leads out to what is the real achievement of visiting the lighthouse, a platform that is used to jump into the water. Over the years, people have brought rope ladders to pull themselves to the top of it and ones to drop into the water over the break wall to pull themselves back out. Every day of summer that schools are dismissed for break, those old enough to make the trip will set up camp on the break wall and take turns jumping into the lake until they have exhausted themselves for the day.

Patterson’s Fruit Farm The Midwest is known for farming and agriculture. I grew up visiting many orchards and farms where you could harvest fresh produce. Most times it was exciting for the first ten minutes, but I continued through the dread until my grandmother had enough fruit needed to make jams, preserves, pies, and salsas to last until next year.

Patterson’s Fruit Farm was different than the other orchard visits where we had a goal and quota to meet, it made an experience out of the farming and harvesting process.

Beyond the apple orchards, they had activities for kids that I participated in through my teenage years happily. My extended family would visit together and spend the day hiking the grounds in the crisp air of early October and leave with fresh apples, apple cider, dried apples, deep fried apples, and pumpkins for carving.

Squire’s Castle Being a part of the Metroparks system for Northeast Ohio, the grounds of Squire’s Castle are accessible to the public to experience at their leisure. The castle rests at the end of a large green that resembles a front yard to a house; its backyard being the expansive woods of the North Chagrin Reservation. Formerly the holiday home to an old mayor of Wickliffe from the late 1800s, the Romanesque castle stands only as a shell of the home it once was. There is no interior remaining in the castle, so it exists as an open-air building with no doors to separate the rooms.

My grandfather says that there used to be a decaying second floor to the building when he was young, but a teenager climbed up to it, fell and was left severely injured so they tore down what remained of the unstable second story. That was sometime in the seventies. In the nineties, my mother and father, like most couples in the area, took their wedding photos in the green, woods, and castle of Squire’s estate. Every Labor Day my mom, sister, and I would pack up a blanket, lawn games, a few books, and a lunch from a fast-food restaurant and spend our last summer afternoon in the castle’s front yard.

In the stone room that was once the castle’s study or hunting room or library, a fireplace still remains. Over the past century, some maintenance has been done to the castle, including some repairs to the cement floors of the study. In the time when the wet cement was drying, someone took the opportunity to carve their initials into the floor— SKP, the same initials of my full name. It was a warm, spring Saturday, maybe Sunday, and my dad had taken my sister and I to the castle to run around for a bit when I noticed them. I can remember seeing them for the first time as a small child and thinking that meant I had some ownership over the room now, and my dad fed my delusions that whoever did it, did it for me.

Experience Places I watch kids ride little bikes with training wheels that bump over the cobblestones of the city now and remember the smooth, black pavement where I first removed those extra wheels. So many first experiences of my skills, hobbies, and interests will forever live in Northeast Ohio. The less defined aspects of my interests are held tightly in these places where time passed, lying out on a blanket in the grass, or beneath a Willow Tree with an ice cream cone, where there was no activity to complete.

At the time, they were places that were a given in my mind, they were naturally occurring there, so I imagined they existed everywhere. Now I see the strange looks from friends when I make a bold statement that I would love to go apple picking when the seasons change. When offered to go pier jumping now, I barely hesitate to accept despite the purple bruises that covered my legs from my last lighthouse trip. The bad experiences are always overshadowed by the good.

My family made every effort to provide me with those good experiences, whether they were joining me or not. Now I am responsible to make experiences happen, to push myself out of a comfort zone. I think of all the experiences I have had that led me to stand within the walls of a new castle, though not new at all, older than the existence of Ohio.

The Hive Lakeland Community College has an all-purpose space with study rooms, a café, a creative workshop, and a few lecture rooms called The Hive. We would reserve private study rooms and do very little studying and a lot of wasting time. We would all sit down and pull out our laptops and talk for hours about how close we were to graduation and all the things we might do.

Bus Stop When we moved houses and school districts and got older, my sister and my bus stop was at the end of our block. I can only imagine waiting at that bus stop in the springtime, when everyone on the street’s front lawn is wet with dew, and there is a bit of fog that is only noticeable because of the earlier rising sun. Spring mornings at that stop, my sister and I would watch the world in between hushed giggles.

Most often, we would watch for bunnies to go darting through yards, freezing when they noticed us noticing them, though a few times we had larger visitors. There were at least two occasions when a doe had approached us as we waited, both of us nervously breathing, standing so still, and hoping no bucks were nearby. Without animal sightings, we resorted to watching our neighbors and those passing through the intersection.

We had a few familiar faces that routinely said ‘hello’ in passing, walking their dogs or jogging before work, but mostly we watched the people we did not know. There is a four-way intersection at our bus stop, outside our house, where people tend to be driven by road-rage and impatience. We knew the timing of the lights and would watch, waiting, and guessing who might be the first to start honking their horn in frustration.

Yellow Tent My grandfather purchased a yellow, canvas tent in the 1970s that continues to serve my family for camping trips. The canvas material is an awful mustard-yellow color that draws attention amongst the royal blue colors of modern tents. The interior is spacious, with enough room for two double sized air mattresses to lay side by side.

Despite the yellow exterior being an eyesore, the color enhanced the golden light of the sun in the mornings we woke up within its walls. Waking up to the sunlight inside that tent was always so pleasant, even those mornings following unexpected storms and animal trespassers and blanket-hogging siblings throughout the nights. There was a

summer that I spent nearly every night sleeping in that tent in my backyard with my sister and friends.

We hung string lights across the main supporting poles and dragged and extension cord from an outlet in the garage to just inside the entrance to attach a laptop charger for movie nights. We kept the tent stocked with bug repellent, water bottles, and blankets— but not my mom’s nice ones, the old ones with stains from spilt drinks or nail polish.

Lucky 7 The first land marker I claimed ownership over was Lucky 7 Beverage and Convenience, a corner store that sells alcohol, ice, cigarettes, lotto tickets, and candy. It sits just opposite our house where Worden meets Llyod Rd. It is a little white building with a tin awning over its entrance and red and yellow letters displaying its name accompanied by two dice. Before I was old enough to have the city mapped out in my head and the vocabulary to describe where our house was to friends, I would explain the location in relation to Lucky 7.

When I heard my friends’ parents speaking about where I lived between each other, I can remember them doing the same, saying things like, “Oh, you know, she lives in that house across from Lucky 7!” I adopted the store as part of my address, part of its identifying features. As I got older and knew more of the people in my neighborhood, I would feel a sense of ownership, and almost jealously, when they referred to my store.

In the opposite manner, the two men and one woman who work in the store—the owner, his wife, and a friend—only refer to me as “Mike’s granddaughter”.

My grandfather was the first person to bring me to the store with him in summers as a child when he would grab a bag of ice, a jug of sweet tea, maybe cigarettes when he was still smoking, and anything I could buy for a dollar back then. As I got older and was trusted to cross the street by myself or with my sister in tow, he would stand on the front steps of the house or in the front window, nodding a sign of reassurance to whoever was behind the counter. Each with $1, my sister and I would pick out as much candy as we could, typically LaffyTaffy and bubblegum, that was placed in a brown paper bag for us to walk home.

Sheep Lady As a child, I thought I knew where the Sheep Lady’s house was, but I was corrected and told I was confusing her with the Cat Lady’s house on Ridge Road. I do not truthfully have any recollection of what the house looked like or ever seeing sheep grazing out of

place on the main road, but I do know that when I began driving, my friends and I still used the location as a point of direction.

Her family owned a beautiful, large, farmhouse that not even the city and three house fires could remove from the growing urban setting. My grandmother says how the house used to be white but the smoke from fires destroyed much of the siding. She was unable to live in the house from the damage and her inability to take care of maintenance, so she was known to have slept in her car with most of her belongings.

My mother remembers seeing her come through the drive-through window of the fastfood chain she had worked at in high school.

She held on tightly to that old farmhouse because of her father. After he had passed and her siblings were living elsewhere with their spouses and children, she felt obligated to remain in the house. Those who had befriended her and been inside the decaying home said how the father’s study had not been touched since his passing. She carried the same dedication for her family and their property into her care for her flock. Those who knew her and made efforts to help her care for the sheep as she aged, gave her a mythic presence within nature.

The “Sheep Lady”—Dorthea—and her house stood out in the Willoughby that I am familiar with, and the Willoughby of my mother’s youth, and her mother’s youth. Now she is a character in our smalltown history that I am only ever reminded of when I noticed geese crossing Euclid Avenue where her sheep would have been grazing.

Blue Store Further down Worden Road, across the street from the Jindra Park and Wickliffe Rec Center is Lucky 7’s rival convenience store. It has always been the Blue Store to me for the simple fact that its exterior is a dark blue, but I honestly do not know its actual name.

It does not matter though because my family and I were always Lucky 7 regulars.

The only time I had ever been into the Blue Store was with my great uncle during my cousin’s baseball game at the fields in Jindra. We were sent on a trip to grab drinks for the family and the Blue Store was closer. When we returned to the fields, everyone was crowded around my mom who had caught an overthrown ball in the side of her thigh, leaving an ugly purple and yellow bruise. I still think it was karmic consequences for betraying my Lucky 7 loyalty.

Whale Building When you travel along I90 towards the city, between the highway and the lake is a large building that is essential to Cleveland in more ways than one. The building’s exterior

displays a mural of humpback whales, dolphins, and a diver in the ocean on three of its four sides. “The Wall of The Whales” was simply that to me as a child, a building with walls covered in whales, but with age I learned of its significance.

An artist and marine biologist, Robert Wyland, has created 100 murals of various sea life on sides of buildings around the world to draw attention to the need for conservation efforts in our oceans. Cleveland’s Wyland mural of the whales was completed in the late nineties, existing in Cleveland years before I did.

The building always served as a marker for me when we would drive into the city for school field trips or family outings at the weekend and when I began to drive as an indicator for which exit to take for the football stadium and Rock Hall. When I pointed it out to out-of-town visitors, or even just began talking with friends about it, I always admitted to not knowing or wanting to know what was inside the building. To me the outside was what made it important to me and the city, but inevitably I learned of its contents.

Non-Places It is hard to define the ways in which I feel connected to these locations, considering some are hard to even classify as a place. Nothing important happened in these places, in some cases nothing pertaining to me happened at all. I think their presence, or maybe my presence in them, though only momentary, became so regular that I grew attached to them. Maybe I felt closer to myself when I was within these places.

Finding ways to connect with others in places where you are meant to experience something is one thing, but connecting with yourself in a place that has little to no experience is something different. There is something honest about the places that lack a purpose. I suppose I could argue that the corner stores of my neighborhood, or the contents of the Whale Building, do have a purpose, but I will not. Their intended purpose is far less important to me.

I still love to people watch like I did on spring mornings as I waited for the school bus, it is easy getting lost in thought in a non-place. When I wait for crosswalk lights, or stand on a train platform, I spend time with myself, better understand how I think, how I feel.

Those moments of solitude I find myself realizing how far I have come, not just in distance, but milestones and changes.

Lakeshore Boulevard Lakeshore Boulevard runs parallel to Lake Erie from Cleveland through Fairport Harbor.

The street is mainly residential, a few small-town strip plazas breaking up the monotony

every few miles. Euclid, Wickliffe, Willowick, Timberlake, Eastlake, and Mentor-on-theLake is the stretch of cities I am most familiar with. I lived in three of the cities, on streets that extend off Lakeshore.

On summer days in my older adolescent years, my dad would drive us into Cleveland along Lakeshore. From Willowick traveling west, Lakeshore passes through Bratenahl, a suburb of Cleveland where millionaires and athletes live. Rather, where they own a second home. The impressive, brick Colonials sit far from the road, along the eroding shores of the lake. Although guarded with cast iron gates and long, winding drives, I can still identify my homes with their street.

Shoregate is Willowick’s shopping plaza on Lakeshore. My mom can remember when there was a movie theatre there, I can remember when there was an arts and crafts store there, but my grandparents remember when there was no development at all. Now only a few shops remain: Marc’s Supermarket, Alesci’s Italian Grocery, Sally’s Beauty Supply, Goodwill, Petie’s Family Restaurant, Giant Eagle, Planet Fitness, and Pet Supplies Plus.

Backseat My daycare was a forty-minute drive from my house. On an average day as a three- to four-year-old, I would spend nearly an hour and a half of my day in the backseat of my mom’s car. That does not include the occasional grocery run, or dentist appointment, or haircut, or family dinner.

My family’s summer vacation was that same as my mom’s childhood vacation: a trip to Port Charlotte, Florida to visit my grandmother’s parents. We drove the twenty-hour journey—twenty-four if bathroom, rest stop, gas station breaks are counted—in one or two cars until we reached my great grandfather’s house. My sister and I packed activities to occupy us, and the adults packed homemade snacks to save us money.

Main Streets All of the suburbs I grew up in had a main street where all of the stores, restaurants, gas stations, and miscellaneous storefronts developed. The three main streets I am familiar with are Euclid Avenue, Vine Street, and Mentor Avenue. Vine Street is the smallest main street, only offering a few fast-food restaurants, a church, a few daycares, and small businesses that kids have no interest in. My favorite gas stations sit at the opposite ends of the street, a Speedway with the best slushees, and a Circle K with the best selection of drinks and snacks.

The Great Lakes Mall, though not as exciting as it once was, is the main attraction of Mentor Avenue. My parents would drive my friends and me to the mall on weekends to wander around aimlessly with only enough money to buy a soft pretzel or smoothie.

The stretch of Euclid Avenue that runs from Wickliffe to Downtown Willoughby is where I wasted the most time as a teenager. When I was old enough to drive, but before I was comfortable going very far distances, I could confidently drive my sister and I to Euclid Avenue. We were easily entertained for hours in the department stores as we walked around with large cups of iced-tea or coffee from whichever drive-through we decided to stop at.

Driver’s Seat I passed my driver’s test four days after my sixteenth birthday and began driving the hand-me-down Pontiac SUV that my grandparents previously owned. I was now able to drive myself the few places I needed to be, like school and my part-time job or between my parents’ houses, without having to ask my parents or relatives for rides. My friends and I spent more time together with the new-found ability, using any excuse we could find to drive ourselves or anyone else anywhere.

The older we got, the more time we would just spend in our cars, we lost sight of any destination. We would drive around state parks or to stores completely out of the way, but never with any goal in mind. I would drive out to the farm towns that had few enough streetlights to still house a drive-in movie theater just to spend a few hours in the car. I think we enjoyed the control over a space. I hung battery-powered string lights to the upholstered ceiling of my car using thumbtacks.

Directions If you were to give someone directions to the favorite dive bar in Wickliffe, you start with landmarks, identifiable places. You would say, “Oh, its next to Mt. Carmel Church… across from the fire department and the abandoned ABB factory.”

Despite Lino’s being on one of the busiest main roads, Euclid Avenue, your directions never start there because that would beg the question of where you are starting, and what route to take.

“Well, are you further than Willoughby? If you’re in Mentor, maybe take the freeway. Or are you coming from Mayfield? Definitely take 271… unless you are closer to 91.”

Passenger’s Seat The summer after I graduated high school, my friends and I passed the time by driving all over our state and neighboring ones to see tourist attractions. Sometimes we would plan trips out of the journeys, but mostly we would do this to spend our little time left together. All of us had different plans for the future in different places, but sitting together in a car, listening to the same music, repeating the same stories made time feel frozen.

Whoever sat in the passenger seat ended up being our navigator and DJ, as well as a voice of reason when those in the backseat got too loud or distracting for our driving friend. That summer we adventured to see a cow statue, corn-hendge, a cowboy statue, the world’s largest Amish horse and buggy, the middle point of Ohio, and the original Kentucky Fried Chicken location. What might have been a waste of time to others turned out to be some of my most valuable time spent.

Burnouts They decorate the asphalt parking lots of high schools and long interstate roads that divide corn fields. The marking of a movement. Proof of existence and remains of a memory.

Places of Motion I walk most places now, taking an occasional train or bus. When I end up on public transport, I find myself thinking about how much I of my life I spent in a car, driving aimlessly through my state, and across my country. When I look at the world racing by the window, gazing at the blur of fields and cattle, it is hard to recognize that I am not driving through a flyover state. It is not until the bus passes through a town’s high street full of stone buildings that hold shops and butchers and far too many hairdressers that I remember I am no longer in the backseat of a car driving along the right side of the road.

It is easy for me to get caught up in memories of the prominent locations of my past. I focus on the positive memories, full of light and company, and think of how that momentary version of me might have felt if she saw me on a double-decker bus. I think of where else I might end up; how else I might change. I start asking myself questions that I am not sure I will ever find an answer too, no matter how far I go. I imagine my future kids telling me they want to go back to visit my home, a place they would not coin with the same sentiment.

When I call home, I hear about new restaurants, stores, and the loss of old ones along the main streets I have always known and no longer recognize. Now I am assumed as a local upon sight, being stopped for directions by visitors. I know the reference points of

my new surroundings, the main street names, storefronts, land markers, to instruct directions of travel by. With every navigational exchange, I think of directing from the passenger seat of my best friend’s car.

I remember how petrified I was when learning to drive, how I refused to drive on highways if I could avoid it for the first six months of having my license. I would panic if a country road had a speed limit above forty-five miles per hour, or when I approached a larger intersection with far too many options for turning lanes. That fear did not last though, those kinds of fears—the ones rooted in new and unfamiliar territories—never do. Once I gained the confidence, I drove further from home until I found myself at a boarding gate.

Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the support I received from Aliki Varvogli and Heather Yeung throughout the development and writing of this project, as well as my peers who created a space for honest and constructive feedback. I cannot express enough gratitude for my family, friends, and neighbors of Northeast Ohio who provided me with the experiences, stories, and spaces that constitute this work. Without the love and support from my family who drove me through my home state and made every effort for me to experience new places, this project and my life would not have been as full and memorable as it has been.

To my sister, who was my partner in experiencing our home, thank you for fueling many of my favorite stories.

‘The Heart of it All’ in Context This project has developed and fluctuated throughout my research and writing, but the concepts of place, memory, and identity have remained central to my work. My project, The Heart of It All, is structured as a memoir that follows memories, descriptions, and reflections on my life in Midwest-American suburbs as I reflect on my loss of places of home since moving to the United Kingdom. My experiences abroad have not only caused me to meet people from countries around the world, but Americans from states I have never visited or interacted with, bringing me to research the aspects of Midwestern identities. As I considered the effects on my own identity from living in the UK, ideas of identity, or multiple identities, being bonded to places of comfort pushed me into regularly remembering home and feeling a sense of grief for it and my identities that are tied to it. My realization that I was grieving the loss of sentimental places struck when I received a call from home that my grandparents were selling their house, and a second call confirming it was sold and I would not have the chance to visit it one last time. I struggled to come to terms with the fact that the house was no longer a place I could reasonably call ‘home’ and found myself thinking of the other places within Northeast Ohio that I felt I lost possession of by moving. My notion of home extends beyond the houses I have lived in, and into the wider surroundings of my life that worked to create opportunities for me to develop my identity and create long-lasting memories. Since moving away from home, not unlike most university students or young adults living alone for the first time, I have noticed my memories and feelings toward my home have shifted. This shift towards a more sentimental perspective comes from the elements of comfort that are found in the places from my past that I considered home being out of my reach now. In recounting memories of significant places of my life in America, I have found myself confronting my memories in order to come to terms with my identity that has grown since experiencing new places and replicating my comforts through the changing of places in my life.

I believed the idea to create a project of the memoir genre came from my own love of reading memoirs, but as I began my research on Midwestern identities, I found there is a deeper relation between my interest in the genre and my identity. An important distinction to set for this work is that of the region of the US I am focusing on, as the country varies greatly in terms of culture, lifestyle, language, climate, and other features between regions. My home state of Ohio lies within the Midwest region, which accounts for twelve states, and the smaller subregion of the Great Lakes. I lived in multiple cities in Northeast Ohio, specifically east of Cleveland along the shores of Lake Erie, which again poses many variances from life in central Ohio that lacks characteristics dependent on the lake. This environment provided an entanglement of urban landscape and its sprawl of suburbs and the larger natural features characteristic of the region. Phil Christman, educator, author, and Midwesterner, writes on the nuances of the region from historical, political, economic, and literary perspectives that fully portray the

complicated identity of the Midwest and those who reside within its borders. Christman’s Midwest Futures defines a trope in the Midwestern experience that I find myself following within my writing and life: the Midwest experience is boring and presents its inhabitants with countless possibilities of lives one could lead as seen in those around them. In the sixth and final plat of “Row 4: Normality and Its Discontents”, Christman concludes that the Midwest remains the setting of American stories within literature, history, and pop culture for the sake of it being productive and a gift of possibilities for life.1 In the decades of my life, both personally and within the entertainment I consumed, the narratives of the suburbs and the Midwest as a place that people look to escape in hopes of something more has been made abundantly clear. Most of the literature that I chose or was expected to read throughout my American education was set in the Midwest with the trope that Christman describes, so it is no surprise that I found myself drawn to do that same. I did just as many Midwesterners do and left home for something more fitting to me, which I have found endless happiness in, while coming to the same realization that Christman does in his book. The Midwest allows me now to look at all of the choices I could have made that would have given me entirely different lives and provides me with a great amount of appreciation to have been raised in a place so full of possibilities. The memories I experienced within my Midwestern home are the constant thread that ties together the themes of place and identity.

Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space focuses on the phenomenology of how memories and daydreaming, on which he places higher importance than the act of thinking2, are rooted in places one finds intimate. In reading his work, I began to understand the notion that the places subject to our memories, and daydreams in Bachelard’s case, work to hold together one’s conception of themselves in a protective manner. I found that Alain de Botton writes similarly on the interconnectedness of memories and identity as they pertain to architecture of places. Following his statements that one cannot summon particular aspects of themselves at will because their truest self is only presented in conditions of place that are pleasing to them from past experiences3, De Botton writes, “We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves […] Our love of home is in turn an acknowledgement of the degree to which our identity is not self-determined.”4 This idea that a person’s surroundings are intrinsically connected to their identity, if not entirely dictating it, is clear within the writing of Christman with his position that the Midwest provides an environment fit for various possibilities of lives and identity development.

Another memoir author, Rebecca Mead, explores her feelings of identity confusion between different possibilities and paths of life when she returns to her birthplace in the 1 Phil Christman, Midwest Futures (Belt Publishing, 2020), p. 94.

2 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (Beacon Press, 1969), p. 16.

3 Alain De Botton, The Architecture of Happiness (Penguin Books, 2007), p. 106.

4 Ibid., p.107.

UK after living in the US for nearly two decades. Mead describes her struggles in assuming and reassuming identities tied to both countries, as she felt she had lost the identity she previously held. Upon returning to the UK, she summarizes the feelings of confronting lost places when she writes, “I was a ghost walking through the more solid reality of the vanished years.”5 The writing process of this piece forced me to confront the ghost of my own identity that is tied to my American memories wrapped up in places I claimed as home. Though moving away from home, like Mead, was my own choice and remains one I do not regret, the feelings of loss grew more intense the longer I was away and saw life continuing through those who live in my hometown. I questioned if I was a person who could live there again and found myself imaging the various versions of my life I could have been living had I remained in Northeast Ohio and was left feeling out of place in my own imaginations. Mead notes an example of children who immigrate to a new country adopting the slang and other linguistic qualities from their new culture to create a hybrid dialect,6 but there are more adaptations that come with lifestyle shifts when experiencing a new culture and environment.

My time spent in the UK has led to me developing new traits and adopting habits and knowledge fitting of the culture here that are continuing to influencing my identity. In their book, Memory and Management of Change: Repossessing the Past, Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering study different areas and events of one’s life that are influenced by change and how significant the role of memory is in coping with these shifts. Keightley’s and Pickering’s work acknowledges the internal discourse of confronting past versions of oneself by imagining alternative futures or possibilities with the stance that, “They [imagined alternative outcomes of the past] are not exhausted by mourning chances we have foregone. They also provide ways of reconciling oneself to the changed conditions of the present in order to be able to move forward.”7 Through the process of writing my memoir-style dissertation, I have been able to confront the memories that provided me with comfort during a time of immense change within my life and to my identity, and accept a new sense of self that better fits my surroundings. The structure of my work caused there to be a disconnect between my key elements initially, but through the addition of reflective sections following groupings of locations with a common quality, I found a way to address how my themes are related. The disconnect at the start of my writing process was due in part to my lack of recognition for how the memories were working between my changing identity and sentimentality towards places of my past. By directly addressing my realization of this gap through the reflective sections, the piece came together and created an honest, authorial voice that is present in the memoir genre.

5 Rebecca Mead, Home/Land (Knopf, Borzoi Books for Penguin Random House, 2022), pg 64.

6 Ibid., p. 197-190.

7 Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering, Memory and Management of Change: Repossessing the Past

(Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017), pg 5.

When looking at the progression of this project from the original proposal compared to the final product, there has not been any major changes in the concept, rather a honing of ideas. When writing about my own experiences, I have always turned to references photographs to generate inspiration, which is another element closely related to processes of memory recall. With this in mind, I considered including photographs in the completed work throughout the entirety of its development, but ultimately decided against the idea simply for stylistic choices. However, I did create a cover page from some images that I felt captured the essence of my home using Canva to present them as a collage. The content of the writing is structured as sections following headings naming the place that is being referenced. The individual sections are organized together by common qualities, or themes, that are reflected upon within sections named after the connection that follow. These reflection sections resemble a more active voice that works to interrupt the place-oriented sections with notions of my current identity. This was something I had not originally planned to do, as I wanted to exclusively focus on the glimpses into places of the past and thought bringing in a more recent perspective might take away from that. In the present, reflective sections, I limited myself from using specific descriptions of the UK to keep the emphasis on the images of places of my past, but included qualities to convey the fact that I no longer live in my home state. As acknowledging memories helped to bring cohesion to the piece, they also made it difficult to limit myself to the length restrictions of the assignment, as well as challenged me to stick to the themes most relevant to my topic at times. On a few occasions, I found my writing straying from memories central to place when getting caught up in recalling experiences from my past. I wrote additional sections regarding places of significance to me that were not strong enough to remain in the final version, but would consider revisiting if I wanted to continue to develop this work further. My initial interests in the memoir genre have led me to create a project that I am proud of, as well as provide me with insight to my own identity that was subject to my writing. In writing this piece I made connections between elements of my past and unexpectedly found peace to move forward with growing into new versions of myself as I experience places that I can create my sense of home comfort within.

Bibliography Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space (Beacon Press, 1969) Botton, Alain De, The Architecture of Happiness, trans. by The Orian Press, Inc.(Penguin Books, 2007) Christman, Phil, Midwest Futures (Cleveland, Ohio: Belt Publishing, 2020) Keightley, Emily, and Michael Pickering, Memory and the Management of Change Repossessing the Past (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017) Mead, Rebecca, Home/Land (Knopf, Borzoi Books for Penguin Random House, 2022)

Further Reading Auge, Marc, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, trans. by John Howe (Verso, 1995) Christman, Phil, On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality, The Hedgehog Review, Fall 2017 < https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-end-of-the-end-ofhistory/articles/on-being-midwestern-the-burden-of-normality> Donohoe, Janet, Remembering Places: A Phenomenological Study of the Relationship between Memory and Place (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2014) Waldie, D.J., holy land (Norton, 2005)

A short story by Catriona Pritchard

Front cover: Title designed on Canva, design elements used from public domain. Cover image taken from a reconstruction of Miriam’s study I built in Minecraft. More information about the cover image in Reflecting On Writing Anna.

Anna

Grief is a percolating emotion, a damp cold which seeps into the Wilsons’ red sandstone, Glasgow home. It creeps under the cracks in the door frame, leaks in through the gap in the sash windows, and soaks the family’s clothes in a bitter chill. The absence of a mother is filled by a silence which occupies every waking thought and every sleeping dream. Miriam Wilson’s coughs, which used to echo throughout the fabric of the house, are replaced by the footsteps of her daughter, Anna, who treads down the hall. The century old ceiling is too high, reverberating the looming crescendo of her movements like a snare drum. The old, faded wallpaper reflects all the fingerprints and observations of her childhood – a tableau of her restless memories. It is as if the whole room is responding to her every move, past, present and future, until she reaches the end. Then it slicks back into the night’s shadow to make way for her mother’s study.

This room is forbidden. It is an unspoken rule because it need not be said outright. The study is preserved. A jam too good to taste, a tongue would only spoil its integrity. The study is a shrine which would not be graced by a candle but darkened. To see it would only be to impose your eyeballs on it. To touch it would be to make it a different room entirely. The study should remain a time capsule, a fragment of the past never to catch up with the present. We must not rewrite history. That would be an excellent maxim, if Anna’s hand weren’t already grasping the doorknob.

History is never as past as it might seem. Especially when you can touch it.

The cold is lessened somehow. Woody nature senses the mourner’s empty feeling and numbs it, maybe offering them some comfort. The heat from a hand enriches and enlivens the organic material in turn. A greeting that neither party is sure they understand.

Anna raises her hand from the wooden doorknob, pausing for a moment. She is certain of her aim to enter the study but she gives herself a second to opt out anyway. She knows that her father will not be pleased. She might not be ready to see the room yet, and it may not be prepared for her. She cannot remember the last time she was in there. In her hesitation she considers how she might feel if the study cannot show her what she was looking for. Doubts surface in the pause. She could be repulsed by secrets that she would rather not uncover, or disappointed by a lack thereof. However, this overbearing silence cannot be disrupted until somebody in this house finally makes a noise again, a noise which does not belong to grief.

The creak of the unoiled door hinge leaves the hair on Anna’s spine standing on end.

She stops, allowing adrenaline to course through her arms and surge in her toes. Her pulse and intake of breath quicken. She closes her eyes and focuses on this feeling, of being alive and disrupting the stasis. The Wilsons need to move forward. If her father cannot take that first step, Anna must do it herself. After resetting her breathing to a normal rate, she immerses herself in reality again and enters the study.

Moonlight creeps in through ill-fitting curtains, casting shadow on a large haunting entity by the window which looms in such a way that makes lighting the room a matter of urgency. The worst of Anna’s imagination stirs and she does not know if it is herself or the room which is taunting her. Blindly, she strikes the walls with the tips of her fingernails, clawing the surface in search of a switch.

Paper, paper, wood, something else, something brassy, yes, she clicks.

The lamplight that illuminates the room cannot be best described by that verb. It shines in a dim orange glow. Anna looks at the room from left to right, acknowledging her mother’s desk with its smattering of ballpoint pens and curled papers. She realises that her “ghost” by the window is, in fact, a pile of coats, satchels, and handbags atop an old chair. There is a coat stand — of course, empty, except for an eccentric hat which Anna cannot recall her mother ever wearing. Despite this, it is familiar.

“Can I try it on, mummy, please?”

“Aww, it's too big. It would cover up your beautiful wee face!”

A breeze draws one of the papers on the desk to the floor. Somehow, Anna’s presence has stirred up the stale air. She picks it up gingerly, still self-conscious about disturbing her mother's study. In a manner of speaking, it is the first time she has made contact in months.

Breaching the grave’s barrier through ink on paper might be the most legitimate communication she will have with her mother from now on.

The paper contains a mundane grocery list, it is no curiosity-quenching elixir for a young mourner. Temptation exceeding all her inhibitions, Anna launches into the papers strewn across the desk and discovers a variety of titles for articles her mum was working on before she died. ‘The Origins of Gothic Literature: From History to Folktale’ ‘The Modern Goth in Society’

‘Why Did Miriam Wilson Think She Could Write This Damned Paper?’

Anna isn’t in the least amused by this. Memories of her mother’s self-deprecating jokes are not enough to feed the hole in her heart. Leaning on the desk in despair and pushing her legs forward, she catches her toes on a pile of folders on the floor underneath. She shrinks to the ground and spreads their contents out on the carpet. The papers cover a broad range of history, her mother’s notes-to-self littered along her vast trajectory of research. Anna devours the words on each page, drinking in the discovery of this academic side to her mother. However, her quest for knowledge exhausts her energy, and her eyes struggle against the dimness of the room. She finds herself drifting dozily from consciousness. The patterns begin to shift on the textured wallpaper just beyond her focus. The landscapes of Miriam’s papers themselves begin to blur until words seem to balloon on the page, each new letter requiring more of Anna’s attention than the last. They become her surroundings, enveloping all else. Her mother’s study is effectively dissolved in favour of the contents of her work.

Anna becomes aware of a feeling of warmth. Her feet start to feel heavy, or that they may be touching something heavy. Her eyes burn. She blinks to wet their surface, but the dry feeling does not disappear. She tries again but she cannot dispel the sting. Convinced that she must have dust in her eyes, she rubs them. Upon regaining her sight, this hypothesis is disproven – the cause of the pain is a surrounding cloud of smoke. She gets to her feet to uncover the source, panicking that she may have carelessly kindled one of her mother’s papers, but she cannot see the papers or the study anymore. Now that she is standing, another sensation piques her concern – a moistness on her right heel. She lifts it up to inspect it, recoiling at the sight of blood. She scours the floor for traces of a sharp object that could have wounded her but she realises that she can walk without pain. The blood is not her own. The soft carpet of the study has been replaced with polished stone, smeared with the red stain of human suffering. The sound of chaos deafens her and the smell of death infiltrates her nostrils.

Anna cannot believe what she sees but she takes it in regardless. Straight ahead, a family is hastily evacuating a house. They run screaming, carrying their smallest children, shielding their eyes in an attempt to prevent them from witnessing the gore that lines the street. Their sprint is frantic, indicating a lack of preparation. Uniformed men with weapons storm their abandoned home, stealing clothing, pots, and wall hangings. Another swathe arrives with pickaxes, cutting away the stone and cement, dismantling the building and loading it off in carts. It becomes increasingly apparent to Anna that she is observing the systematic destruction of an ancient city. She turns and watches as a marble staircase behind her endures its enforced removal by frenzied thieves. As Anna tries to make sense of the spectacle, an uptick in adrenaline speeds up her body’s processes. Her heart beats against her ribcage and her mind races. Yet, despite her increasing panic, she has a strange sensation of being somehow detached from the horror unfolding around her.

The scene is apocalyptic. Fires which had been warming homes, are now burning wooden roofs to cinders. Majestic buildings are vandalised, some to rubble, and the magnificent statues which adorned them lie discarded and beheaded. The sight of tumbled pillars and lone archways produces a pang of familiarity. Anna recalls a family visit to Rome, during which she had marvelled at the beauty and longevity of the Foro Romano. She had so many questions on that trip – what happened to those stunning buildings, why were they ruins? She pauses, wondering if this might be where she is, and if any of the edifices in front of her are those same ones she has seen before.

A shrill scream forces Anna into action. She calls out in an attempt to reach the person attached to the scream, hoping they might help her to make sense of her surroundings. This proves futile as her voice is lost among the throng of wails and cries around her. Some smoke clears to reveal a woman kneeling on the ground, cowering in prayer. Anna squats beside her, hoping to discern something from the words she speaks, but she is unable to understand her tongue. When Anna musters the courage to ask her question, the woman doesn't respond, continuing to beg for her salvation in her unknown language. "I don't understand. Please, I don't understand..." Anna trails off, the smog stinging her eyes.

With her vision impaired, she treads an unwieldy path through the chaos. Within a few paces, she rounds a corner and finds herself at swordpoint. The sword charges through her body. She shrieks and recoils but she feels no pain and cannot see a wound. A man directly behind her clutches his abdomen and falls to the ground, mortally wounded. Her attacker hastens onward to push his blade into the next oncoming foe. A second attacker slices his sword through her arm and straight into the neck of another victim. Again, her arm is unscathed.

“How am I not dead? Make this stop! Whatever this is, please!” Confused at not being afflicted by the weapons, Anna locates a nearby shard and attempts to force it into her skin. She discovers she cannot. Repeating the experiment does not change the outcome. She runs straight at a ruined wall and finds herself standing on the other side, unharmed. Further attempts still do not result in the usual bodily expectation.

“I’m not real,” Anna whimpers, slumping to the ground. Lost for other ideas, she curls up in despair. She shields her view of the conflict with her hair and fixes her little remaining sight on the ground, covering her ears with her hands to deafen herself from the horror. She shrinks back into the calm recesses of her mind and remains there, quiet, small, dormant, until a suggestion of stillness seeps into her senses.

She gradually begins to trust in this, removing her hands from her ears to listen for changes to her environment. What she hears can only be described as despair. The sound of sobbing echoes through stone walls, which does little to encourage Anna that she is safe.

However, she soon discerns that the noise comes from only a single weeping soul, and the fracturing and splintering of buildings. statues and bodies have passed.

Anna looks up and recognises that, though her feet still touch stone, she is no longer in the midst of a city brought to ruin but inside the shelter of a cave. Candles illuminate a desk which has been carved from the wall. At the chair in front slumps the source of the weeping: a bearded man wrapped in a red swathe. His bitter, passionate feelings vex Anna’s own. Her stomach reels in agony from the familiarity of his pained cry, though she does not know the exact cause of his grief. She tries to say something but no words come out due to the dryness of her throat. She readies herself to try again but she is interrupted by a gust of wind that blows in through the cave window. It disrupts a paper that was resting somewhere beyond Anna’s vision and floats it down to her feet.

Saint Jerome (410 AD: Visigoths’ Sack of Rome): ‘The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken.’

He says he wrote this in tears - prob in his cave next to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem? → modern day Palestine/West Bank. Personal connection to Rome - Italian living abroad.

‘The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken’ - quoted and translated so many times.

Why? -

It’s theatrical - has an impact.

-

Dramatic paradox – an invincible hero has been defeated.

-

Therefore, the Sack of Rome becomes a legendary event.

Relates to my article because?

The Visigoths, barbarians led by Alaric, attacked a capital which had prev defeated them + they won. The historical legend is the stuff of folktale, even today. Folktales become the start of the Gothic Literary tradition →creating interesting link between the Visigoth era and the tales we continue to enjoy.

So, consider beginning article with quote from Saint Jerome, Miriam!!

Anna stares at the paper in disbelief. How did her mother’s paper get here? She pinches her skin, unsure if she has just imagined it. Did she just witness the Sack of Rome? She wonders if she is in Bethlehem now, and if the man in front of her is Saint Jerome. Curiosity makes her go to him and lean over his shoulder. She finds that he is writing something, but she cannot make out the words. They are written in his tongue, not Miriam’s. Anna turns back to her previous spot in search of her piece of paper, but it has disappeared.

The cave echoes with a particularly wretched sob from Jerome. Forgetting about her immateriality, Anna goes to comfort him but her hand goes straight through him. “Sorry,” she mutters, unsure if he can hear her. The silence that follows confirms he cannot. It feels like a form of sensory deprivation. In Rome, Anna had felt so alive with her adrenaline coursing through her. Now she feels the opposite, like a haunting. Not a dead presence, but an unborn one. She recalls Scrooge’s journey in A Christmas Carol and finds some resonance. She too is unable to change the past but is forced to view its spectacle regardless. Except, she has no spirits to guide her. She has to mediate her own path.

Anna gingerly passes through the wall of the cave and out into the courtyard of the Church of the Nativity. From outside, she peers back through Saint Jerome’s window and observes the contorted folds of grief which escape his hands. Here is a picture of pain which was not designed to be witnessed, a private moment. Anna, understanding this, moves away from the window and leaves him be.

Walking towards the peaceful trees which line the courtyard’s perimeter, Anna’s eyes pool with tears. In all the pain and destruction and confusion, to see that nature remains intact moves her. In her gratitude for their presence, she joins them in the shade they provide. She observes some monks as they pass by, their heads covered and their garments notably different from those of Saint Jerome’s. They carry a book of scripture, which they appear to be discussing in hushed tones. Anna strains to listen to their whispered language and concludes that they are native to Palestine, as their words sound very different to the Romans’. She wonders at the contents of their tome, and how many lives will have been affected by them.

Somehow, as if Anna had willed it, a sheet of paper floats from the book and lands at her feet. The writing on the page, however, is Miriam’s: Churches, castles, and monuments litter the settings of Gothic literature. Mediaeval history compounds to create fantastic locations for the supernatural to occur - see Lewis’ “The Monk” and Radcliffe’s “The Italian”. Why? Is it spirituality, grandiosity, or aestheticism? Traditions carried over from oral histories? All of the above? There’s far too much I could bring to this article.

Anna sighs, wishing her mother had shared some of her reading list with her. She is sure that she would have enjoyed the stories she described. She looks up at the church in front of her, considering whether Miriam would have thought it otherworldly enough to make a good Gothic setting. At first glance, the building is not particularly creepy or eerie. The white stonework is pristine and the architecture is not Gothic in its design. It is inviting, in a way which old churches back home are not, with their looming heights and dark and dingy walls.

However, upon closer inspection, Anna thinks that the bell tower and its barred windows could be the perfect dwelling for a phantom. It even has a skeletal structure, its white pillars and arches give the impression of interconnected bones and joints. Perhaps, when the bell tolls, a spiritual connection is established between the holiness of the site and the spirits of those who passed away near it. The hoot of a nearby owl causes Anna to jump, stirring her back to the present moment. She had been so deep in these musings, she had lost sight of reality.

Looking up, she searches for the bird, but it seems to be a truly absent presence. Bethlehem’s twilight sky is empty, save for ghosts and legends.

Anna wonders if her mother was trying to acknowledge that humanity likes to adapt real history into something fantastical. She thinks of what she saw of the Sack of Rome, and the Romans’ defeat. The evicted family, the praying woman, and the weeping Jerome were all real.

They were not cast in a mythologised image of glory and dignity, they were suffering as humans do in loss and grief. Yet, according to Miriam, Gothic tales seek to explore those settings where something greater might dwell – places which transcend the ordinary in the appeal of their appearances, and their ties to history and religion.

Night begins to fall and a haunting mist curls around the landscape, obscuring Anna’s view until she can no longer see the church. The air temperature drops, provoking a shiver. She pulls the collar of her pyjama top close to her neck and wraps her arms around her body, teeth chattering. Recalling a technique she has practised before, she inhales, imagining that she is breathing in warmth. It doesn’t take the shiver away, but it helps her to focus her attention on comfort in this unfamiliar landscape. With her vision impaired by the swirling, encompassing weather, it is near impossible to decipher where she is. All she can see below her is dewy grass, swithering in the strong wind. She cannot remember if there was any grass before, in the courtyard. The gust screams white noise as it rushes in Anna’s ears, overwhelming her senses and disturbing her understanding of where she stands in relation to her environment. She stumbles onward, hands on her ears, searching for a light or a sign, but she is so disorientated that she finds herself meandering and slipping along the wet terrain.

The intense wind attacks the mist and clears it quickly, revealing a thick expanse of trees. Anna latches onto the nearest one for balance, embracing it to steady herself, and becomes unsteady again when she realises she was able to touch it. Recovering, she feels around the tree to get a sense of it. She is material enough to hug it, but when she tries to climb it or stick her hand into the bark, she disappears through it as she has before in Rome and in Saint Jerome’s room. She tries to etch her initials into the tree with a sharp twig, but the mark she leaves just flakes off. She thinks of the wooden door knob of her mother’s study and the comfort of its touch. This tree is not the same: it is unwieldy, refusing to surrender to her grasp, and to her preconceived notions about her immateriality. The difference is oddly consoling.

That this tree has its autonomy, and will not alter itself for her, makes it more real. Its staticity feels so true that everything around it becomes less authentic by comparison. She loses herself in this thought for a while, trying to figure out why it is so familiar and yet, not at all.

Unable to resolve her deja vu, Anna finally turns away from the tree to make sense of the surroundings beyond it. The density and darkness of the foliage suggests a forest. The sky is bright and clear, the constellations beaming down from an incomprehensible number of lightyears away. The lack of light pollution is a shock for Anna, who has spent most of her nights in the orange swathe of Glasgow’s overlit urban landscape. She watches a shooting star pass by and makes a wish, discovering yet again how simple it is to lose track of time within a forest. If someone were to tell her that she has passed a hundred years here, she does not reckon that she would be surprised.

A rustling disrupts the quiet and Anna shifts her vision, observing as a small gathering of people congregates in a clearing in front of her. The area is sheltered from the elements by the swooping boughs of fir trees, while fallen branches litter the ground below. The youngest of the crowd gather these in their arms, some also collecting handfuls of dry moss. Anna watches as a man rubs a long branch on the moss until it generates enough friction to spark a flame. Remembering the burning buildings she just witnessed in Rome, she shields her eyes, but she quickly realises that what occurs before her now is the construction of a campfire.

Appreciating the source of heat, she approaches the group and perches on the end of a log, her presence going unnoticed by the numerous eyes around her.

The group takes turns to speak, recounting stories to each other in a Germanic tradition which Anna can vaguely recognise, though she cannot understand the tongue. It seems the assembly is sharing folktales. The children around the fire lean in close, their eyes wide and mouths gaping open. Encouraged by the atmosphere, she shares her own tale. Embers flourish into the air around her, while the party gaze on into the fire, unaware of her presence among them:

“Ghosts are not the imaginary spirits of the dead,” she says, the flames licking light up under her chin, “They are real.” She stands, pacing around her captive, unstirring audience.

“When someone we love dies, the piece of ourselves that we gave to them fades away too.

Without my “Miriam’s daughter” piece, I have no idea who I am anymore. I’m not even here. I can’t change anything, I can’t be like I used to be. Everything just stays exactly the same. It’s like everything I see is preserved, everything I touch is a shadow, everything I feel is stale. I don’t know what my purpose is when I’m less of a daughter. A person my father can’t connect to. A person my friends don’t understand. A person crawling through times and spaces, but never belonging. How can an empty being belong anywhere? When I searched for my mother at home, I found files on an entire part of her life she didn’t share with me. They didn’t bring me any closer to her, they just widened the gap. The possibility of understanding what her research meant to her is gone. What am I meant to do with all those scraps of memories? What am I but a ghost? None of you hear me, none of you see me, none of you can even connect with me. But I’m here, and I’m watching, and I know that you are all human. That you steal, and ruin, and burn. That you pray, and create, and love. That you are all living legends, haunted by the people you could have been, and those you have lost. I say that I’m haunting you, but, where I come from, I’m alive and you are all long since dead. We are all ghosts. As I stand here, we haunt each other.”

Anna drifts among the group, lingering over them, trembling. Her fingers hover above their shoulders, desperate for some sort of contact. She rests in front of the fire a while, making complex patterns with her hands, projecting the appearances of eerie creatures from the folktales shared around her. Despite the mastery of her puppetry, no one responds to the images she casts. The lack of reaction was expected, but it leaves her bitterly dejected nonetheless. An overwhelm of agony ignites in her stomach, the force pulling her towards the campfire with a desire for destruction. She tries to remove a crucial bark but it refuses to budge.

With reckless abandon, she lurches her hand into the flames, marvelling at the sensation of burning without injury. There is something frosty about scorching without marking, something absent, ghostly. She stands in the flames, admiring how they lick her feet while causing her no harm. Her head rolls upwards to the night sky and its constellations, their beauty penetrating an isolating feeling deep within. Her gaze still fixed upwards, she spins round, lulling herself to the rhythm of tales soon to be interpolated by new generations. A dissociation looms over her, the space between her presence and that of the storytellers too large to comprehend, too dizzying. The smoke fogs and blurs her surroundings until the people and their words become distorted, the scenery derealising itself. Somewhere in the mix, a singular paper flutters past Anna’s eyes:

Gothic Literature and Its Relationship to Folklore:

All Anna can grasp is the title before the paper disappears, melting to ash and ember. A pang of despair burns in her heart, the intrigue of the paper’s premise lost to the flames. A tear rolls down her cheek as she watches the fire steadily dim and go out. The campfire logs which Anna is standing on give way, forcing her to jump to safety. As she does so, a new day dawns.

She lands on a pavement, in a bustling and noisy street. People march through her in a hurry to get to work, disorientating her as she tries to find her bearings. Despite the luminescence of the sun in the sky, an unpleasant, gusty wind returns. It directs tendrils of some new stench towards Anna’s nose, making her feel faint. She lurches forward, finding some purchase on a stone wall. Her hands stabilise her but, when she pushes harder in an attempt to keep herself awake, she finds her fingers slipping through.

Through sheer willpower, she manages not to succumb to the putrid odour, which contains notes of fermented seawater and dung. Concentrating on her other senses, she observes two black iron gates in front of her, adorned with gold-leaf floral patterns. Their extravagance exists in a stark contrast to the repugnant smell. The letters “SP” appear at the top of each gate. Anna has no idea what “SP” means but, catching a glimpse of the thick trees which sprout up beyond the threshold, she decides to enter in hope of discovering a more appealing aroma.

As she breaches the gates, she sees an array of wildflowers. Primrose and daffodils bloom in grassy islands which harbour gravestones. The gravel path Anna walks circumnavigates these monuments. She squints at their inscriptions as she passes by, longing for their details to reveal a sense of where she is. She feels that she must be within city walls – only a city could smell so awful and, yet, look so elegant. She thinks of crossing from the path to investigate the graves for clues, but it makes her uneasy. Her own ghostliness makes her proximity to the deceased a morbid and existential concept. The lines between life and death feel particularly thin as Anna wonders about the potential for spirits wandering through the graveyard, but she tries not to dwell on superstition.

A flurry of paper floats down from the sky, distracting Anna from this train of thought.

She looks up but cannot find an obvious source or indication of where the tumbling notes might have dropped from. As the individual sheets land, they form a clear route along the gravel path, leading Anna straight onwards to a circular tomb and then off to the right. She

follows them, gathering each paper from the ground as she walks. They are more of Miriam’s notes. They appear to pick up from where the one which had burned in the flames had left off: Much of Gothic Literature comes from European folklore. E.g. The mythological vampire — John Polidori wrote “The Vampyre” + accidentally altered the course of the creature’s history in the Anglophone canon →he invented the aristocratic vampire trope.

“The Vampyre” = part of the Villa Diodati literary competition — see also Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”. While Polidori was creating a revamped vampire (great phrase!) Shelley introduced a Monster →outcast by his own creator, challenges reader’s perception of monstrosity. Both writers effectively produced a new folklore. Generated inspiration for more literature — mention “Dracula”! Themes continue to appear in today’s popular media. E.g., “Wednesday” TV show? “Twilight” novels — Stephanie Meyer?????

Clear transition between use of “Goth” in 410 AD and today’s meaning. The Visigoths: thought of/ stereotyped as barbarians. Now: “Goth” = celebration of inner darkness. Outcast from society? ✗Empowered transgressor within community of people who feel and dress the same way! ✓ Clive Bloom — ‘the longest lasting influence in popular culture, reworked and re-experienced by each new generation looking for meaning in a world that devalues the individual’.

(Can I tell my audience to reclaim their individuality + embrace their inner barbarian? Too unprofessional???) … Got carried away — started my conclusion. Whoops! Still have more to say about Villa Diodati. I will restructure later. Sorry, editor! (AKA, future me *groan*) Villa Diodati - Polidori + Shelley read “Fantasmagoriana” — book of European folktales. Thought to be a key influence.

Maximiliaan Van Woudenberg — ‘Fantasmagoriana and its variants [...] are best conceptualised as a travelling text: a cosmopolitan text that travels across geographical, linguistic, and cultural, boundaries’.

Anna looks up from this final sheet of paper and muses over what she has just read. She flips through the sheaf she has gathered up, returning to the different ideas conveyed within it.

The way Miriam discusses the Villa Diodati writing circle portrays it almost like a religious event. Anna wonders why they had never spoken about it much, it seems like it was so important to her. She had always heard titbits about her mother’s research in passing, but for the first time she feels she understands what it was that gripped her so much about the literature she studied. She wonders about Miriam’s call to “embrace your inner barbarian” and what doing so entails. Is it something you would consciously do, or could you just pick up a

copy of Frankenstein and experience it that way? Why had she never “embraced her inner barbarian” with her mother as a bonding experience? Anna is sure she would have enjoyed it.

There is an iron bench just in front of Anna, which she sits on as she questions what it means to unleash some sort of creature within. The coo of a nearby pigeon wrenches her from her thoughts, however. She looks about her and notices a thick, leather bound book resting next to her. Its title is written in a decorative font on the spine: Fantasmagoriana Avec Appendix. She stares at the book in awe for a few moments. Flipping back to her mother’s papers, she rereads – “a travelling text: a cosmopolitan text that travels across geographical, linguistic, and cultural, boundaries”.

Desperate to examine the “travelling text”, Anna picks it up and departs from the bench, seeking to check its publication date against those on a gravestone. The closest one is a pillar with bevelled edges, which reaches Anna’s waist height. She kneels in front of it, reading the inscription:

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN Author of A Vindication of the rights of Woman Born 27th April 1759 Died 10th September 1797 The book’s title page reveals a first issue of 1812, fifteen years after Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s death. “What year am I in just now, then? What country am I in?

England?” Anna muses. She looks back at the book. “In Mum’s note, it said that this text is supposed to be travelling through place and culture. I guess that makes it a bit like me.”

As Anna flicks through the book’s pages, she discovers a diary note embedded inside: I would really like to visit London with Anna and George. I’ve never taken Anna to any of my favourite sites before. Would she visit Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave in St Pancras Gardens with me?

“This is where Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of the author of “Frankenstein” used to be buried.

Now she’s buried somewhere else to be with her daughter and her husband, but this is where young Mary Shelley would come to visit her when she was here. It’s an important literary sightsee!

And it’s less of a trek from the train station than where she’s buried now!”

That’ll be too complicated to explain, won’t it?

“Mum,” Anna breathes, “I would’ve gone with you. Of course I would’ve gone with you. Frankenstein obviously mattered a lot to you.” She gazes in agony at the paper for a few moments, thinking on the trip to London that could have been if everything was different.

Looking back up at the gravestone, she says, “I ended up coming here anyway in the end.”

Anna’s head clouds with thoughts. Her grief for her own mother has led her to where the author of Miriam’s favourite book grieved for her mother. It’s too many generations and too many mothers to keep track of. She clutches onto Fantasmagoriana and hugs herself tightly into the gravestone. In the shelter of shared grief, Anna embodies the spirits of four different women combined. The emotional weight inflates a hole in Anna’s heart that, only moments ago, had felt like a manageable burden. The ache swells, rising from within, uncontainable. Imaginings of futures that can never be taunt Anna’s mind until the torment of loss, in all its upheaval, flows freely out of her. She weeps cathartically for her people. For all the motherless daughters.

When she tries to open her eyes again, the salt of her tears has stuck her eyelashes together like glue. She pulls her hands up to them and rubs them dry, blinking hard to regain her usual vision. It is dark. At first she thinks that night must have fallen in the graveyard, but she cannot see the outline of any gravestones, or smell any organic scents. Instead, she smells sweat and hairspray. The floor she sits on is a dark linoleum. There is a song playing in the distance, the vibrations of the drum beat spread through her body. She looks down for the copy of Fantasmagoriana, but she no longer holds it.

Anna gets up and travels towards the source of the sound. It becomes increasingly clear that she is in some kind of nightclub. She passes an empty desk with a cash box on top of it before reaching a door. It has a small ring window which allows her to peek into the room behind it. A colourful strobe light illuminates a room full of people dressed in black. They dance in a way Anna has never seen before. There is no coordination. Limbs flail, feet twist, and hips shake, but not all at once and not in any sort of unison: everyone dances independently, however they choose to do so. Something about the crowd’s harmonious lack of harmony combined with the music’s overblown synthesiser provides an ethereal atmosphere.

Watching the dance floor crowd lose themselves in self-expression, Anna thinks of all the other emotions she has witnessed: the ferociousness of the Visigoths fighting their persecutors, the loud grieving of Saint Jerome for his people, and the passion of a community performing tales of triumph and tragedy. In the graveyard in St Pancras, next to young Mary’s

mother’s tomb, she supposes she began to feel something of a similar intensity for herself, encouraged by her mother’s writing.

With an eagerness to see what this new situation has to offer, Anna pushes open the door. She walks towards the throng, passing the bar on her way in. A cluster of tall men with styled hair and heavy boots chat as they wait in the queue. Already slightly intoxicated, their stances are a bit unstable. One of them sways into Anna as she passes. She flinches as he makes contact with her body instead of crossing through her.

“Oops! Sorry, hen!”

Anna freezes, realising both that the man can see her, and he has a Glasgow accent. “You can see me?” She asks, but her voice is drowned out by the music, and the man has already turned back to his friends. A feeling of self-consciousness consumes her as she remembers she is wearing her pyjamas. She searches for a toilet sign and, spying one behind the DJ set, weaves through the crowd to get there. She splashes water on her face and stares at herself in the mirror, somehow feeling more out of place here than she has anywhere else she has been tonight.

A toilet flushes and a young woman dressed in lace with a jet black mullet emerges from a cubicle. She sees Anna’s expression and approaches her with a friendly smile, “You alright, hon? I love your pyjamas.”

After feeling like a shadow of herself for so long, the warmth of being perceived by another soul bristles. The stasis of mourning melts away under the gaze of this new person, the first to look upon her in this new chapter of her life. In the stark glare of the bathroom’s strip light, Anna’s cheeks turn bright red. For a few moments, she finds herself incapable of speech.

When she regains use of her vocal chords, she manages to say, “I don’t really fit in much, do I?” The young woman laughs, “Sake hen, this is not the first time I’ve seen someone wear their pyjamas to a Goth nightclub, and it certainly won’t be the last.” Anna has no idea how to respond to this. Feeling completely out of her depth, she remains in a stunned silence. The woman helpfully introduces herself as “Raquel. And you are?”

Anna returns the introduction. Impulsively, she asks, “This might sound crazy, but what year is it?”

“I know, time keeps flying by, doesn’t it! I can’t believe it’s already 2024!” Raquel performs a hip shake, “This girl is ready to dance! You coming with?”

Anna looks back at the mirror, still feeling incredibly self-conscious. “I don’t know if I can go back out there like this.”

“Ahh, okay, let me see what I can do,” Raquel produces a can of hairspray and a black lipstick from her handbag, “Let me style you a bit.”

Raquel expertly sections Anna’s hair and sprays it into insubordination, turning it almost as wild and volume heavy as her own. She then takes the lipstick and artistically draws a spider web on Anna’s cheek, before passing it to her to put on her own lips. Anna loves what she sees in the mirror, pyjamas and all. They laugh together as they leave the bathroom. Anna comfortably joins Raquel and her friends on the dancefloor, finally feeling like part of the community of people she has found herself in.

The synthesiser is consuming. Even without drinking any alcohol, Anna finds herself absorbed in the sound. She watches the others dance and copies some of their movements – bobbing her head and swinging her hips from side to side. The song’s lyrics are repetitive: I hear you calling, Marian, Across the water, across the waves, I hear you calling, Marian, Can you hear me calling you to save me, Save me, save me from the night?

Anna identifies with the song’s feeling, relating to the invocation of an emotional closeness compounded by a physical distance. Her arms begin to sway as if in a ritual to summon the absent Marian closer. The beast of her grief unleashes itself from its cage to the steady lull of the rhythm, exorcising itself into the vapour of the smoke machine. She makes plans to meet Raquel and her friends again next week.

When Anna finally returns home, she has to be careful not to wake her father. Any explanation of her activities on this night would be too unbelievable to convince him of their truth – regardless of what version of events she spun. She makes a desperate attempt to remove the lipstick stain on her cheek in the bathroom sink and tiptoes back to bed, stretching over the creakiest of the landing’s floorboards. Turning her bedside lamp on for one last assurance that

she has finally made it home safe, she spots a copy of Fantasmagoriana on her duvet, with an inscription from her mother inside it:

To Anna, May the wild creature within ye be forever set free.

Lots of love,

Mum x

References

‘The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken’.

This translation of Saint Jerome’s famous quote is probably the most frequent, but there are other variants. The BBC translated it as appears in Anna in the following article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11066461 [accessed 24 April 2024].

Other versions include small differences, for example: ‘the city that had captured the whole world was itself taken captive’. This translation appears in: Lucy Grig, ‘Deconstructing the Symbolic City: Jerome As Guide to Late Antique Rome’, Papers of the British School at Rome, 80 (2012), 125–143 (p. 131), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068246212000074.

‘the longest lasting influence in popular culture, reworked and re-experienced by each new generation looking for meaning in a world that devalues the individual’.

Clive Bloom, ‘From Horace Walpole to the Divine Marquis De Sade’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Gothic Origins, ed. by Clive Bloom, (Cham: Springer Nature, 2021), p. 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84562-9 1.

‘Fantasmagoriana and its variants [...] are best conceptualised as a travelling text: a cosmopolitan text that travels across geographical, linguistic, and cultural, boundaries’.

Maximiliaan Van Woudenberg, ‘The Variants and Transformations of Fantasmagoriana: Tracing a Travelling Text to The Byron–Shelley Circle’, Romanticism, 20 (2014), 306–320 (p.

308), https://doi.org/10.3366/rom.2014.0194.

‘I hear you calling, Marian [...] save me from the night?’

Sisters of Mercy, ‘Marian (Version)’, from First and Last and Always, (Merciful Release, 1985).

Reflecting On Writing Anna

The concept for Anna germinated from a sleepless witching hour in the Summer of 2020, before I started University. I simply could not relax and drift off until I learned where the word “Goth” came from. I found myself with my nose in a dusty children’s encyclopaedia which had not been removed from my shelf in years, and the information it gave about the Visigoth civilisation and their successful Sack of Rome were not enough to satisfy my desire to know more. The question, “What does Goth mean?” grew throughout the first three years of my English and Creative Writing course – burning a hole in my curiosity as my interest in Gothic literature developed. I read Dracula and Frankenstein, was inspired by the haunting philosophies of Mark Fisher and Julia Kristeva, and developed a rapid onset obsession with Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft. Naturally, when I had to choose a dissertation topic, I knew that investigating the Gothic was going to be my main focus.

When I began researching, I discovered that what constitutes “Gothic” is extremely difficult to narrow down. The term can be used in relation to Germanic Goth tribes, Gothic architecture, Gothic literature, and the Goth subculture which developed in the 1980s.

Opening The Art of Darkness – The History of Goth, John Robb writes: ‘The art of darkness has been with us for centuries because each generation has had to deal with its blues’.1 The story

1

John Robb, The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth, (Glasgow: Louder Than War Books, 2023), p. 1.

I ultimately produced attempts to reflect this idea. The thread that links the various definitions of “Goth” which have been used over time is an anthropocentric one. The term has transitioned to refer to a class of people; an aesthetic by which people construct their buildings; a style in which people write; and a genre of music that people produce and enjoy. The only one of these Gothic contexts I decided not to focus on in my research was Gothic architecture. I made this choice after reading a footnote from Alfred E. Longueil : ‘Its use [...] as a term in architecture I have not tried to chronicle, because it is there part of a different and highly specialized vocabulary’.2 Longeuil’s distinction between a technical definition of Gothic and a literary one seemed sensible, so I adopted the same logic for myself. As such, any reference to Gothic architecture in Anna has been influenced by descriptions of setting in Gothic novels, where the aesthetic of darkness remains a quintessential part of the experience.

Having decided which Gothic contexts I wanted to explore in my story, I devised a plan for the plot. I would create a character who would travel through time from the Visigoths’ attack on Rome, to a sharing of Gothic folklore, to a site of significance to Gothic Literature, and, finally, to a present day Gothic nightclub. Originally, I thought this character would be a researcher of Gothic Literature, but an academic would be aware of each of these contexts already. I needed to introduce a new person to a Gothic world, someone who did not already have an answer to the question, “What does Goth mean?” The character I developed instead was Anna, the child of my original character concept. When Anna’s story begins, her mother,

Alfred E. Longueil, ‘The Word “Gothic” in Eighteenth Century Criticism, Modern Language Notes, 38.8 (1923), 453–460 (p. 454), https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2915232.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4877ebc82288c6321a2babbbe6cfad6c&ab _segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1 [accessed 25 April 2024].

2

Miriam, has recently died and left her Gothic research behind. This provokes Anna’s journey into the Gothic, in an endeavour to uncover more about her mother, and, in her absence, find out more about her through her work.

Because of the historical nature of my story, it was important to me that I tried to maintain a level of accuracy in covering the locations Anna visited. I felt a need to observe places from different angles in order to capture them authentically. I went on a number of pilgrimages as I was researching and two of the locations I visited, Mary Wollstonecraft’s original grave in London and The Foro Romano in Rome, made it into the final story. I took plenty of photographs in both places so I had points of reference when I came back to writing later. Each of these sites has a memorable atmosphere. There are bodies buried in both of them, but they are neither bleak nor morbid. They are spiritual, containing legacies of human history which you can physically connect to just by walking through them. I would say the same for Glasgow’s Necropolis, which does not explicitly feature in the finished story but remained a helpful local source of inspiration for me. Going there feels like travelling through time because you make your way through the modern city centre, only to find yourself at one of the oldest remaining sites in Glasgow. Once you reach the cathedral and begin climbing upwards through the necropolis, time freezes and you become an observer of the mediaeval city below. Going to these different sites helped me to situate Anna within the different places and time periods she travels to, in which she can witness the activity of others but cannot contribute herself – effectively rendering her incapable of altering the course of history.

However, when I began to write, I quickly ran into a problem with this plan. Anna was not at all keen to comply with my rules. As a complex eighteen year old who had recently lost her mother, she desperately wanted to make contact, trying to speak to people and investigating the objects around her. The story’s ghostly imagery crept in as a form of compromise, so that Anna’s attempts to connect with her environment had some small consequences. As I made her an immaterial object within the plot, she could choose to walk through walls instead of doors, or stand in dangerous places without coming to harm. These alterations caused Anna to experience herself haunting the landscapes she found herself in. Her grief already made her feel like a husk of her former self, ‘an empty being’.3 Becoming a “ghost” helped her to exorcise that feeling, in a way that I had not really anticipated when I was planning the story. I had wanted to resolve some of Anna’s grief, but I was unsure as to how I was going to display it. I see in all of my characters a tendency to pick their own path, and transitioning to a ghost and back to a young woman again was Anna’s chosen trajectory in her emotional journey.

As a writer, the way I think of ghosts changed when I read Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures. For Fisher, a spirit is anything with the capacity to haunt. When he writes, ‘I walk the same streets like a fading ghost’, he references the liminality of transition.4 The use of “ghost” creates a sense that, if we could possibly see all the timelines – past, present, and future – at once, we would see Fisher merging in and out of himself, and gradually fading away as, inevitably, he will one day change path or die. Haunting

See p. 10.

Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, (Croydon: Zero Books, 2014), p. 82, https://r1.vlereader.com/EpubReader?ean=1781782796244 [accessed 5 April 2024].

3 4

as a verb, as something which living humans are capable of, is a concept which resonates with my own thinking. I want the way that Anna engages with different environments in her unfamiliar condition to challenge the reader’s idea of what it is to be a “ghost”.

In my experience of studying Gothic novels, both for this story and as part of my degree more generally, challenging the reader’s perception of humanity by employing supernatural characters is a common motif. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for example, the Creature reflects the monstrosity of human cruelty. Deserted by Victor Frankenstein, who uses science to animate him from dead body parts, the Creature uses Paradise Lost as a tool to interpret his situation: ‘I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me: and, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him’.5 The Creature’s victimhood exists in stark contrast to his human inventor’s cruelty, encouraging the reader to consider which character is the true monster of the story. Just as Shelley invokes Paradise Lost in Frankenstein to generate a discussion about monstrosity, each of the novels referenced in Anna influenced me towards creating a conversation about different kinds of phantoms.

In many ways, Anna’s journey to the Gothic multiverse of her mother’s research inverts the central incident of death within the story. Anna “dies” to understand more about her mother’s life. The story is one of rebirth after loss, which is a tale history tells sempiternally – hence, the opening sentence: ‘Grief is a percolating emotion’.6 I wanted to capture that the experience is a never-ending cycle, which permeates throughout the universe daily. That which

5 6

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1999), p. 101.

See p. 2.

mourns today will be mourned tomorrow. The people Anna sees during her adventures are not just images of the past, but real, living beings, alive in their own eras. In Anna’s ghostly form, she witnesses people in the places she travels to express their emotions while she suppresses the burden of her own grief. This struggle is emphasised throughout the story, culminating in the moment in the graveyard where she finally feels comfortable to express her pain and let it go, allowing herself to begin the process of moving on and adapting to life after Miriam.

The Goth nightclub setting was the perfect location in which to display the conclusion of Anna’s tenure as a ghost living a solitary and liminal existence. Anybody who feels somewhat kooky and unconventional is already halfway to finding a community in Goth culture, as I experienced myself as part of this project. Before I started it, I had little awareness of what Goth music really entailed – my only overt introduction was Jenna Ortega’s dance to The Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps in Wednesday (Netflix). The first book I bought when I began researching for Anna was Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth, which would become my Holy Bible of Goth music. When I looked up the index, I discovered that a lot of the bands I already listened to were Gothic – such as, The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, and Bauhaus. I realised that I had basically been a dormant Goth and, after that, I decided to set myself free. I bought myself some fingerless gloves and some studs on Etsy and forged my own subculture-inspired accessory, using Unsworth’s book as a craft table. If she ever reads this essay, I hope she knows that I did so affectionately.

Starting with Unsworth’s book, I began to collate a Goth playlist on Spotify. I found even more recommendations from Goth accounts on Instagram, and new friends I made along the way as I wrote. Eventually, I chose to go to my first Goth nightclub – a mixture of both fun and research. Anna’s experience in her Goth nightclub has a proximity to my own. The crowd where I went was a definitive highlight of my evening. People were impeccably polite. They apologised when they bumped into you and did their best to give you enough space on the dancefloor, which I tried to pay homage to in Anna. The overall atmosphere was one where anything went, including what clothes you wore. I knew that Anna was going to spend her whole adventure in the same pair of pyjamas she had begun the story in, and it had concerned me that she might be out of place in the nightclub at the end. My anxieties were completely put at ease when a group of people turned up in coordinated pink pyjamas and nobody cared at all.

I felt proud as I completed the story of Anna’s Gothic trajectory towards becoming comfortable enough to embrace her return to ordinary life and the new community of people she finds herself in. I really feel that this dissertation has been a joint project between my curious passion and Anna’s inquisitive character development, hence why I eventually decided that the title of the story should be, simply, Anna. I could not have completed this project without her rebellion against my original plan, and I hope her tale is as enjoyable to read as I found it to write. I know it is time for me to move on now, and the aim was always only to write a short story, but it is going to be difficult. Anna consumed every waking moment for a year, even my gameplay in Minecraft, hence the image of my reconstruction of Miriam’s study on the title page. I found building some of the environments from Anna really beneficial for

visualising them as I wrote, and though it is time to leave those settings behind, I have a feeling that another Gothic adventure awaits me.

Bibliography

Fisher, Mark, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, (Croydon: Zero Books, 2014), https://r1.vlereader.com/EpubReader?ean=1781782796244 [accessed 5 April 2024] Longueil, Alfred E., ‘The Word “Gothic” in Eighteenth Century Criticism, Modern Language Notes, 38.8 (1923), 453–460, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2915232.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4877ebc82288c6321a2 babbbe6cfad6c&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1 [accessed 25 April 2024] Robb, John, The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth, (Glasgow: Louder Than War Books, 2023) Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein, (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1999) Unsworth, Cathi, Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth, (London: Nine Eight Books, 2023)

Appendix: A Photo Album

If You Should Wish to Enter the House Katherine Stewart

This is the digital accompaniment to a physical book. The intended reading process involves changing pages frequently, and not necessarily in the usual order. While the page numbers in the digital version are correctly labelled, it is recommended that where possible the physical book be read for a better experience.

If you wish to read the following simply as a collection of poetry, go from the beginning and from page 4 onwards read only the even-numbered pages. The poetry collection ends with two poems across pages 34 and 35.

(Editor’s note: original page numbers have been kept in this dissertation in order to preserve the intended reading experience.)

0

One might find a curling, lolling lane which trips cross-country which dwindles and near loses its step.

One might find one finds oneself upon a stoney track step cobble step pebble step …gravel.

One might find one path replaced by another and here, a lucid drive emerges, encroaches the woods and up that drive, might one find…

1

WALLS, conceal with bricks, interlocked in rows set by mortar, without the stain of moss they climb knock knock

WINDOWS, observe with tall and un-warped panes not shuttered—if they should see out one might surely peer in Knock Knock

THE HOUSE, approach with a glossy red door and a bright brass knocker whose hinges never squeak KNOCK—

2

IF YOU SHOULD WISH TO ENTER THE HOUSE

Turn to page 4.

3

Come in, and find A neat hallway With neat floorboards, and walls All at right angles.

Clean white, and baby blue, and papered.

What a neat hallway.

Come in, and find A neat kitchen With neat counters, and oven All shine so nicely.

The sink, a stool, and cupboards.

What a neat kitchen.

Come in, and find A nea—

4

You have arrived at THE HOUSE. You aren’t entirely certain why, or in fact, how. You are certain, however, that the heavy door has clicked shut behind you, and that the dust has begun to resettle. As it does, a torn page flits to the floor at your feet, as if dropped from above. The staircase in front of you may have been grand once, but now its boards are splintered or sunken under the weight of rot. You doubt what remains would bear your weight. On each side of you a door stands ajar. The rightmost reveals a dim room stuffed with armchairs and a barren fireplace. On the left a dwindling hallway beckons, wherever it leads obscured in the dark.

If you wish to climb the staircase, turn to page ◾ If you wish to enter the door to your right, turn to page 30.

If you wish to enter the door to your left, turn to page 8.

5

t bedroom with neat pillows, and sheets all freshly folded.

The bed, sad little girl, and wardrobe What a neat bedroom.

Come in, and find a neat drawing room with neat sofas, and chairs all softly set— The dollhouse.

Come in, and find a neat The dollhouse.

Come in,THE DOLLHOUSE

6

Ink drips from the page and slides; down your fingers, across your palms and forearms.

It meets the veins beneath your paper-skin and shows, it knows the way: it knows why you are here. The ink marks the path along the hallway—not so dark nor so long as you thought. The ink leads you past the front door—which was open all this while. The ink takes you where you need to be.

Turn to page 30.

7

Corridor, the corridor Damp-stained ceiling tiles one A door on the left Potted plant on the right, needs watered A poster- try your best Damp-stained ceiling tiles two The lights are flickering fluorescent One two three four five Another door, ajar, but dark on the left Notice board violin lessons, missing dog, reading on the ninth A door on the right Damp-stained ceiling tiles three four A door on each side both closed one with a window, lit Another plant And turn

8

In the plush gloom of the hallway, your attention is drawn by a glint at eye-level, to a door. It is unlike the others. It is plain, grey. Its only protrusions are a dull handle and the silver rim of a peephole. If not for a slight gash of splintered wood and blistered paint near the handle, the surface would be entirely flat. The peephole looks wrong somehow.

Taking a step closer, a sour scent eases its way into your nostrils. You realise that the peephole is not facing out into the hallway, but inwards. The smell is getting stronger, sitting heavily at the back of your throat.

If you wish to put your eye to the peephole, turn to page 16.

If you wish to open the door, turn to page 10.

If you wish to continue down the hallway, turn to page 14.

9

Past the threshold I prickle I, other, strung between white walls; monoliths.

Slow steps. steps don’t falter.

Eyes must not widen

skull must not groan.

Slow steps and crooked fingers I creep

10

Stepping through the door you find yourself in a vast pale expanse. You sense without turning, the corridor behind you is gone. And so, you begin to walk. For a time you walk empty streets and monuments, distinguished only in shades. It takes an awful long while, as you walk, to notice—they are shrinking. Ten-storey heights, now glints, now slivers. Sand, white grains of sand. You don’t know where it all went. You know that it is because of the light. Light that swallows, that consumes, light that is… everything. The light into which you see the colour from your clothes, from your hands is seeping. You will become…

A door in the distance. Two, fathoms apart. One open, the other closed.

If you wish to walk to the open door, and return to the corridor, turn to page 26.

If you wish to walk to the closed door and listen, it turn to page 28.

If you wish to remain in the light, turn to page 36.

11

I sink, mouth arid with Iron. I spit rocks, bitter mud and chalk. My throat rises in pieces and I find myself bile.

12

You reach for a plum; a pear, a ladyfinger. Find yourself ravenous.

Gorge on grapes, peaches, sweetmeats. And then the nausea begins.

You shouldn’t eat food found in strange places.

13

Corridor, the corridor Damp-stained ceiling tiles one A door on the left Potted plant on the right, needs watered A poster- try your best Damp-stained ceiling tiles two The eyes are blinking fluorescent One two three four five Another door, ajar, but dark on the left Notice board violin lessons, missing, reading on the ninth A door on the right Damp-stained ceiling tiles three four A door on each side both Closed one with a window, lit Another plant And turn

14

That’s the trouble with looking, sometimes things look back. You continue along the hallway, checking door after door as you go; stuck, barred, locked. Eventually, you reach one which stands ajar. Through it you see the edge of a counter stacked with pots and dishes, next to it an overflowing sink. Looking back the length of the hallway, an uneasy sensation tells you not to retrace your steps.

Proceed to the kitchen, turn to page 22.

15

Mallory’s new flat was red, just as well.

She spilled some red on the floor.

Mallory’s partner had gone out of town.

She stayed in their flat, alone.

Mallory’s neighbours complained of a smell.

She didn’t answer the door.

Mallory’s landlord broke the door down.

But all she had left was bone.

16

Peering through the peephole you see a bare apartment with brightly painted walls. A cramped kitchen opens into a living room furnished with a loveseat and several stacks of cardboard boxes. One box sits half-open on the carpet. Next to it lay a book, a knife, and an un-drunk cup of tea. In the kitchen, the tap drips, the water hitting the sink in a small circle of rust. At the edge of your vision, behind a stack of boxes, a shadow twitches. You blink. The view through the peephole is black.

If you wish to open the door, turn to page 10.

If you wish to continue down the corridor, turn to page 14.

17

It’s easy, floating in warmth, to imagine how skin might melt, might seep away; pulp which blocks the drain.

A nail dirties itself dragged across the meat of a thigh its groove begrimed with white sediment.

Oozed from water, oil… dirt… skin?

Rough in patches, angry; red wet and dry. In the damp I might come apart. Peel me quick to avoid saturation. The lumps the hives and itches must not sink in.

18

You grasp the doorhandle and turn, expecting to find… Not this. A bathroom, clean and bright. A frosted-glass window on the opposite wall lets the sunlight in, bouncing off blue and white tiles on the floor and the walls. On the sink there is a row of seashells lined up behind the taps. Pale conches and pursed-lip cowries. A curtain spotted with anchors and sailboats obscures the bathtub.

Pulling back the curtain you see a deep rust-brown stain which spreads from the centre of the bath and dwindles near the drain. The overflow seems blocked—is that—hair?

If you wish to take a bath, turn to page 38.

If you wish to leave the way you came, turn to page 20.

19

Corridor, the corridamp Damp damp Damp-stained ceiling tiles Damp water brown d amp Wet dripping dooor damp the damp sludge and dripping damp plant damp sludge

the corridor damp-stained ceiling tiles

20

Stepping out from the bathroom, you find yourself once again in the hallway. The floor is wet. Looking down at the slapping of your shoes, you see a faint reflection. It tremors as the water slowly rises. It seeps into your shoes, your socks begin to cling at your feet.

Ahead you see a door, ajar. A rumble behind, rising, cold. You near the room, counters stacked with dishes, an overflowing sink. Rising.

Proceed to the kitchen, close the door. Turn to page 22.

21

Into the precipice hands trembling above as murky depths roll by.

Anticipating cold, and must which clings to skin moisture which drains and dries and stains ragged edges lurk. And hide tainted teeth which rend flesh to grime.

I am dangling And in time will dive

22

The floor of the kitchen is damp, and has an uneasy give. It is a cramped space, with counters and a sink along one wall, an old wood-burning stove and square table with chairs on the other. The table is neatly set for three, with a tiered cake stand at its centre, piled high with fruits and pastries. They smell sweet. Close to you, water dribbles from the sink, its ceramic rim level with a misty brine. A torn page floats to the liquid’s surface—although sodden, you think its writing may still be legible.

If you wish to sit down to eat, turn to page 12.

If you wish to pick up the torn paper, turn to page 6.

23

It hangs heavy behind its hands grip ankles chest tighten its breath cool damp back of your neck tighten peripheral growth squeeze tight

24

Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door.

Open the door. Open the door. The door will open. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door.

Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door.

If you wish to return to the hallway, turn to page 32.

If you wish to open the door, turn to page 18.

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Corridor, the corridor Damp-stained ceiling tiles one A door on the left A door on the left A door on the left A door on the left A door on the left A door on the left A door on the left A door on the left

A door on the left

A door on the left

A door on the left

A doo on he e t

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You close the door against the light, relieved to find yourself back in the gloom of the hallway. The shapes which flit before your eyes as they begin to adjust make for a strange sort of comfort. You rest for a while and watch them moving, their substance indiscernible. The shapes fade as the hallway’s fixtures become clear, and you continue on your way. You soon reach a door which stands slightly ajar. Through it you see the edge of a counter stacked with pots and dishes, next to it an overflowing sink.

Proceed to the kitchen, turn to page 22.

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Pressure, built limb upon limb on limb heavy transmutation.

Rock that quivers quivers without the relief of quaking teeth that pierce that pierce the bone They are coming coming and here They knock They pierce They knock and now They knock Now answer.

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You close your eyes against the encroaching light and direct your senses to the surface of the door. It is cool, smooth against the side of your head, it smells of damp earth. You hear a gentle tapping, as if from a distance. It grows gently, almost imperceptibly.

Perhaps it is a door among many, the something behind it trying one after another.

Getting closer, gently knocking—no. It is trying door after door, not gently but with the will to break. It is distant, still, but coming.

Yours is a door among many, but it is your door that it wants. You feel it in the slight shudder in its frame. It is closer, moving, coming.

The pounding is matched in your ears in your head it cannot be closer not louder it cannot be—your door.

It reached you and it stopped. You open your eyes and step backwards. You see the way to the corridor, open, next to it your door stands still. The handle begins to turn.

If you wish to return to the corridor, turn to page 24.

If you wish to open the door, turn to page 18.

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I who sit in crinkled corner bristle to all that sound.

Whose quaking strange vibrations draw in, retract, stare out.

I who sit in crinkled corner crumpled into creature.

Whose fingers bind themselves to form to flesh, to warmth, to fever.

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A faint light streams into the room through a half-shuttered window. Looking outwards, you can see the tops of dense foliage. This room is higher than it ought to be. In the centre there is a low table surrounded by comfortable, though ill-used seats. A thick layer of dust fades a discarded chess set. The fire grate is littered with fragments of singed fabric.

In the corner sits an intricate dollshouse, its red door cleanly painted. The tiny windowpanes have the appearance of real glass. The upper rooms glow with electric light.

If you have found the second piece of the torn paper, you are compelled to enter the dollhouse. Turn to page 34. …otherwise, return to page 4.

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Corridor, the corridor Damp-stained ceiling tiles one A door on the left Potted plant on the right, needs watered A poster- the thing at your neck does not exist Damp-stained ceiling tiles two The lights are flickering fluorescent One two three four five Another door, ajar, but dark on the left Notice board violin lessons, missing dog, reading on the ninth A door on the right Damp-stained ceiling tiles three four A door on each side both Closed one with a window, occupied Another plant And turn

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You make your return to the hallway through a door which was never really there. And yet, you feel that you did not emerge alone. The sound of your footsteps seems longer, extended by not quite an echo. You do your best to ignore the dim something which shifts in your periphery. Please note, you are now marked by dread.

Continuing along the hallway, you reach a door which stands slightly ajar. You see a counter stacked with pots and dishes, next to an overflowing sink.

Proceed to the kitchen, turn to page 22.

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In the hallway Daddy mouse invites in the voles.

He hangs up their hats and coats.

In the kitchen Mummy mouse roasts a fine dinner.

Looks good enough to eat.

In the drawing room baby mouse plays with toys baby vole is allowed to join

Then bedtime!

Daddy Mummy baby mouse put themselves to sleep.

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Veins She cowers from knocking banging tall shadows block the windows.

Stomach she eats herself and cleans too small to reach the counters.

Brain she kneels to say her prayers tucks herself in tight reaches a small hand to dry lips, a small hand pressed to her cheek a kiss, night night!

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36

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seep away;

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pulp which blocks the drain.

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Framing Essay

If You Should Wish to Enter the House is a poetry collection framed within a semilinear haunted house choose-your-own-adventure style narrative. Its aims, as set out in the project proposal, were to investigate the boundaries of poetry and horror, with particular focus on the exploration of tropes, personal anxieties, and spatial unease.

At the initiation of the project I had read and engaged with a wealth of classic ghost stories and a variety of horror media, however it was not a genre which I had previously interacted with within my own writing practice, nor one I felt initially confident in producing. For this reason, I placed additional focus on the work of writers such as Louise Glück and Shirley Jackson whose respective poetry and short stories often deal with themes of the mundane and everyday which are turned uncomfortable, strange, or even sinister. This allowed me to consider my own work, with its frequent relation to my mental health and day-to-day anxiety, and highlight methods and areas which might be pushed to an uncomfortable effect. While certain pieces, such as ‘Mallory’s New Flat’, represent more playful engagements with horror and its tropes, the majority of the poetry within the final project stems from investigations into my own commonplace unease. This may be seen in such examples as ‘Into the Precipice’, which concerns a repulsion to the kitchen sink; ‘Past the Threshold’ which was conceived during a visit to an art gallery; and ‘Pressure’ which demonstrates the fear and anticipation of receiving a knock at the door. In these pieces and others, the meaning and context of the poems is not necessarily evident, which led to the question of if and how their context might be explored explicitly or alternatively alluded to. It was at this point in the process that I chose to examine and take inspiration from the ways in which horror and similar themes are handled in the context of video and board games.

In his chapter ‘Poetic Playlands: Poetry, Interface, and Video Game Engines’, digital poet Jason Nelson writes that “Video games are a language. They have created their own grammar, their own understanding based on rules, exploration, movement, and response.”1 However, he goes on to express that he is “continually surprised at how 1 Jason Nelson, ‘Poetic Playlands: Poetry, Interface, and Video Game Engines’, in Electronic

Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms, and Practice, ed. by Dene Grigar & James O’Sullivan (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), p. 337.

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unimaginative most of these online worlds really are. Most of the basic features in terms of fantasy or strategy are well worn clichés, and the adherence to earth-like physics is sadly uncreative.”2 While I would concur with the former analysis of the video game as its own form of language, I would argue that much is being done within the realm of horror video games, particularly those produced by independent developers, to disprove the latter lack of creativity. Inscryption, for example, is a psychological horror deck-building game which defies convention as, upon what appears to be the game’s completion, its boundaries fall away and the protagonist steps outside the bounds of the game table and into a series of spaces layered with elements of the escape room and found-footage.3 The Longing, in contrast, strips away all but the barest elements of what could be considered gameplay, as the player is given control over a slow-moving, melancholy creature and must wait four hundred real-time days for the return of its king.4 I feel that the core elements which I appreciate in games such as these tie them closely to poetry in particular as an art form; that is, a pushing and warping of their language’s boundaries, and a thoughtful, purposeful breaking of their respective medium’s expectations and rules.

A significant concern when considering the placement of a poetry collection into a greater narrative structure was that the poetry should not become an afterthought, or be restricted by constraints of that structure. With this in mind, a game which has been a particular source of inspiration for the framing of this project is World of Horror, a point-and-click choice-based game which pays homage to the weird fiction of Junji Ito and H. P. Lovecraft.5 The game presents a series of mysteries which the protagonist must solve in order to prevent world-ending monstrosities from reaching the Japanese town in which it is set. The method in which these mysteries are progressed sees the player travel to certain locations and face a mixture of scripted and randomly selected encounters which may range from mildly unsettling to existentially horrifying. Outside of an occasional connection to the space which is being investigated, these encounters bear little to no material connection to one another. In addition to this, there is always the slim chance that the path you follow from an ordinary classroom may lead to the strange and seemingly impossible

2 Ibid., p. 337.

3 Daniel Mullins, Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games, 2021), Windows, [video game].

4 The Longing, (Studio Seufz, 2020), Windows, [video game].

5 World of Horror, (pantasz, 2023), Windows, [video game].

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Otherworld, outside of normal time and space. This means that while the greater mystery maintains a form of narrative, the fragments in which it is developed are unsettling and unpredictable, and evoke a strong sense of the weird. I felt that taking inspiration from the fragmented storytelling of World of Horror would allow for a greater narrative form, without the need to constrict the poetry to a stream of linear ideas which must fit neatly together. It was my hope that in this manner the project could take on the implications of a strange overarching meaning and cohesion, without a strict temporal structure. To further alleviate the concern that the poetry may become governed by the structure rather than the inverse, I made the decision to write the poetry collection in its entirety before working it into a narrative.

Additionally, I ensured that the poetry collection could be read independently of the narrative structure, by keeping the physical placement of the poems to the evennumbered and left-hand pages (with the exception of those that continue beyond a single page). This placement was also supported by the fragmented structure, as the ability to progress the narrative in a non-linear manner allowed for the poetry to be arranged in my preferred order, without the concern that the narrative would be disrupted.

I found that the decision to use the premise and setting of the haunted house to frame the project functioned in several different ways. Firstly, as a ubiquitous site of domesticity, the house is an ideal backdrop for work concerning mundane discomfort and routine unease. The German term for the uncanny, after all, translates to “unhome-like”.6 As the uncanny may be said to render the familiar unfamiliar, it follows that the more recognisable the starting point, the more uncomfortable it becomes in the face of strange circumstance. The setting may also perpetuate an atmosphere of anxious interiority with which many of the poems in this collection are concerned.

Additionally, it serves to acknowledge the trope of the haunted house in the ghost story and its textual roots in the gothic tradition. From the eighteenth century in which Horace Walpole’s Castle Otranto “almost bec[ame] a character in its own right”, and Ann Radcliffe’s work featured a castle of “maze-like interior… whose ultimate unravelling signified a process of self-discovery”, the haunted house has been a

6 Valerie Pflaumer, ‘Haunted Houses, Haunted Selves—Feminist Readings of Uncanny Domesticity:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Shirley Jackson and Francesca Woodman’, (unpublished master’s thesis, Universitat Potsdam, 2023) <https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57566> [accessed 1 March 2024], p. 2.

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mainstay of gothic fiction.7 Further, short stories such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, and Margaret Oliphant’s ‘The Library Window’, showcase the manner in which particular aspects or trappings of the home might be demonstrated to appear confining and sinister, to the extent that they may, as put by Valerie Pflaumer, become “a reflection of the mind’s haunting”.8 This was an element which I considered particularly when writing the ‘Corridor’ poems. Within this series of five poems, all of which have an identical opening, repetition is used initially to establish a banal, claustrophobic sense of space. The location of the corridor or hallway was chosen due to its function as a transitional, in-between space which might promote the idea of an uncomfortable otherness, or as put by Roger Luckhurst, the corridor may be used to invoke a “feeling of spatial dread”.9 Following the first poem which establishes a norm, two of the pieces which follow are almost identical to it, with slight adaptations. The intention is that this should create an uneasy effect, whether to cause the reader confusion, to question if they have read the piece before, or if they are part of an uncanny cycle. Equally, the repetition is intended to bring the reader into a familiar, predictable rhythm, only to be broken as the format of the poem shifts dramatically in its remaining two instances. In the future I would like to develop the ‘Corridor’ series further in order to give it the space to lean into the initial repetition and purgatorial atmosphere, in which case the eventual abrupt change in direction may have more impact.

I made the decision not to include titles for the poems within the project to allow for each element, whether prose or poetry, to flow into the next, and in order to invoke the idea of movement between the halls and rooms of the house. This also allows for individual poems such as ‘Into the Precipice’ and ‘Past the Threshold’ to be read circularly, as the ending lines feed naturally into the openings, creating a sense of inevitable repetition and entrapment within a cycle. Additionally, many of the poems feature purposeful use of layout and the of the white page, and the removal of a separate title ensures that it will not prove a distraction from these structural elements. Indeed, where ‘Past the Threshold’ features segments which progress in sparse steps across the page in order to mirror the creeping motion as described in

7 Carol Margaret Davison, ‘Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic Closets in “The Yellow

Wallpaper”’, Women’s Studies, 33.1 (2004), pp. 47-75, DOI: 10.1080/00497870490267197, p. 51.

8 Pflaumer, ‘Haunted Houses, Haunted Selves’, p. 1.

9 Roger Luckhurst, Corridors: Passages of Modernity (Reaktion Books Ltd, 2019), p. 262.

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the poem; ‘Pressure’ is visually condensed and has reduced line spacing in order to promote a claustrophobic sensation.

The decision to create a physical book rather than just the digital was made in order to allow for an simpler reading experience, as the reader can flick easily between pages. The rough illustrations on the front cover and title page in addition to the book’s simple exposed binding are intended to enhance the organic, found feel of the text. I chose to create a simple book without any introduction, explanation, or note of authorship, beginning immediately with the first two poems prior even to the title page. This was in order to give the project the strange sense of being found rather than made, as if it had simply appeared without reason. Additionally, the poems which make the ending of the text (‘In the Hallway’ and ‘Veins’) are not explicitly marked as such. However, like those at the beginning, they have no prose to accompany them, the intention being that the reader should not be given an explanation to the text’s origins or intentions, but to make their own conclusions.

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Bibliography Davison, Carol Margaret, ‘Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic Closets in “The Yellow Wallpaper”’, Women’s Studies, 33.1 (2004), pp. 47-75, DOI: 10.1080/00497870490267197 Luckhurst, Roger, Corridors: Passages of Modernity (Reaktion Books Ltd, 2019) Mullins, Daniel, Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games, 2021), Windows, [video game] Nelson, Jason, ‘Poetic Playlands: Poetry, Interface, and Video Game Engines’, in Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms, and Practice, ed.

by Dene Grigar & James O’Sullivan (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021) Pflaumer, Valerie, ‘Haunted Houses, Haunted Selves—Feminist Readings of Uncanny Domesticity: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Shirley Jackson and Francesca Woodman’, (unpublished master’s thesis, Universitat Potsdam, 2023) <https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57566> [accessed 1 March 2024] The Longing, (Studio Seufz, 2020), Windows, [video game] World of Horror, (pantasz, 2023), Windows, [video game]

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Tales and Thoughts A Dissertation by Ida Välimäki

Of Feathers and Whispers A Short Story

It must’ve been a heart attack. You never know when one of those is going to happen.

Or a stroke. The symptoms fit a stroke. And she had been acting differently. More agitated and short-tempered. Prone to snapping at people for no reason. Or it could’ve been a multitude of other causes. People die all the time.

It’s a shame, really. It’d only been a month since I started her on the medication. It didn’t have enough time to take its full effect. I’ll never get to see how much she could’ve improved. I could’ve made her such a brilliant mother. The boys had already started to act better. Even the husband noticed it. And he’s not the type to pay attention to such things.

Clearly it was working.

But you never know, the situation can change overnight. The administration of the medicine is almost as important as the brewing itself. You take too little, at the wrong time, with the wrong food, and it has no effect at all. You take too much, too soon… it could even be fatal.

“That didn’t—” “Did it?”

Crawford’s looking all high and mighty on his perch. Casting down judgements.

Black feathers dripping from the effort to maintain his high ground. Watching. Waiting.

Weighing my fate, my choices. Balancing the scales.

But complex questions of right and wrong aren’t something Crawford would understand. He’s just a bird, after all. He only sees black and white.

“Surely not.”

But then again, it wasn’t the easiest to measure. Especially for a layman. Especially one so forgetful and clumsy as Poppy was. A small mistake would’ve been all it took. She wouldn’t have even known it was happening.

Maybe she didn’t take me seriously when I emphasised the importance of precision.

She didn’t believe in warnings or caution. She thought getting things “about right” was good enough. She didn’t care for details.

Could I really not have gotten through to her? Could she really not have heard me when I said even a small mistake could kill her? That’s not something you forget, no matter how careless you are. You’d rather not take it at all than make the mistake of doing it wrong.

“Unless you wanted to get it wrong.”

“Unless you wanted it to kill you.”

Surely she wouldn’t have— What possible reason could there have been? But that would explain the symptoms.

She had been somewhat… melancholy. This seems like an extreme reaction to a mood swing though. Was there something more, something I missed? How could I have missed something so significant? So– life-altering?

“You can never really know what someone’s going through, can you.”

Crawford has no answer. He’s staring over my head, past my shoulder, like there’s something behind me. Like he’s looking for some moral pendulum to come knock me off of whatever high horse he thinks I’m trying to build for myself.

“Wouldn’t you have known, though?”

Could I have?

Maybe, if I’d been more attentive. If I’d actually been involved in her life. Checked up on her regularly. If I hadn’t been satisfied with what she told me. If I’d just pushed harder, tried harder, paid more attention. Read the warning signs she was putting up.

“I won’t make that mistake again.”

I won’t let myself become one of those simpletons mumbling and stumbling between their sentences and bottles about the village, knowing only how to get from their bed to the pub and nothing else.

You can practically smell them as they walk past, fumes wafting after them like ghosts. No one remembers what they’re actually supposed to be doing, no one is capable of making decisions, no one can even tell when something isn’t working anymore because they don’t pay any attention to anyone but themselves.

They need help. Outside intervention. Someone who hasn’t been swept up in their relations and alliances. Someone who can approach the situation objectively. Someone they can’t contaminate with their lethargic mindset.

“They need me.”

I couldn’t save Poppy, but I can save the village. Whatever it takes. Identify and isolate, that’s how you start solving problems.

If you were to start with the biggest problem, it’d be the blond and the blacksmith you see sitting at the pub daily. Always grumbling something loud and incoherent. Banging on the counter and painting the floors with liquor.

The blond one’s called Harry sometimes. There’s no telling if that’s his actual name though. He never answers it. You never see him not inebriated. If he’s not in the pub, he’s wobbling down the road like a pigeon, yelling obscenities at passers-by. Pushing and shoving and picking fights. People cross the road when they see him coming.

No one can do a thing about it because he’s the mayor’s son, and Mr Wright Senior is nothing if not nepotistic. That’s “Harry’s” real problem: a father who won’t hold him accountable for anything he does. If you don’t push a nestling off the branch he’ll never learn how to fly.

Mayor Wright really is everything wrong with rural villages encapsulated in one person. He keeps getting elected into a position he’s hopelessly unqualified for, merely because he’s a “people person,” whatever that means. He spends all his working time socialising, and is so heavily prejudiced against newcomers he’d rather wipe the village off the map than admit anyone new into it.

“Poppy was perfectly alright before you showed up here Mr Michaels,” he said to me.

How can anyone say that? And to someone who was trying to help her? He doesn’t care how much people are actually suffering. Not as long as no one tries to change that without his approval.

If it were up to him, Robin’s baby still wouldn’t sleep through the night. “We haven't had to medicate any other babies here.” As if anything has ever been achieved by doing things the way they’ve always been done.

He’s too invested in other people’s lives. Always going around telling them what they should and should not do. A parrot repeating the same old rules his great-grandfather followed. Drowning everyone but his son in “good advice”. He was doing it to Poppy before she died, and now he’s moved onto her sister Robin, who definitely doesn’t deserve such surveillance.

She has remarkable strength for someone her age. Handling everything with such grace and humility. Never showing how truly frustrated she is with Mr Wright’s impudence, and always treating him with the same kindness she shows to everyone else.

Even when she’s tired, even when she’s grieving for her sister. Eyes red and shrouded in shadows that almost look like bruises if you get up close. Fingers trembling, nose snivelling, smile quivering… And yet she carries herself with such pride, such dignity, you think she’s putting on a performance.

“She’s wasted as a blacksmith’s wife.”

“What’s wrong with the blacksmith?”

What isn’t wrong with the blacksmith? If Mr Wright is the wrongs of the village personified, Mr Fawley’s got every flaw humanity has ever had packed into him. He’s got the habits of his drunk friend, the morals of the mayor, and a jumble of cunning lies and blinding hoods to hold it all together. He’s the one running the show behind the scenes, blackmailing and bribing. Making empty threats and half-hearted promises you’re not quite sure will ever be carried through.

“That’s giving him a lot of credit.”

“But you don’t want to risk it either way.”

Crawford’s staring at me like he wants to say something, leaning forward in the moonlight. His beak casts a sharp shadow on the floor. It looks like a knife, almost. Is it supposed to be that sharp?

Are his claws? He’s gripping the perch with them like he’s longing to rip out my eyes.

Wishful thinking. He’s just a bird. And dead and stuffed and decoration. He couldn’t hurt anyone. *

“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t even do anything.”

You didn’t even do anything.

I’m just painting ghosts on the walls. To keep Crawford company. He’s feeling very lonely up there now, I bet. That’s what you get for ignoring nuances and always assuming the worst of people. You can’t just go around judging situations without having the full picture.

They’ll burn you at the stake for how you jump to conclusions.

Witches kept ravens, didn’t they?

“Henry is dead.”

It’s— What was I supposed to do about it? He wasn’t making any progress. He didn’t seem to want to either. No matter what I tried. He saw it all as some game to play when he was bored. Humouring me to have something to laugh about.

There was nothing I could do. He stopped speaking to me. He was hanging out with Fawley at the pub, sharing mannerisms and habits like they were afraid they’d run out of vices. Pushing people around, pecking doors and picking fights. It’s a miracle nothing happened sooner.

And Fawley would never help him home. He’d never make sure Henry was conscious before taking off. Left him to fend for himself, no matter what condition he was in. You’d see them drinking together, being loud and obnoxious, and then you’d run into Henry a few hours later, stumbling down the streets with no wits about him, and no sign of Fawley anywhere.

Almost like he was running towards an early grave. Being run towards it. By the likes of Mr Fawley. People with no compassion or kindness, people who’d leave someone lying on the side of the road just because helping someone like that is against their moral code.

“He was practically dead when I found him, choking on his own vomit.”

It was quite a chance I even stumbled onto him when I did. I’m never out that late. I never take that road home.

“Practically?”

“There was nothing more you could’ve done.”

“You can’t save everybody.”

“You don’t seem very sad about it.”

No. I was there, in the pub and the streets and the corners. I saw the guy, rotting in the booth, reeking of desperation and bad choices. Hands littered with splinters and scars like they’re footnotes of all the crimes he’d committed.

I saw the shattered glasses on the floors, and the bloody fingerprints dragging across the counters. I saw the purple trails on every skin the guy touched. He was using Poppy’s death as an excuse to derail even further.

And it’s not like I even knew him personally. It’s not like we were friends. I’m just one man. There’s a limit to what you can do. With as much self-destructive power as he had at his disposal, an army of professionals couldn’t have stopped him from plummeting straight into the grave like he did.

But I’m not happy about it either. It’s tragic what some people will put themselves through, trying to fill some hollow well in their heart. Nevertheless, it could’ve ended a lot worse. He could’ve taken somebody with him. He could’ve spread his disease onto other people, whispering in their ears about how nice a life of sin feels when you first give yourself over to it.

“Sometimes death is the smaller of two evils.”

“A queer thing to say for an apothecary.”

“He was a crook before he came here.”

“He was a soldier in the king’s army.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant.”

“That’s what you meant.”

There is a fine line between a villain and a vigilante. We all have to make tough choices sometimes, teetering on the edge of morally right and lawfully wrong. But sometimes people have a corrupted sense of balance. Sometimes they’ll plummet straight down whichever side happens to serve them best in the moment if given the chance, so the rest of us have to keep them from getting it. There’s little to do after they’ve jumped.

“He killed people for money.”

“He destroyed lives and souls and bodies, and has kept going on that same path ever since he was dismissed.”

“That’s the only thing he knows how to do.”

“And people can’t really change.”

“Why help him at all?”

It’s not like I’m the only one not tripping over myself with grief for him. It’s not like he was popular, or even liked, or even tolerated. It’s not like people are going to be gathering to weep at his grave.

“At least I tried to do something.”

“I won’t apologise for that.”

If he wasn’t the mayor’s son, he would’ve been dealt with a long time ago.

“No one else tried.”

“And why is that?”

Mayor Wright’s got this whole village tucked away in his back pocket. No one more so than Officer Lawson, who’s supposed to be the one keeping things in order. He’s supposed to be the one to put people like Henrik in line.

But Lawson’s just Mr Wright’s lapdog. Going where he says. Doing what he wants.

Only what he wants. No one dares say a bad word about him, about either of them, even though they clearly are the most inept people to hold their respective positions.

That’s what happens when the law is upheld by a fumbling imbecile who is unable to believe anything bad about the people he likes. Most of his cases go unsolved because he doesn’t believe the perpetrator to be capable of committing the crime he’s accused of. He’ll ignore all evidence that doesn’t support his preconstructed theories, and can be led to hunt down pointless leads on just crumbs to satisfy the curiosity of Mayor Wright. Or if it happens to amuse Mr Fawley, who’s more than happy to play fetch with the police whenever Lawson is sniffing around somewhere he shouldn’t be.

Officer Lawson is unobservant, unconfrontational, incompetent, and incapable of receiving criticism for his practices. The only thing he’s ever accomplished is fathering three children, who are so uncontrollably wicked their mother ended up dead trying to raise them properly. He was as helpless a husband to Poppy as he is a policeman to the public.

Like father, like son. The only thing Mayor Wright is concerned about is getting re-elected. Not a single sensible decision has been made since he took office. Instead, he spends his time buttering up the voters and bad-mouthing anyone who doesn’t agree with him.

He’s now going around telling people that I’ve “killed his children,” and uses all his working hours trying to get me evicted or fired or arrested or banished or whatever else he can think of to mess with me. He’s screaming “murderer” under my window every time he passes my house.

And Fawley’s got his hands all over it. He’s been whispering lies in Mr Wright’s ear ever since Poppy died, aggravating his prejudices, building new biases. He’s been drinking with Officer Lawson, pretending like he’s comforting the guy for losing a wife while actually turning him against the people who care about him. He’s trying to shift the blame for Henrik’s death onto me, trying to draw a connection between finding a body and killing it.

Fawley may not actually be the one pulling the trigger, but he’s the one loading and cocking the gun. The one pointing out the target.

“He’s out to get me, Crawford. Mark my words.”

“He wants to see me imprisoned.”

“Or dead.”

I can see him chuckling at that.

“Why would he do that?”

He hasn’t liked me from the start. He disapproved of me trying to help Poppy, trying to help Henrik, trying to help Robin, and her baby. Hell, he got Mr Wright up in arms against me. It’s all a part of some sick game he’s playing.

Or revenge. Discrediting a witness.

I caught him fraternising with a young woman at the pub. Behind his wife’s back. Not that infidelity would be the worst of his crimes, but it was Robin’s sister, Mary. Neither of them were even ashamed of what they were doing, simply angry at me for catching them.

What kind of lies must he be telling to poor Mary to get her to go along with it.

“Falsehoods and manipulation, that’s what he does best.”

He’s a falconer, collecting people and sending them to track down whatever he wants on his plate next. People with influence and power. Policemen, government officials, soldiers… It doesn’t matter if some fall on the way as long as he’s kept fat and happy.

“But why?”

“Why does anyone do anything?”

They find it amusing. They get high on the power. They like to watch people suffer.

Because they can. Because there’s no one to stop them.

They start small and then branch out once they get bored, push the limits just to see what they can get away with. They only see what they want and twist facts to fit their needs.

Even a suicide can be blamed on someone if you need the widower to go after them.

“Because of Robin.”

She’s the one suffering the most. She’s the one he’s got the most power over. She’s the one stuck living with him. Where else is she supposed to go? Everyone she knows has been under Fawley’s thumb for God knows how long. Now that she’s finally got a friend who sees him for what he is, Fawley’s got a big problem to deal with.

She’d never leave on her own. You can see how scared she is of him every time you see the two of them together. How her voice becomes hollow whenever she speaks of him.

How she refuses to entertain any ideas of him being anything less than an upstanding citizen, lest it gets back to him somehow.

She’s always so adamant about it. Always changing the subject, like she doesn’t want to talk about him at all.

It may have been just a shadow on her a month ago, but it’s a bruise now. She said she ran into a door frame. She would say that. She would have to. It’s far too big to be the result of a mere accident though. And the bruising on Fawley’s knuckles is far too conveniently brushed off as a mere coincidence.

If there’s anyone who can help her, it’s got to be me.

She’s got no one else.

“I wouldn’t want to be her.”

And no one else in the village is paying any attention to what’s happening. They prefer to stick to their own lives and routines, and leave the weak to fend for themselves.

Or they’re like Mr Wright, accusing people of committing crimes that haven’t happened. He’s starting to actually affect my work now. Chasing away patients, patrolling the street like a vulture waiting for a meal, throwing away everything I try to get him to calm

down. And Mr Fawley’s keeping his window open to hear all the screams and whispers passed about me underneath it.

“He’s turned half this town against me. Killing a quarter of them in the process…”

“I’m the one trying to cure people!”

I need to stop him from destroying any more lives. Stop all three of them; Fawley, Wright, Lawson… This is my patients’ safety we’re talking about.

I need to keep my head clear and far from his claws. I need something that’ll keep me calm, that’ll help me focus, help me sleep. I’m sure I’ve got some left here somewhere…

“He’s just a blacksmith! How could he have done any of that?”

Crawford’s flexing his claws like a hawk who’s spotted prey. Looking for weaknesses and arguments, building strawmen and burning them to the ground.

It’s just whispers. Malicious whispers, echoing in through the window. *

I’m getting seriously worried about Robin. She’s taken up going over to Officer Lawson’s house to help him with the kids. Or so she says. But she hasn’t been going home every night. She hasn’t been going anywhere, just sitting cooped up in that house, not taking visitors.

She looks sort of dissociated whenever I talk to her. Barely holding herself together.

And ever since Mr Wright died last week she’s been practically living there, afraid to go home and be alone with Fawley.

I can’t imagine she’s having an easy time of it now either. Cooking and cleaning all day, trying to hold onto her sanity with those three delinquents running rampant around her.

All while Lawson’s out chasing ghosts, and Fawley comes over every day to “check up” on her.

He wouldn’t actually do anything to harm her while she’s there. Say what you want about Officer Lawson, he’s still a policeman. Even he can’t dismiss a crime that’s taking place in front of him.

But that could change at a moment’s notice. The guy was really shaken up by Poppy’s suicide, and it’s only been two months since they buried her. If Fawley were to actually do something, Lawson couldn’t really prevent it.

He’s barely even home, spending his time interviewing sick people, investigating sleeping babies and mysterious deaths. God knows small country villages have plenty of

those! It’s Wright’s doing, I know it. He got Lawson tangled up with Fawley’s game. Now Lawson feels obligated to follow through with this last wish, since he has nothing better to do.

“The mayor died.”

“That’s not important.”

“It feels important.”

He’s playing with crumbs now. Dropping them onto the ground as bate to lure me into a snare he’s left out so he can hang it around my neck like a noose.

“You know, I don’t particularly care for what you’re trying to do here, Crawford.”

He looks almost amused by that. Like he’s laughing at me.

Crawford would laugh in a sort of pitiful croak. One you can feel hammering down your confidence with every beat. One you could convince yourself of being real if you tried hard enough. Only no one laughs like that. But he would.

And then he’d say something like “so how did he die exactly” and I’d have to stoop to defend myself from his probing questions and baseless accusations. He’s grasping at straws, building fantasy narratives, trying to push me into acknowledging a mistake I haven’t made.

“What did he die of?”

Now isn’t the time to start slacking off or losing sight of what’s important. I need to increase my dosage, to keep myself calm. To keep Crawford out of my head. To keep Fawley out of my head. It’s not supposed to run out this early. I can’t afford that.

There’s definitely something wrong with Robin. That’s the only reason she’d be acting like this. She can’t stay at Lawson’s forever, can she?

“Was it natural causes?”

Fawley isn’t going to sit around waiting forever for her to come back home. He gets high on pulling people’s strings and making them do his bidding. There’s no way he’d give up the control of someone he’s caught and tamed, especially if that someone is his wife.

When the strings get too loose, he’ll opt for slaughter. His obsession with power has claimed two victims already, both the mayor and his son, and he’s not showing any signs of stopping.

It’s not rare to see him sitting at the pub with Officer Lawson, downing pints like their lives depended on it. He’s making sure Lawson’s still following orders now that they’re no longer filtered through the mayor. Making sure Lawson is still looking into me so he doesn’t have time to look into Fawley.

“Was it that headache relief you gave him before Poppy died?”

He’s not even trying to be subtle about it anymore. He’s revelling in it, rubbing my nose in it. Making sure I know he’s the game master here. He’s making a joke out of it. Out of me!

“I saw him! Just a few hours ago, at the pub. Talking to that Mary girl again.”

“He was so familiar with her, too familiar…”

“He kept touching her arm, and laughing, and smiling…”

“How dare he.”

“It wasn’t just friendly behaviour. It was— seductive, certainly!”

“And she was more than happy to reciprocate.”

Robin says there’s nothing there, but she would, wouldn’t she?

She’d have to.

To save her face.

To save her life.

She must be so scared, for herself and her sister. No doubt Mary has dismissed every concern Robin has expressed about her relationship with Fawley. Young women tend to do that.

Not that it’s exclusive to young women. Wright wasn’t young, or a woman, and he still fell for Fawley’s tricks, despite my warnings. Or jumped, rather, quite willingly. Because of my warnings, you could say, like a petulant child. And then he died for it.

“Did it have something to do with the potion you slipped him?”

“The one meant to calm him down?”

If Mr Fawley keeps going like this, there’s no telling what he might do next. He’s already proved himself capable of killing people. Indirectly, maybe, but what difference does that make?

And he certainly hasn’t been shy about hurting his wife. She had a burn mark on her arm last Monday. A branding burn. Shaped like a tong he’s using every day.

What’s stopping him from going further? Shame and ruin her. Divorce her. Leave her alone and ridiculed. Why not, now that he’s gotten bored with her? Now that he’s got a new woman to play with? Marry a sister, marry another…

He’s creeping closer now, Crawford, in the back of my mind. Hiding in the corners, whispering in the shadows like he’s haunted.

“The potion had a side effect of causing headaches, didn’t it?”

“I hope he didn’t take any medication for that.”

“Those two would not have mixed well.”

He’s looking at me like he’s caught my fingerprints on something. Like I’ve got blood dripping down my hands.

“But you already knew that.”

There’s something wrong with this bird. He’s possessed, eyes shining like a demon.

Like he’s just waiting for the right moment to dive in for the kill.

“He had a stroke.”

“A healthy man like him?”

“He was pushing seventy.”

“He was in better shape than you are.”

“That wouldn’t have saved him from a stroke.”

“Or poisoning.”

“Had anyone wanted to poison him.”

“The symptoms are quite similar, aren’t they?”

“You would know.”

The room is almost dark now. Someone’s sucked out all the light, all the air. Is it always so dark in here?

“But who would do something like that?”

“Everybody loved him.”

“He was a people person.” *

Surely this is going to make Fawley back down. He’s got to realise how suspicious this looks for him. After everything he’s done, everything he’s said and hinted at. We’ve all seen them together, at the pub, on the streets. He’s got guilty written all over his face.

“Guilty of what?”

Robin keeps getting new bruises. She tries to hide them. Of course. She’s ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated… You can see her flinch whenever you try to touch her. Especially when Mr Fawley tries to touch her. He’d know where to touch. Where not to touch.

And she’s had dark circles under her eyes for weeks now. They just keep getting darker and darker… Like she isn’t sleeping. Like she’s afraid to.

“Is she afraid to?”

It can’t be the baby.

I cured it.

“Fawley forced her to return home.”

“Forced is a strong word.”

Is it strong enough?

Maybe he thinks there’s something going on with Robin. Something that’d mean he can’t control her anymore. Or maybe something that’d let him control her even further…

He’s been eyeing me a lot lately, trying to read my mind.

He’s always following me in the shadows whenever I’m visiting Robin, thinking I can’t see him lurking in my peripheral vision like a scavenger, hiding with the crows, waiting for his prey to keel over. He’s always barging in on our conversations, always lurking behind the curtains across the street…

“He thinks she’s having an affair with me!”

“That is a leap.”

“But it makes sense.”

That’s why he used Wright to send Lawson after me before he died. Why Lawson kept inventing crimes to cover for him. Why he was so insistent about shoving his nose into my business, demanding to see prescriptions and transcripts.

“But he didn’t find anything.”

“Of course not.”

“And that wasn’t good enough for Fawley.”

“And then he killed him.”

“Strangled with a scarf.”

“Fallen in the line of duty.”

“They found his body in an alley this morning.”

What was Lawson doing in an alley in the middle of the night? Was he alone? Was he ambushed? Was he the one ambushing someone?

“Was he chasing a murderer?”

Some struggle certainly took place.

Would Lawson really have turned on Fawley? Why not, if Fawley turned first? It doesn’t do well for a policeman to be loyal to a murderer. And if Fawley was threatening to expose him for corruption and collusion…

“People tend to lash out when backed into corners.”

That would’ve ruined his whole life.

Was Fawley a murderer?

Who knows at this point. What happened to Henrik was his fault, yes. And Mayor Wright… His brain just couldn’t take it anymore. Worn down by years of manipulation and lies. It drove him mad. Fawley drove him mad.

He had a black eye this morning. And scratches on his face. And he didn’t even seem surprised to hear about Lawson’s death. He was just… angry. Glaring out into the crowd to see if anyone would notice him. Cock of the walk, licking his wounds in peace now that he’s been left alone at the top.

“Why are you limping?”

Crawford’s sneering at me. Laughing at me. I can already hear it. That croak dripping with resentment, bouncing back and forth between windows and walls. Cackling around my head, driving me deaf.

“Did you run into a door frame?”

He’s feigning concern, pretending he cares, pretending he knows.

Pretending he’s real.

He’s never cared, never once!

“Did you stumble on the stairs coming home?”

He’s always waiting for me to fail, waiting for me to slip up and come tumbling down. Waiting for a chance to pull back the blinds and point out where I’ve strayed. It’s white or it’s black, there’s no middle ground.

“What were you doing last night?”

He’s mocking me. Taunting me, teasing me, picking on me, pecking at my hairs to root them out one by one. Like this is some parody show he’s hosting, whispering doubts into the wind, spreading them like feathers on my floor— “I can’t remember.”

“No? “Well no trouble.”

“You wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

He’s too loud for a bird.

For just one.

He’s everywhere.

Haunting thoughts and arguments, flying in circles. Beating down with his wings, wielding his beak like a knife. Scratching and clawing at whatever’s moving— “It’s really a pity about Lawson though.”

“He didn’t deserve to go like that.”

I’m running low again. This always happens when I’m running low.

I need to clear my head, sit Crawford down, drown out his whispers, stop the pounding. Calm down, stay focused. Get back to work.

“Pity about Fawley too.”

“Has anyone tried telling him he’s hurting people?”

“Maybe he’d change if he knew.”

He won’t change.

“Maybe he could be saved.”

He’ll never change. People like him don’t change. Wright never changed. He killed Lawson for changing. That’s how he sees it. He’d rather die.

“But it’s not like you could save Fawley.”

People like him go on playing with their prey until they get bored. They’ll keep stringing people along on a leash, but only as long as they fit into the fantasies they’ve summoned from Hell. When they don’t, they’ll rip their victims to shreds and never even consider letting them go.

“It’s not like you’ve tried to.”

He’s never going to let Robin go.

I was a fool to think he would.

He’ll never let someone else have her. He’ll never be satisfied by just ruining her.

He’s got to have all of her, forever.

But she’s not enough for him.

She’ll never be enough.

Nothing will.

“Why try with anyone?”

Nothing but death.

“Why save anyone?”

He was at the general store today.

He bought a gun.

“We’re all flawed.”

To murder his wife with.

“People die all the time.”

He’s killed once already.

Twice. Thrice.

Who’s to say he didn’t start with Poppy.

“You can’t save everyone.”

To bag Lawson while he’s grieving and can’t fight it.

He’s got the taste for blood now.

He wouldn’t even need a reason.

Just entertainment.

“How do you choose who’s worth being saved?”

He was friends with a soldier, he knows where to aim. He was friends with the police, he knows how to get away. He was friends with the mayor, he knows how to make people believe him even when they know they shouldn’t.

He’s got the whole flock at his feet, to pluck and butcher at will.

And he’ll start with Robin.

I’ve got to save her. I couldn’t save Poppy, but I can save her.

“And why them?”

I won’t fail again.

“What makes them worthy above all others?”

I won’t lose her too.

“Who gave you the right to choose anyway?”

Whatever it takes.

“You are not God.” *

I haven’t been back here in days. It’s cold and dusty.

Crawling with shadows and reflections, bouncing from the rugs and the curtains, hanging in the air like fog, clouding thoughts and memories.

Crawford’s perched on the desk, revelling in mistakes made and paths not taken like I could go back and choose differently. Like I’m supposed to be remorseful.

I have no regrets.

“Nothing to say?”

Someone’s at the door.

It’s Robin.

I told her to come.

She needs me right now. She needs all the help she can get.

She’s puffy and red, a pale ghost. Bloodshot eyes, she hasn’t slept in days. She can’t see anything in front of her. She’s been wrung dry but keeps crying anyway.

She looks strange here. Sitting in between where I’m standing and where Crawford’s scheming. Clutching onto a cup of tea like it’s not really there. Like she’s seeing things.

Hearing things.

She has a fresh bruise on her shoulder.

Relatively speaking.

The size of a palm.

If I had to guess.

She looks a lot like Poppy.

Right before she killed herself.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“Something to eat?”

“Oh, no, thank you. The tea is more than enough. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve had a proper cup of tea.”

Her hands are shaking the room.

The creeks of her chair sound like whispers, almost.

They echo in the corners.

“I can’t even imagine what you must be going through.”

“Thank you. It just— It has been a really hard couple of months, you know. I feel like I’m living in a dream. Or underwater or something. Everything is so… muddled.”

Do I touch her now? I should touch her.

A comforting touch, physical support, hand on the shoulder— No, not on the shoulder.

That’s too close to Crawford.

Thigh? That’s natural.

I need to get another chair.

“My whole life feels like some big cosmic joke. Like God is testing me to see if I’m worthy of salvation. The modern-day Job, watching her whole family die so she can come back stronger.”

She chuckles.

It’s sad, mostly. Like it’s meant to hold back tears.

“I don’t think I have what it takes to be quite honest. I don’t think it would be worth it even if I did. You can’t replace family.”

“Don’t say that! No—” “You’re doing as well as can be expected.”

“You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“In a way, I suppose. It just doesn’t feel enough. I keep thinking I should be doing more. For the kids. I’m all they’ve got now.”

“That’s more than can be said of some people.”

She’s doubtful.

Reliving the past, trying to hold herself together.

She’s been crying on the front porch at night, when she thinks no one can see her.

I can see her.

“You’re doing a great job with the kids.”

“Even if you are alone.”

Doing better than Poppy ever did.

I can’t say that.

“I think you’ve got more than most.”

“That’s… I don’t know about that. I just…feel so lost all the time and I don’t really know who to turn to. Everyone is walking on eggshells around me, repeating platitudes and condolences thinking I can’t handle a real conversation. It’s nice to finally have someone to talk to. Someone who listens.”

There’s a chair in the kitchen!

I can reach her thigh now.

“I don’t suppose you ever feel like someone’s got it out for you… It’s stupid. I’m sorry. Somehow it all just feels so very– personal.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“What do you mean ‘personal’?”

“It’s my whole family! Well, not the kids, but… I mean, first Poppy dies, just like that in the prime of her life and no one can explain why. Callum was left all alone with three toddlers and he can’t even cook! I was already drowning with a newborn, and…”

Crawford’s whispering again.

Something incoherent.

A wind wailing in the corners.

He’s not even trying to make sense.

He just finds it amusing.

“…Harry dies. And it’s not like it came out of nowhere. It’s not like we couldn’t see it coming. But he was trying his best, he always was. He was really getting better with Ethan’s help. He just hasn’t had…”

It’s getting worse.

Again.

I’m running low.

I’m not supposed to be running low.

Not again. Not yet. Not now.

I should’ve been fine, I checked the math.

I did everything right.

Tolerances aren’t built this fast. “…both my siblings in what felt like a matter of days. And then dad too. Just days before he was saying how he’d never felt more alive. Poppy and Harry must have hit him harder than…”

I was hoping not to increase the dosage yet.

It can’t be helped now.

There’s been too much going on, too many things to focus on, to keep track off— He’s been eating away at me.

Drinking up everything that’s keeping me sane. “…horrible way to go. I knew his job came with some danger. Of course, we all knew that. No one more so than Callum. But it’s such a small village, and nothing ever happens, and I didn’t…”

He loves that.

Crawford.

Wrapping me up in his feathers, in his judgments.

Conjuring up flocks of clouds from my subconscious.

He loves it. “…I don’t think I really even believe that he’s gone yet. It just doesn’t feel real.

Ethan has always been so careful around the shop. Especially with the fire. And they say that he slipped but I don’t see how—” “It only takes one time though.”

“No matter how careful you are.”

“People make mistakes all the time.”

“They often get clumsy and careless when they drink.”

“He hit his head, right? On his way out.”

“And there just happened to still be embers in the hearth.”

“They’re so easy to miss sometimes.”

“Any other night he would’ve been fine.”

“Maybe he just ran out of favour with God.” “Maybe he ran out of favour with a neighbour.”

She seems startled, almost, looking at me.

Crawford’s looking at me. Peering over Robin’s shoulder, sneering, laughing…

I can hear him laugh.

“It’s just a theory.”

“Why would— I mean… That’s— Ethan was the kindest man I’ve ever known.

Everybody loved him. Everybody…”

She’s delirious, poor thing.

“I don’t think there’s necessarily any reason for it.”

“People just do things sometimes.”

“Things they normally wouldn’t.”

“Searching for meaning in everything will drive you yelling at God in the streets.”

“No, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone–” “That’s the thing about men like Ethan.”

“Their actions seem nonsensical to the people around them.”

“They aren’t based on the rationality you or I would understand.”

“But that still doesn’t— Wait, what do you mean by ‘men like Ethan’?”

“Yes, what do you mean by ‘men like Ethan’?”

He’s practically gleeful now.

Crawford.

Setting down traps, hanging up lures.

Whatever he can think of to shoot me down.

“You don’t have to lie for him anymore, Robin.”

“I know what he was.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know, Robin! I know.”

“I've seen the bruises and the flinching, and how hard you’ve tried to defend him.”

“Make excuses for him.”

“I’ve heard you, saying how he wouldn’t hurt you after all that.”

“How Mary’s just a friend—” “I—” “It’s simple if you think about it.”

“Daniel?”

“All the signs were there.”

Away he goes again.

“All you had to do was read them.”

Watching.

“Read into them.”

Waiting.

“But what’s the difference, really?”

Weighing.

“Daniel, what—” “It was identical to Henrik’s case.”

“Both drunk and violent.”

“Abusive.”

“And people are identical, deep down.”

Mocking, picking, pecking…

Spinning tales, singing lies.

Spreading whispers and feathers.

Swinging his mallet. “…what you are trying to say, but Ethan was teetotal. He never touched that stuff, he was helping Harry quit. He got Sister Mary from the convent to help him. They were planning to move Harry there for a while, to get him away from the temptation. He was the kindest man I’ve ever known.”

Send him to Hell.

Poor Robin.

“He was just tired. We’ve both been tired. We’ve got a three-month-old who keeps us up all night. He didn’t want to use that stuff you gave for the baby, and I figured it would be fine. I had nowhere to be.”

Poor, poor Robin.

“And he was the one really suffering from it, getting no sleep and then working all day. He was a little grumpy, sure, but he was never drunk. He was never violent. What exactly do you think has been going on?”

She’s even worse than I thought.

She’s in denial.

Of course she’s in denial, her husband just died.

She doesn’t know what to do with herself.

How could she? Who knows how long this has been going on?

Maybe she really started to believe his lies.

“Who would’ve guessed.”

“People do make mistakes.”

I can’t have Crawford in my head right now.

“Daniel, what’s— What are you drinking? Where did you get that? I don’t think…

Are you sure that’s safe?”

“A bit of self-medicating never hurt anyone.”

“Don’t worry Robin.”

“I’m an apothecary.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Sure, I know that, but—” “I think this’ll help you too.”

“I don’t—” “You’ve been living under that man’s influence for too long.”

“You can’t see things clearly anymore.”

“And this is sure to help with that.”

“You’ll feel better in no time.”

“You haven’t had any headaches lately, have you?”

“You haven’t taken any of the mayor’s medication?”

“The mayor’s—” “Robin, please.”

“You’ll feel much better afterwards.”

“I promise.”

“No, I don’t want that. Daniel, don’t, please! I don’t—” “There are many ways to use a drug.”

“It worked for Poppy.”

“It works for me.”

“It would’ve worked for the baby.”

“It would’ve worked for Mayor Wright.”

“Had he not died right after.”

“Wh—” “Can you please be quiet! Just this once.”

“It will work for you too.”

She really is in complete hysterics now.

She can’t even recognise I’m trying to help her.

She doesn’t even see she needs help.

Any later and she might’ve been beyond saving.

“Is this really what you’ve come to?”

Fawley really did a number on her.

Men like him shouldn’t be allowed to exist.

They’re destroying the lives of everyone around them.

Leaving behind ghosts to haunt their victims long after they’re gone.

“You’re fighting someone who really cares for you.”

I won’t let her push me away!

I’ve stalled for too long.

This is her only chance.

Our only chance.

“How many of those have you got left?”

I’ll hold her down if I have to. I’ll pin her to the desk.

Pry open her mouth.

Shove the whole bottle down her throat— “Please, Daniel, you’re hurting me!”

She’s stronger than I thought.

Fighting back like she’s mad.

Flinging her arms about.

Trying to scratch my hands, my eyes.

Tearing at my clothes.

“There’s got to be a more efficient way to administer this.”

“Please!”

“Shut up.”

I’ve got her on her back now. Splayed upon the desk underneath me.

This has to work, right?

It works for me.

I know it works.

It’ll work for her too.

Once I get it into her it’ll work.

Once Crawford stops jumping around like that. Stops flapping his feathers in my face.

Once she stops screaming.

“So what’s the plan here?”

“Shut up!”

She needs help.

Desperately needs it even if she’s too blind to see it now.

She’s clamped down shut in her delusion.

Clamped shut her jaw.

I can’t pry it open.

“That’s bound to work.”

“SHUT UP!” I can’t get it in her mouth.

I can’t get it down her throat.

Not with Crawford pecking my arms bloody.

Clawing into my hands. My wrists.

Searching for veins and tendons.

I can’t let him stop me.

Not this time.

“Are you really this blind?”

She won’t end up like Poppy.

I’m not too late.

I haven’t missed anything.

It’ll work this time.

“This stupid?”

I won’t leave her.

Not again.

Never again.

Crawford can try all he wants.

Can fly all he wants.

Fill my mouth with lies and feathers.

Ears with screams and whispers.

Claw all he wants.

He’s going for my eyes.

I knew he would.

I knew he would!

“You won’t get away with—”

My hands are wet, slowly dripping blood into the pool on the table. This is going to stain my carpet. I don’t— If she’d just let me help her it would’ve been fine. She would’ve been fine.

She would’ve been fine.

Crawford’s beak is buried in her neck. His feathers are drenched maroon, trickling onto the floor like he’s melting. He’s not whispering anymore. He’s dead too.

Of Causes and Effects A Reflection

Draft 0 - The Plot, or A Vague Idea for a Murder Mystery I should start in the middle. Everyone always says to start in the middle with short stories. In media res, like the French. He’s supposed to be going mad though. It’s supposed to be a slow progression. He starts noticing problems, tries to fix them, and people die. Can I start in the middle of that? A few steps into madness, when people start dying? Why not? You’ll catch up. I have faith in you.

They say I should end in the middle too. Do a big twist, and then end right there before anything is resolved. Leave it hanging in the air. The first thing I knew about this is how it ends. The love interest is killed with kindness conscience a bird. The narrator takes his conscience, the bird that plays it, and stabs her to death with it. Killing the woman and the kindness. Conscience! Accidentally. He was just trying to get the medicine into her. It’s all very symbolic, you see. It’s not really a twist, but it is shocking.

And then in the actual middle part people die and it’s no one’s fault, really.

Draft 1 - The Intention, or Just Write It Down and See What Happens All I wanted was to write a simple story about an unreliable narrator who may or may not be (but definitely is) killing his patients. I didn’t know there was a whole critical discourse going on about what makes a narrator unreliable in the first place.

Wayne C. Booth says unreliable narrators aren’t acting or speaking in accordance with the norms of the implied author. Ansgar Nünning says it’s about the norms of the implied reader instead. Kathleen Wall says the unreliable narration must reflect some model of human fallibility and foreground the narrator’s psychology. Astrid Ensslin quotes T. Heyd to divide the narrators into three camps of intentional deception, semi-conscious self-deception, and unintentional deception. Greta Olson lists a whole bunch of different factors that from the spectrum of unreliability, like Monika Fludernik’s factual inaccuracy, lack of objectivity and ideological unreliability, and James Phelan and Mary Patricia Martin’s lineup of

misreporting, misreading, misregarding, underreporting, underreading, and underregarding.

How do I fit my narrator into this mess?

We’ll go backwards. His account of the events is false, not lacking; he thinks he’s giving an accurate account of what’s happened. Let’s go with a mix of misreading and misregarding: he thinks he sees things he doesn’t, and assigns them meanings they don’t have. It’ll be first person, so there are biases and prejudices in play; lack of objectivity. He’ll start the story in self-deception, and then moves to the unintentional “mad monologist” territory, believing his delusion à la The Tell-Tale Heart. He reads too much into things and has a tendency to jump to conclusions. He can’t admit to being wrong.

Where do you stand with him? Where do I stand? What are the norms we should have to understand that he’s unreliable? Killing people is always wrong. Drugging people against their will or knowledge is wrong. You shouldn’t judge people you know nothing about, especially if you don’t even try to get to know them. Good intentions don’t outweigh bad outcomes. You can’t say you care about people if you don’t bother listening to them.

We understand his reasoning but don’t support it.

Draft 2 - The Characters, or Making It Look Like I Knew What I Was Doing All Along He wants to help people, to cure them. It isn’t working, methods escalate, people die. He takes no responsibility for it, even with a voice nagging in the back of his head. That voice gets assigned to Crawford, the story’s antagonist. Crawford is right, but you don’t know it’s him right away. He is a way for the narrator to preserve his worldview as it is; anything that contradicts it gets shoved onto the bird. He was a crow at first, but a raven fits better thematically. They’re more menacing, they can talk, they’re associated with loss and ill omens and insights. His name is a pun. That’s important.

The narrator shoves all the parts he doesn’t like about himself onto other people. He has an excellent eye for spotting his flaws in others, whether they’re there or not, and none of the self-awareness to recognise them in himself. He assigns motives to people like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment; simply because that conveniently fits together with the world he wants to live in. He thinks he can do that. He has a God complex. We’ll call him Daniel

Michaels. Babycentre.com tells me the names mean “God is my judge” and “who is like God” respectively.

I like to make the names mean something. Names always mean something. Benedicta Windt-val says they’re often the key to our identities, holding histories and ambitions and relationships in them. Names tell you how you should approach a person; who they are as an individual. Even in literature, which is why I chose names that reveal something about the characters’ motivations and their roles in the story.

There’s the mayor, who appears to be wrong at first, but was right about Daniel all along. Or Wright, if you will. There’s the policeman, Callum Lawson. He upholds the law. Callum comes from Latin and means “dove”. That’s handy. We’ll come back to that. There’s Ethan Fawley, the ‘safe’ ‘hunter of wild birds’. There’s Poppy who dies of Daniel’s opium unnamed mystery medicine. There’s Robin. She’s a bird too. There’s Mary. She’s a nun. Like the Virgin Mary. You get it. There’s Harry. Daniel doesn’t care enough about him to remember his name so it keeps changing. He doesn’t care about getting most names right. He’ll drop titles whenever he feels the person hasn’t earned it. Harry is the mayor’s heir. How many Henry-Harrys has England had so far? He’ll fit right in.

Draft 3 - The Format, or Now That I Know What I Want to Say I Need to Find a Way to Say It Better We’re going to be stuck in his head. We’ll have first class seats to ride his stream of consciousness right down to the depths of madness. There is no world outside of his thoughts.

You’re not grounded by environmental descriptions, you’re trapped and you aren’t meant to see, only listen. But it’s a page and you can’t hear it, so I have to smuggle in the rhythm with the prose. Play with the typography like it was poetry, make it reflective of his state of mind.

Like House of Leaves, the words themselves aren’t enough. Where they sit on the page matters. Like Daniel Matore said, we’re abandoning metre, the conventional ways, and exercising mise-en-page to punctuate free verse. Painting with pauses and dynamics like it’s sheet music.

It’ll start out fairly normal I think. Short sentences, full paragraphs, single lines for dialogue.

An indent for every new paragraph, even the first one. We’re starting in the middle after all.

Some single lines here and there for emphasis. This is where he paused. Slowly the paragraphs get shorter, the dialogue exchanges longer, single lines more common. His thoughts are breaking apart on the page. They’re more fractured, jumping and pausing. It becomes arduous to read. You’ll feel how difficult it is for him to think. It’ll contrast with Robin. That’s one way to tell them apart: her thoughts are together. If she’s not interrupted. If she’s not confused. You always know who Robin is.

Draft 4 - The Language, or How Do I Actually Depict the Going-Mad Process Now That We’re Starting in the Middle of It? You don’t always know who Crawford is. It’s supposed to be muddy. He’s not really talking, you see, it’s all Daniel. But he thinks it’s Crawford sometimes. You don’t know it’s supposed to be Crawford at first. It’s that progression again. He’s slowly going mad. You can see that through Crawford slowly crawling out of his head. Pun intended. But that means what Daniel thinks is Crawford has to exist in his head first.

Kazuo Ishiguro uses “one” instead of “I” sometimes in Remains of the Day to indicate where the narrator wants to distance himself from what he’s saying. Wall pointed out this shift to a formal register is one of the big signals of the narrator’s unreliability. I’ll say “you” instead.

The passive “you” at first, but then it starts to appear in the dialogue. He’s addressing himself, talking out loud. Voicing doubts, thoughts that don’t support his theories. And he thinks it’s Crawford. The “you” in his head, that’s Crawford too. It could be, at least. It’s passive, it’s Crawford, he’s addressing himself. All at once? Yes. Until the break.

“Why are you limping?” He says he can’t remember. Is he lying? No. It doesn’t matter. If he was lying to himself, it’d be something he doesn’t want to talk about. What was he doing?

What else has he lied about? It would call into question everything he’s said so far. And if he isn’t lying, why can’t he remember what happened? What was he doing? Was it him? What else has he left out? He can’t be trusted anymore. And that’s where the break happens. The voice isn’t in his head anymore. There’s no more “you” in his thoughts, passive or otherwise.

But the “you” of the dialogue could still be Daniel addressing himself. It could even be Daniel addressing Robin in some lines on the final pages. That’s the beauty of dialogue without tags in the Daniel-Crawford complex. Sometimes you know which one it is,

sometimes you don’t. Sometimes they’re responding to what was previously said out loud, sometimes they’re responding to thoughts. It could even be both at once.

It’s both at once. That’s how I built it.

Draft 5 - The Imagery, or The Intentionality Behind Word Choices It’d be nice to think of this as a result of some divine trance, or a naturally occurring phenomenon, but it’s all just meticulously constructed. This is the most intentional I’ve ever been about my writing. It has taken me six rewrites to make all the pieces and fit them together. Seven, if we count the one that was more of an expedition into tone and voice rather than an actual draft. I’ve tried to think of everything. What kind of speech patterns does he have? What does he focus on? What would he compare things to? Bateman keeps talking about food and clothes and their prices in American Psycho. It’s all about appearances, it’s all superficial. It ties in to the themes of the book. I can do that too. The Yellow Wallpaper has a motif of the sun and the moon, corresponding with the main character’s lucid and delirious moments. I can do that too.

Daniel assigns all his doubts and hesitations to Crawford, not wanting to contradict or question himself. Crawford then constantly undermines his actions and reasoning, calling out gaps in his reasoning. Daniel feels judged, he feels he’s being accused of not living up to the standard he should be. A motif of morality and judgement ties that together very nicely. It ties Crawford to Lawson and Wright, who are already hostile in Daniel’s eyes. Of course he’d have to defend himself, look at what they’re charging him with. And that brings in a hunting element as well, an interrogator trying to catch the defendant in a lie, pointing out all the mistakes he doesn’t want to see. He feels like Crawford is hunting him. He also feels like Fawley is hunting him, tying him to Crawford. Fawley gets a hunting motif that fits his name.

Daniel is Crawford, so the characterisations and the motifs fit together. He assigns unflattering parts of himself to Crawford, a bird. He sees unflattering parts of himself in Lawson, Harry, and Wright. He compares them to birds. Fawley is controlling them, so he becomes a falconer. That ties in with the hunting and Crawford. Fawley is also a mirror for his flaws. And Robin is a bird too, a small helpless one that needs to be saved from Fawley. It all plays to the whispering. A little birdie told me.

Why does Daniel feel judged? There’s a part of him that knows he’s wrong, knows he isn’t following the rules of right and wrong, the law. That’s what Crawford represents, human morality. But Daniel believes he is above that. He knows better, the human understanding of justness cannot see the complexity of the situation like he can. He is above humans, like God. He’s like God. That brings in the final piece, the religious motif that ties in with the judgements. It all aligns with the themes. Who has the right, who has the responsibility, to judge others? How can you criticise someone for something you’re doing too?

Draft 6 - The Reader, or The Circle of Feedback Speaking of criticising, you aren’t exempt from it. I’m not either. We’re both judging Daniel for what he does, and even we don’t have all the details. Robin’s account is biased too, Daniel misses things; pieces are missing, but we must have an opinion regardless. It’s that first world social media circus in person. Nothing’s changed; our biggest problem is what someone else is doing. We think we can know everything about a person based on the mask they’re wearing in public. Call them out and throw them away, it doesn’t matter if you get it wrong because your heart was in the right place. Rinse and repeat. Who wouldn’t go mad when the whole world is watching just to see you fail?

Bibliography in order of appearance

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd. Ed. (Penguin, 1991).

Nünning, Ansgar, “Reconceptualizing the Theory, History and Generic Scope of Unreliable Narration: Towards a Synthesis of Cognitive and Rhetorical Approaches” in Narrative Unreliability in the Twentieth-Century First-Person Novel, ed. by Elke D’hoker and Gunther Martens (De Gruyter, 2008) <https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110209389>.

Wall, Kathleen, “‘The Remains of the Day’ and Its Challenges to Theories of Unreliable Narration,” The Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 24, no. 1 (1994), pp. 18–42 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/30225397>.

Ensslin, Astrid, “‘I Want to Say I May Have Seen My Son Die This Morning’: Unintentional Unreliable Narration in Digital Fiction,” Language and Literature (Harlow, England), vol. 21, no. 2 (2012), pp. 136–49 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947011435859>.

Olson, Greta, “Reconsidering Unreliability: Fallible and Untrustworthy Narrators,” Narrative (Columbus, Ohio), vol. 11, no. 1 (2003), pp. 93–109 <https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2003.0001>.

Poe, Edgar Allan, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, The Poe Museum <https://poemuseum.org/the-tell-tale-heart/> [accessed 17.12.2023].

Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment (Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1994).

Benedicta Windt-val, “Personal Names and Identity in Literary Context”, Names and Identities, vol.

4, no. 2 (2012) pp. 273-284 <https://doi.org/10.5617/osla.324>.

Matore, Daniel, “Introduction” in The Graphics of Verse : Experimental Typography in Twentieth-Century Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023) pp. 1-34 <https://doi-org.libezproxy.dundee.ac.uk/10.1093/oso/9780192857217.003.0001>.

Danielewski, Mark Z., House of Leaves (Doubleday, 2001).

Ishiguro, Kazuo, The Remains of the Day (Faber and Faber Limited, 2021).

Ellis, Bret Easton, American Psycho (Picador, 2022).

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, The Project Gutenberg <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1952/pg1952-images.html> [accessed 13.11.2023].

Further Reading Chatman, Seymour Benjamin, Coming to Terms : The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film.

(Cornell University Press, 1990).

Hamsun, Knut, Hunger (Canongate Books, 2016).

Hughes, Ted, Crow (Faber and Faber Limited, 1972).

James, Henry, The Turn of the Screw (Penguin Classics, 2011).

Kang, Han, The Vegetarian (Portobello Books, 2016).

Nabokov, Vladimir, Lolita (Penguin Books, 2015).

Nais, Lisa, “Authorship, Autobiography, and Unreliable Narration: Blurring Concepts in Constance Fletcher’s Mirage”, ANQ (Lexington, Ky.), vol. 33, no. 1 (2020), pp. 63-68 <https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2019.1577715>.

Narrative Unreliability in the Twentieth-Century First-Person Novel, ed. by Elke D’hoker and Gunther Martens (De Gruyter, 2008) <https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110209389>.

Poe, Edgar Allan, “The Philosophy of Composition” Poetry Foundation (1846) <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69390/the-philosophy-of-composition> [accessed 15.3.2024].

Porter, Max, Grief is the Thing with Feathers (Faber & Faber Ltd, 2015).

Shiel, M. P., The Purple Cloud (Penguin Classics, 2012).

Tsiolkas, Christos, Loaded (Vintage, 1997).

VanderMeer, Jeff, “Climate Fiction Won’t Save Us”, Esquire (2023) <https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a43541988/climate-fiction-wont-save-us/> [accessed 15.3.2024].

Writers [on Writing]: Collected Essays from The New York Times, intro. John Darnton (Times Books, 2001).

Zadie, Smith, “On Killing Charles Dickens” The New Yorker (2023) <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/10/on-killing-charles-dickens> [accessed 15.3.2024].

"A house is never apolitical. It is conceived, constructed, occupied, and policed by people with power, needs, and fears.”

- Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

A Framing Essay In Three Parts

VHS Pl a ye r ‘Hope in gates, hope in spoons, hope in doors, hope in tables, no hope in daintiness and determination.’1

I suppose this all really starts in 1995, 6 years before the beginning of me. A piece of film that encouraged children across the western world to introspect about what it means to be an object, ponder on how we interact with the material world and begin to treat inanimate treasures with care.

The movie: Toy Story.2 It asked - What do our toys do when we aren’t looking? What lives do they live when we overlook them, what would they do with their limited agency as belongings and props in our lives?

I ask – What about the things with no eyes? What do they think of our goings on? What would they say if they could?

Perhaps stairs deliberately trip us when they don’t like what we’re doing, and windows are a bit sick of us staring straight through them. Perhaps the armchair in my living room has a thing or two to say about the countless stories that have been told while I sit upon it. I wonder if it makes itself so deliberately inviting after a long hard day. Perhaps the mirrors that have known me longest knew I was trans before I did. I wonder if they were trying to protect me from the realisation or if I was just not ready to see the person they reflected.

When I came out as trans, an overwhelming amount of my childhood friends said something to the tune of ‘Oh that makes so much sense for you’. Then they would recount childhood memories that I had forgotten, like watching old home movies through a new lens.

A scene of me at 6 telling my friend I was a boy and subsequently, technically, becoming her first boyfriend, cuts to me at 13 cutting my hair short and wearing exclusively boys polo shirts to school, until I realised it wasn’t cool (safe) to be myself just yet. From there we flash back to age 8, playing football until girls ‘weren’t allowed’ to play anymore. To when I came out and my friends bought me my first binder.

I am so incredibly lucky to have such wonderful and supportive friends, especially as my transness remains a point of contention in my family.

J&B, a Spanish whisky company, released an advert in 2022, that begins with an elderly man secretly learning to put on make-up to help his grandchild come out to the family as trans3. I am not ashamed to admit this advert has brought me to tears every time I have watched it (once while in public writing this very essay). It is not often trans folk get representation that is wholly uplifting and life affirming, let alone see depictions of us being accepted with open arms. The advert shows so much tenderness, so much love, so much care. The sparsity of trans tenderness in media makes this video as exceptional as it is overwhelming.

Not every trans person receives such tenderness. Not every trans person gets a family that loves them that much. Not every trans person gets a happy ending. Let alone a hopeful one.

Lopez ponders this as they reflect on the death of Marsha P. Johnson, her body found in the Hudson River months before their birth. Lopez asks what would the river testify to, given half the chance? Would it be able to tell us how Marsha P Johnson’s body ended up there? What stories would it tell us, how many more bodies have found themselves on its riverbed, unfound, unnamed, untold.4 And it is these questions about queerness and objects and agency that this project explores.

The story follows Wilbur, a transgender teenager and his family, 4 years after he has come out.

But our story is not told by Wilbur. Or his family.

It is told by the things in their houses.

Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (Open Road Media ,2014), p.25, Apple ebook.

Toy Story, dir. by John Lasseter (Pixar Animation Studios, 1995) [on DVD] 3 J&B Spain, She, un cuento de J&B, online video advert, YouTube, 30 November 2022, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEshVJ1IECw&ab channel=J%26BSpain> [accessed 11 April 2024] 4 Alan Pelaez Lopez, ‘trans*imagination’, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 51.1&2 (2023), 233-240 (p.237-238) 1 2

Bookshelf 'Form informs queerness, and queerness is best understood as a series of relations to form, relations not limited to binary and adversarial models of resistance and opposition.'5

My favourite book of all time is In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado6, in part due to the way she deals with form. The structure of each chapter is informed by its title, from the choose your own adventure7 to the three déjà vu chapters8 and everything in between. Without the titles the chapters make less sense and without the chapters the titles are hollow. They work together to bring the picture to the page.

It is genius and it is beautiful and it is haunting and I have not read another book like it since.

I do not think I ever will.

It is Machado’s writing, that made me want to experiment with form and structure. To get a bit weird with form. To queer it. It is also what started my fascination with the narrative of houses in fiction, especially in the sense of the eerie and perhaps supernatural.

I went from Machado to Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves9, following the thread of houses and horror. Danielewski presented a model for experimentation with aesthetic form, of what the layout of the page tells us. There are chapters written in the structure of a report where the page is filled but the font is inconsistent10, pages containing a singular word11, squares that disrupt the entire text12 and one page that simply has a rectangle constructed of the letter X. Danielewski uses structure to confuse, unsettle and disturb his reader while enhancing the surreal and spooky narrative he presents.

There is something in that – in the deliberate mystification, of making the art of words partly unknowable, strategic confusion – that felt so queer to me. But I couldn’t make it work in prose.

The words didn’t go where I wanted and there was simply too much to say. And too many ways to say it.

No, this project could not take shape, not until I turned to poetry.

Gertrude Stein was my saviour. Subverting the nonsense of language13, repeating as a means of insisting14 and her general disapproval of punctuation15– she presented a flexibility to poetry and how we make meaning. Stein saw life as repetition and rearrangement and as such set out to depict these things she saw as constant16 while still mystifying form and narrative to make her poetry just that little bit unknowable.

From there it was necessary to read more of the work of queer authors and poets who came before me. Who I am indebted to. Who knows how long it would have taken me to find myself, find my voice, without them.

Many, many, many poems later, I set forth with influence from Gertrude Stein’s wonderfully weird approach to form and language17, Walt Whitman’s penchant for parentheses18 and Pat Califia’s brilliantly queer form19 (to name a few).

It was my turn to queer furniture, to do my own thing, to let my poetry tell the story.

Kadji Amin, Amber Jamilla Musser, Roy Pérez, ‘Queer Form: Aesthetics, Race, and the Violences of the Social’, ASAP/Journal, 2.2 (2017), 227-239 (p. 228) <https://doi.org/10.1353/asa.2017.0031> 6 Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House, (Minneapolis: Graywolf Printing, 2019), Apple eBook.

7 Ibid., p. 181.

8 Ibid., p. 38, p. 113, p. 200.

9 Mark Z. Danielewiski, House of Leaves, (London: Doubleday, 2001).

10 Ibid., p. 81-96.

11 Ibid., p. 230.

12 Ibid., p. 119-145.

13 Michael Edward Kaufmann, ‘Gertrude Stein’s Re-Vision of Language and Print in “Tender Buttons”’, Journal of Modern Literature, 15.4 (1989), 447-460 (p. 448), <https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831601> [accessed 20 October 2023] 14 Mary Allen, ‘Gertrude Stein’s Sense of Oneness’, Southwest Review, 66.1 (1981), 1-10 (p. 2), <https://www.jstor.org/stable/43471374> [accessed 20 October 2023] 15 Ibid., p. 6.

16 Marjorie Perloff, ‘Poetry As Word-System: The Art Of Gertrude Stein’, The American Poetry Review, 8.5 (1979), 33-43 (p. 37), <https://www.jstor.org/stable/27776276> [accessed 20 October 2023] 17 Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (Open Road Media, 2014), p.25, Apple eBook 18 Walt Whitman, Selected Poems (London: Walter Scott Publishing, 1886) 19 Patrick Califia, Diesel Fuel (New York: Masquerade Books, 1997) 5

Closet ‘...the closet was made to kill LGBT individuals.’20

Now, I must be honest with you, when this project started it was going to end in death. It felt like the ‘natural’ outcome, the most concrete of endings, the cruellest lesson.

That is the fate that heartbreakingly reaches many trans folks far too early. Trans youth are up to 2.5x more likely to attempt suicide than their cis queer peers21. I didn't want to sugar coat that fact, make it more palatable to cisgender readers who don't like to reckon with the consequences of transphobia. A statistic is clinical, it tells you nothing of the lives leading up to that point, the pain that preceded the tragedy, the infinite ways in which these lives were failed by those around them.

Words can bring them to life.

In the recent heartbreaking and controversial death of non-binary 16-year-old Nex Benedict, who died the day after allegedly being beaten so badly in a school bathroom that he briefly blacked out, the only constant in his story is that the system failed him. There is disagreement over whether or not their death was a direct result of the wounds sustained during the bathroom attack or from a subsequent suicide attempt22; either way, Nex was attacked one day and died the next. He was not safe.

In addition to Nex, we must spare a thought for Tee Arnold23, África Parrilla García24, Diamond Brigman25, Emmett Brock26, Meraxes Medina27 and Righteous Torrence “Chevy” Hill28, to name just a few of the trans folks who have been killed this year. I thought about how there are so many names we don't know of, so many losses we can't begin to mourn, the nameless bodies at the bottom of the Hudson.

As I wrote, it was too painful to imagine writing a death, suicide or other, into the narrative. It was simply too real, too raw, too much.

I didn’t want to write that story.

I didn’t want to read that story.

It was then I realised I was hurting. That somewhere in my mind I wanted this to hurt the reader too.

The death of Wilbur would not have punished cisgender readers teetering on the edge of the transphobic fence. No, killing Wilbur would have punished the queers I wanted to advocate for. In a misguided attempt to punish my adversaries I had almost fell into the ‘bury your gays trope’, almost written yet another miserable trans ending.

We deserve happy endings, or in this case, hopeful ones.

To keep writing doom and gloom into our fictions solidifies it in our presents. We have to be able to dream for a brighter future, we have to believe that better days are coming and carve out a place for ourselves in the world that doesn't want us.

This is not to say that this story is without mention of suicide, death, and self-harm, because those too are our realities. But attending to our pasts and presents does not mean we cannot imagine different futures29.

So, while by no means is this a happy go lucky tale; I have spared you, gentle reader, from a fate that befalls too many of my queer siblings and has already befallen my queer ancestors before me.

We have to have faith in hope and in the hopeless. I have to believe that we are all capable of change and love Here the mum, the brother and (perhaps most importantly in this very specific case) the furniture is on his side. The rest is difficult and painful, but at least he has that.

Furthermore, I have resisted an ending. There is a point this story stops of course, but it does not end. To give an end to this piece would be dishonest to the journey that is transition. Would be dishonest to the transition of individuals, their families, stages of life.

There is no end. The houses stay standing, the radio remains on and the computer will still be used for years of clarifications to come.

But there is hope.

Because perhaps that’s all we can ask for.

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community, ed. by Laura Erickson-Schroth (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 315.

21 Myeshia Price-Feeney, Amy E. Green, Samuel Dorison, ‘Understanding the Mental Health of Transgender and Nonbinary Youth’, Journal of Adolescent Health, 66 (2020) <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.11.314> 22 Samantha Riedel, The Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office Has Released Its Final Report on Nex Benedict’s Death (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/nex-benedict-full-autospy-oklahoma-medical-examiner> [accessed 19 April 2024] 23 Samantha Riedel, Tee Arnold, A Black Trans Man Remembered for His “Good Energy,” Killed in Florida (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/tee-arnold-black-trans-man-killed-miami> [accessed 19 April 2024] 24 Samantha Riedel, África Parrilla García, a 25-Year-Old Trans Woman, Was Killed in Puerto Rico in February (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/puerto-rican-trans-woman-killed-san-juan> [accessed 19 April 2024] 25 Samantha Riedel, Diamond Brigman, a Black Trans Woman and "Incredible Light," Killed Last Month in Houston (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/diamond-brigman-black-trans-woman-killed-houston> [accessed 19 April 2024] 26 Samantha Riedel, Emmett Brock, a Trans Man Who Was Beaten by an LA County Deputy, Declared Innocent

by Judge (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/emmett-brock-los-angeles-trans-man-sheriff-department-lawsuit> [accessed 19 April 2024] 27 Samantha Riedel, Meraxes Medina, a 24-Year-Old Latina Trans Woman, Was Killed in Los Angeles (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/meraxes-medina-24-year-old-latina-trans-woman-killed-los-angeles> [accessed 19 April 2024] 28 James Factora, Righteous Torrence “Chevy” Hill, a Black Trans Salon Owner, Reportedly Killed in Atlanta Last Week (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/righteous-torrence-chevy-hill-atlanta-death>[accessed 19 April 2024] 20

29 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York; New York

University Press, 2009), p. 1, ProQuest eBook

Bibliography Allen, Mary, ‘Gertrude Stein’s Sense of Oneness’, Southwest Review, 66.1 (1981), 1-10, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/43471374> [accessed 20 October 2023] Amin, Kadji, Amber Jamilla Musser, Roy Pérez, ‘Queer Form: Aesthetics, Race, and the Violences of the Social’, ASAP/Journal, 2.2 (2017), 227-239 https://doi.org/10.1353/asa.2017.0031 Califia, Patrick, Diesel Fuel (New York: Masquerade Books, 1997) Clare, Eli, Brilliant Imperfection (Duke University Press, 2017), Apple eBook ——, Exile and Pride, 2nd edn (Duke University Press, 2009), Apple eBook Danielewiski, Mark Z., House of Leaves (London: Doubleday, 2001) Erickson-Schroth, Laura, ed., Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) Factora, James, Righteous Torrence “Chevy” Hill, a Black Trans Salon Owner, Reportedly Killed in Atlanta Last Week (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/righteous-torrencechevy-hill-atlanta-death> [accessed 19 April 2024] Fitz, L. T., ‘Gertrude Stein and Picaso: The Language of Surfaces’ American Literature, 45.2, (1973), 228-237, <https://doi.org/10.2307/2924449> Hemingway, Ernest, The Snows of Kilimanjaro (London, Vintage Books, 2004) Kaufmann, Michael Edward, ‘Gertrude Stein’s Re-Vision of Language and Print in “Tender Buttons”’, Journal of Modern Literature, 15.4 (1989), 447-460, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831601> [accessed 20 October 2023] Lopez, Alan Pelaez, ‘trans*imagination’, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 51.1&2 (2023), 233 – 240 Machado, Carmen Maria, In the Dream House (Minneapolis: Graywolf Printing, 2019), Apple eBook ——, Her Body and Other Parties (Minneapolis: Graywolf Printing, 2017), Apple eBook Mendelson, Edward, ed., W.H. Auden; Selected Poems (London; Faber and Faber LTD, 1988) Muñoz, José Esteban, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York; New York University Press, 2009), ProQuest eBook.

Negrón, Luis, Mundo Cruel (New York; Seven Stories Press, 2010) Perloff, Marjorie, ‘Poetry As Word-System: The Art Of Gertrude Stein’, The American Poetry Review, 8.5 (1979), 33-43, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/27776276> [accessed 20 October 2023] Porter, Max, The Death of Francis Bacon (London: Faber and Faber LTD, 2022) Price-Feeney, Myeshia, Amy E. Green, Samuel Dorison, ‘Understanding the Mental Health of Transgender and Nonbinary Youth’, Journal of Adolescent Health, 66 (2020) Reidel, Samantha, África Parrilla García, a 25-Year-Old Trans Woman, Was Killed in Puerto Rico in February (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/puerto-rican-trans-womankilled-san-juan> [accessed 19 April 2024] ——, Diamond Brigman, a Black Trans Woman and "Incredible Light," Killed Last Month in Houston (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/diamond-brigman-black-trans-womankilled-houston> [accessed 19 April 2024] ——, Emmett Brock, a Trans Man Who Was Beaten by an LA County Deputy, Declared

Innocent by Judge (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/emmett-brock-los-angelestrans-man-sheriff-department-lawsuit> [accessed 19 April 2024] ——, Meraxes Medina, a 24-Year-Old Latina Trans Woman, Was Killed in Los Angeles (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/meraxes-medina-24-year-old-latina-trans-womankilled-los-angeles> [accessed 19 April 2024] ——, Tee Arnold, A Black Trans Man Remembered for His “Good Energy,” Killed in Florida (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/tee-arnold-black-trans-man-killed-miami> [accessed 19 April 2024] ——, The Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office Has Released Its Final Report on Nex Benedict’s Death (2024) <https://www.them.us/story/nex-benedict-full-autospyoklahoma-medical-examiner> [accessed 19 April 2024] Rumfitt, Alison, Tell Me I’m Worthless (London; Cipher Press, 2021), Apple eBook Stein, Gertrude, Tender Buttons (Open Road Media, 2014), p.25, Apple eBook Taylor, Joelle, C+nto (London; Westbourne Press, 2021) Thomas, Aiden, Cemetery Boys (London; Macmillan Children’s Books, 2022) Apple eBook Weldon, Amy E., Advanced Fiction (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2023), Apple eBook.

Whitman, Walt, Selected Poems (London: Walter Scott Publishing, 1886) Wong, Alice, ed., Disability Visibility (New York: Vintage Books, 2020)

Filmography Encanto, dir. by Jared Bush and Byron Howard (Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2021 [on DVD] J&B Spain, She, un cuento de J&B, online video advert, YouTube, 30 November 2022, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEshVJ1IECw&ab channel=J%26BSpain> [accessed 11 April 2024] Toy Story, dir. by John Lasseter (Pixar Animation Studios, 1995) [on DVD]

Let The Testimonies Begin.

Foundations (base) on which we build, or try, up up up up up from ~ home On which everything stands yet is wont to change. Sometimes change cracks our fundamentals and heartache digs holes and loss sinks it low. Change is changing, often unwelcome, always inescapable (as in how to bounce back when there is no give).

When the man left foundations shook, but no breakage.

Not as much damage was done as suspected.

Yes, things were shaky, but are now stronger than ever.

Sometimes you must lose things to find your forever.

For a long while the foundations were unbending.

But you must not blame them for their stalwart defending.

But as the cherry lady visits more and more often.

It seems as though things are beginning to soften.

Toy (rabbit) companion, threadbare, loved, confidant ~ follows wherever the little one goes Used to belong to the quiet one, now loved more than anything by the little one. Helps sleep, soothes sickness, holds worries in its stuffing so he doesn’t have to carry them all (as in who you talk to when no one can listen).

My big brother is the bestest big brother in the whole wide world. He plays football with me and he paints my nails and he always lets me in his bed when I have a nightmare. I can't go in Mummy's bed because she is sore most of the time but Wilbur always lets me in. When Mummy is too sore to read my bedtime story Will sometimes reads me even two whole chapters when Mummy usually only reads me one.

Wilbur wasn't always called Wilbur but Mummy says that happens sometimes. I asked if I could change my name to Spiderman and she said no. I thought that was unfair but I think I'm okay being Joe actually because Wilbur says it’s a cool name and besides Spiderman is already taken. Wilbur is very clever.

It was a bit confusing at first but Wilbur said that’s okay. He said it's okay if I get it wrong sometimes but I see his face when Grandpa gets it wrong and I don’t ever want to make him sad like that. It's not that hard really, I think Grandad might not be as clever as he thinks he is.

Don't tell him that, it might make him sad.

I don’t really understand what they mean most of the time. Will was getting a binder and I asked Mummy if I could have one too but she said no because I don't need one and they are very expensive. I tried not to be huffy but it was hard, I just wanted Will not to feel like the only one. I heard him say that once. That he felt lonely. It hurt my feelings a bit but I decided to buy him a binder with my pocket money when I was out with Grandma.

I hope he likes it, but I don’t know why Mummy said they were expensive. The one I got from WHSmith was only £3 so I think maybe they have been looking in the wrong shops. I bought some stickers to decorate it because it's quite boring looking and Will isn't boring.

Apparently, there are a couple of people at his school that pick on him but I don’t understand why because he’s the coolest.

I heard Will saying some of the other big boys are not happy that Mummy sent a letter about letting him on the football team. Will said he doesn’t even want to be on the football team if it’s going to cause this much problems. I wasn’t supposed to be listening but I won’t tell Mummy because I think she would be sad that Wilbur sounded unhappy about it when she was only trying to help.

Mummy loves us so very much even if she has to go away sometimes but I think because she loves us so much Will worries about worrying her. He hardly ever tells her how sad Grandma and Grandpa make him when we stay with them. I think if Mummy knew he might not have to go as often and maybe his eyes wouldn’t look so droopy but he says we can’t tell her because they are Mummy’s mummy and daddy so it wouldn’t be fair. Will is so very smart that I promised not to tell because I don’t want to make him lock the bathroom door again.

Computer (study) research, communication, words in lines in boxes in boxes ~ house Set up by man not brave enough to be here anymore. Makes communication easier, makes communicating harder, algorithms work with you and against you and you learn things but at what cost (as in type so it tells you what you already think you know heels dug just a little for now).

Search History.

Pronouns Woman definition Biological woman Gender definition

Why does my granddaughter think she is a boy Transgendered definition Why do people transition Risks of medical transitioning Transition regret statistics Trans people danger

Sofa (living room) big enough for all, soft blankets draped all over, no matching colours ~ home The sofa is where they sit. And snuggle and huddle and hide. It’s where their legs get tangled under blankets and arms cushions tired necks when heads are on shoulders (as in where your muscles unclench when your heart rate finally slows).

Our cushions are only as soft as the love in her heart And so we relax, even on the hard hard hard days She has her boys and so we are always warm and soft After the bad days she sinks With her boys in her arms We are softer than ever Space for all always and forever there are always crumbs in the crevices

Our cushions are well weathered Stain wrinkles lint and all But we can cushion arms legs bodies Can't cushion hearts sore not really her back his wrist her neck his heart her knee his heart her heart

he is always so tense until he can curl into her side little one under his arm warmth is not enough for always but it helps for now and its all we have

And so while we cannot cure, we can comfort sore edges So sink, sweethearts, sink into our cushions and we will be warm and soft for as long as you love love love love love

Television (living room) to watch, distract, escape but not so much recently~ house There is silence as they watch. No talking as they watch or act like watching trying to pretend the silence is more respectful than avoidant (as in what plays in the background as you try not to imagine a different family by your side).

There is a sofa and it looks pristine. I sit in the corner of the room, they all face me. I see all of them. On the news is a broadcast hosted by a man who has been banned from two social media platforms and fired from three previous channels. Today he is chairing an unbalanced debate on a drag queen reading a story about a happy little duck to children at a library not local to him.

QUIET ONE sits sullenly on the sofa picking at his nails, his spine is rigid and his muscles are tense. It is hard to tell whether he wants to run or scream. He sits still on the sofa looking as though he wants it to swallow him whole. This sofa can't help him with that. OLD MAN is fiddling with the bookshelf, doesn't seem to realise what is playing on my screen.

LITTLE ONE: Wil- (stops himself with a glance at OLD MAN, then whispers) Wilbur, are you okay?

QUIET ONE: Shush Joey. (he doesn't look at OLD MAN) The man on my screen keeps going and going and going and OLD MAN doesn't notice, doesn't see, hear, do anything, and QUIET ONE scratches awfully at his wrists. LITTLE ONE sees and looks scared, he doesn’t know what that means yet but doesn’t think it’s good and OLD MAN still doesn’t see. He is inspecting his record collection like it’s a precious thing but QUIET ONE’s shoulders can’t become any more tense I’m afraid they’ll snap. LITTLE ONE looks so afraid and tries to grab QUIET ONE’s hand but is brushed off and LOOK OLD MAN LOOK PLEASE LOOK AT WHAT YOU’RE DOING ANDThe sound of a door opening. LITTLE ONE looks at QUIET ONE to see whether or not they can relax now. QUIET ONE’s eyes go to OLD MAN and then the TV. He somehow looks guilty, and the OLD MAN still doesn’t notice as he looks to the door.

SORE ONE enters the living room, smiling when she sees her children, shoulders easing. Until she looks at the TV. If looks could kill, my screen would be cracked and I don’t blame her but there’s only so many times I can knock my own antennae loose before they throw me to the curb. I’m not like the radio, I have to choose my static carefully.

QUIET ONE: Mum, leave it.

SORE ONE: (voice trembling with ire, her eyes have not left the TV) You boys go outside, I need to talk to your grandfather for a moment.

QUIET ONE: Mum, please – SORE ONE: Outside. Now. And pass me the remote.

The two boys scurry outside, OLD MAN looks confused and SORE ONE takes the remote.

Just before she turns me off, I see OLD MAN realise his mistake and SORE ONE yell -

Foundations (base) on

build, try, up up up up ~ house, everything stands to change. change cracks our fundamentals and heartache digs holes and cracks cracks widen. Change is changing, unwelcome, inescapable, inevitable (as in no bouncing back when there is no give).

Since we lost the Smiley One there has been a crack.

Some things are unalterable, no way to turn back.

They cannot see it but it’s there all the same.

And it was there long before the Quiet One came.

Now as the Quite One teeters on the Smiley One’s fate.

They don’t have much longer before it’s too late.

But the crack keeps widening, they do not learn their lesson.

Let’s hope they learn it before one more goes to heaven.

Bandages (soft as can be) wrapped round and round and round ~ house, home, wherever he goes Safety pins once, no longer. There are different ways to hurt and different ways to bind pain into your skin your bones. One pain always seems worse until the next one (as in where do you turn when the pain turns comfort and no one sees).

we didn’t think we would miss the way he would wrap us around his sorry chest squeeze air out keep pain in. we didn't think we would miss Crushing his ribcage but anything would be better than this. we don’t want to be complicit in this anguish but what can we do he hides us so well beneath wool and cotton help him. help us.

HELP US HELP HIM

Stairs (no carpet) glossy wood, pristine, polished, creaky ~ house Two choices, up or down: sometimes neither. Choice at least sometimes. Sometimes told. Always end up or down for better or for worse (as in when down has the radio and up has the bathroom lock).

Up first goes the little one, running up on his hands and feet as fast as he can.

Grandad got mad made Wilbur sad again, he whispers to us, he's got to go to bed nice and quick tonight.

He thumps and we squeak under his bare feet.

Up next goes the quiet one, feet soft but heavy and weighted against the wood.

His shaking breath makes his feet tremble and there is a drop of wetness at the top as he hurries over the landing.

He trudges and we try not to cry at the sorry weight.

Up next go the old couple, he stomps and she shuffles.

Neither of them says anything, which says exactly enough and yet not nearly.

They are going to bed and we creak insistently this time.

Signal.

There are no toes for a long time.

Then One bare foot.

Another.

We are quiet now. All energy making not a single peep as the quiet one creeps downstairs.

Down he goes, stepping with shaky surety. One at a time.

His feet are still heavy, we cushion as best we can (it's easier when there are socks).

But we won't let him down. Not again.

When he returns, he is just a little heavier (every time he comes he's a little heavier, there is more and more weighing him down the longer he spends in this house that sometimes we want to scream get out even though it would hurt to see him go, but now isn't the time) - and still we weather his steps silently. We are used to the weight of his midnight trappings, we know where to strengthen the wood, when to relax so he goes unnoticed in the dead of night.

Shelves (wooden) organised, full and empty, holds with care ~ house Always there collecting for show. Things on bookshelf proof of things not life not love just there to be there. Performance of shelf life and the way things are and do and are done (as in book never opened but at least centre stage).

The clock on our shelf reads 01:17.

He always comes the nights the radio has gone static.

Tonight is no different.

He creeps across the carpet.

He looks at the photo frames on the shelf, he always tries not to and always fails.

There, his namesake sits atop our highest shelf, always watching.

He thinks the person in the photo is angry at him. Forgets a photo is a picture.

The books on the shelf have gathered dust, the photos high and almost out of sight. There are trinkets and there are doodahs and they too have befell the fate of most shelf lives. Dust, dust, dust, dust, dust Records. They are pristine. Sleeves crisp, vinyls shiny, display dustless.

Boy. He is tired. Brow creased, sleeve holes, eyes foggy.

He pauses, he always pauses, but he always takes.

Always record on top, always left hand pile, always on nights the radio goes static.

The radio has been static more often than not these days, even when he's not here.

Sooner or later, the dwindling record supply will surely go noticed.

For now his secret is safe, we make it so.

Computer (study) research, communication, words in lines in boxes in boxes ~ house Set up by man not brave enough to be here anymore. Made communication harder, algorithm working with one and against the other. The way you search informs what you find so what is learning and what is just an echo (as in type so you dig your heels in convince yourself right so don't think about what's broken).

Search History.

Benefits of conversion therapy Conversion therapy ban why?

Conversion therapy cons Trans assault Trans murder rates Trans deaths 2023 Trans people killed this year

Toy (rabbit) companion, threadbare, loved, confidant ~ follows wherever the little one goes Used to belong to the quiet one, now loved more than anything by the little one. Sometimes knows more than people think, little one sees more than people think, has less people to talk to than people think so turns to rabbit (as in at what age do you stop telling truths and instead tell halves).

Mummy is angry at Grandpa again so Miss Cherry from next door had to take us to Grandma and Grandpa's this week . She's not actually a cherry but she has a cherry tree in her garden and makes me a cherry pie for my birthday since I was 2 and that’s why we call her Miss Cherry. I thought Grandpa would be annoyed when I told him that I called her Miss Cherry instead of her actual name but he didn't. He calls her Miss Cherry too now which I don't understand.

He said it's different but I don’t know why. I love Grandpa but he is so very frustrating sometimes.

Last year I was too scared to visit Grandpa because I heard Mummy talking to Miss Cherry about Grandad killing her friend when they were younger. I went anyway but when Grandpa asked me what was wrong, I asked him if he'd killed anyone and he seemed very confused.

Wilbur told me to shut up and then I kicked him in the shin and then Grandma told me to go sit on the naughty step which I thought was unfair because Will told me to shut up.

Grandpa would normally tell us off but he looked very sad for a minute and just stared out the garden window.

He must have had a row with Mummy about it because she sat down and told me that Grandpa never killed anyone and she shouldn't have said that.

She said that once upon a time Grandpa said some very nasty things about her friend and now her friend isn't here anymore but that doesn't mean it was his fault. She just always gets upset around this time of year and that I shouldn’t tell Will because it would just upset him.

I promised not to tell him but I didn't understand why it would upset him more than me but I trust Mummy so I never said anything ever. I think he knows though, he just wouldn’t say anything because he doesn't want her to fight with Grandpa over him.

It's that time of year again and apparently with everything that has happened over the last couple of years Mummy can't even look at Grandpa right now, so Miss Cherry brought us here. Mummy said she was tired and sore but I don't think Grandma and Grandpa bought it because their faces went all funny when they opened the door to Miss Cherry.

Miss Cherry wasn’t as smiley as normal but I think that's because she's less smiley when Mummy isn't happy. Mummy is always smilier when Miss Cherry is smilier but Will keeps telling me not to mention it or Miss Cherry might not come around as often which would be sad.

Everyone is being strange so I'm up here talking to you because Grandpa got it wrong again and I tried to tell him off but then he started yelling at Wilbur even though he hadn't done anything and so now I'm not talking to Grandpa till he apologises to Will.

Mirror (bedroom) seen, not seen, reflects, not always ~ home People see what they want to see except they don’t really. Trapped as witness behind the looking glass, no one can hide from ‘reflection’ not even mirror itself (as in how much pain it hurts to bear witness to yourself, them, it, don’t want it).

I remember when it was bandages and safety clips I remember the red lines around his ribcage I remember wanting to yell

He still turns to the side to assess his flatness He still binds with ribs bent out of shape He still cries, unbound, when he looks too long I wish I didn’t make us feel so blue I wish it didn’t hurt him to not hurt I wish he saw what his brother sees

His brother sees big, strong; He sees young, soft His brother sees a safe space; He sees a wrong form His brother sees a hero; He sees a loser

Sofa (living room) just a big chair, nothing lost down cracks, perfect leather ~ house The sofa is where they sit. That is all (as in how straight must your spine be for you to not be a disappointment).

Once, a surprise! Revealing black and white photograph. Love so loud and soft Almost sank through our cushions Now, photograph turned young man Sits stiffly on the edge Taking up as little space Hoping we get softer soon no

crumbs

between

the

cracks

Once upon a good kid Big smiles, wonky pigtails Taking up space Cushions bouncy underneath throw pillows once stuffing now stone

Sitting in laps listening to stories now dusty on shelf old new hips can’t bear weight even if they wanted to they miss it but it’s all so confused

Today, still good kid learning hard sad truths No matter how good he is our cushions stay firm. no sign of softening

Radio (moving often) honours loss from the top shelf, only just in sight ~ house First year of Wilbur, no static. Three years on? Static is insistence yet no change. Instead, radio moves from shelves to cupboards for better signal. Signal is fine. Their behaviour is not (as in how many times do you all need to flinch before you TRY).

Good morning, you are listening to the kitchen radio, coming to you this week from under the sink.

First today's headline news; Old Woman set the table early this morning despite the fact that it’s been a long, long while since they ate breakfast at the same time. Sources imply she might be trying to pretend that’s not by design.

In other news, protestors clash in the city centre yesterday. Local politician and media outlets express disapproval through slimy smiles. As if they haven’t orchestrated it, as if they have no part to play. In (what they’ll have you believe is) unrelated news, trans teen found dead floating and bloody in local pond. Various outlets send their ‘thoughts’ to the family and call her REDACTED’. Her name was Clara. They’ll forget her by Monday. Her name was Clara. Smiley One’s name was Lucinda.

And as soft footsteps approach let’s turn down the volume just a little and switch to some different coverage. Ah yes, it’s time for the breakfast rush.

Quiet One enters the kitchen. Starting off strong by heading straight for the cereal.

Will the breaking news throw him off course? The man talks about cutting down on sick days, being more vigilant about sickness, keeps saying support but does not speak of it. Quiet One clues in and oh his shoulders tense as he spares a thought for his mother, and it looks like he’s going to have to bow out.

Frankly if I could turn the station myself, I would.

But then he’s shaking it off, there’s a good lad, he gets the bowl and heads to the fridge where he retrieves the milk in record time Oh no, here comes Old Man turning the corner, homing in on the boy and says, 'Good Morning

REDACTED’.

Quiet one freezes, winces, but the static is for the best. He'll wince either way. ‘Morning Grandpa’ Old Man looks as though he’s about to say something else and then, here comes Little One, barrelling through, here we have it folks he’s saved by the brother.

It looks like now they’ve all opted for a silence that they can kid themselves is companiable.

Quiet One makes steady progress and it looks like he’ll be able to make his exit with no more incidents but oh oh oh – folks it’s over. Old Woman walks into the room and it is over for Quiet One. He played a good game this morning but there’s nothing he can do now except sit and take it.

The older couple begin to discuss plans for the day and its static static “REDACTED this” and “REDACTED that” and Little One glares so hard at Old Man he begins to feel a headache coming on. He’ll blame it on me, the ‘damn radio’. As long as the Quiet One’s breaths are shaky and sad, I’ll take credit for all the headaches I can. I’ll stop if they do. Check. Mate.

Stairs (no carpet) glossy wood, pristine, polished, creaky ~ house Two choices, up or down; sometimes neither. Choice at least sometimes. Sometimes down scuffs knees, sometimes up makes tears (as in ‘when down feet skips a step and up doesn’t know how to make them love you’).

Children trip down stairs all the time, feet go too fast, too slow, for their body.

Heels over heads on wooden edges, broken wrists at best, don’t think about worst.

Here, guilt is a wasted emotion.

The quiet one was not always quiet, especially not in this house.

Laughter was once embedded in our wood, not a creaky board in sight.

Not so much anymore.

The first night the radio went static, we didn't know we would creak.

Late night escape was rumbled, no laughter and we screamed for the first time.

Aftermath made guilt inescapable.

A bellow.

A fright.

A fall.

Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood.

We know better now. We recognise the quiet one's feet. We look forward to them.

He is so gentle with us.

We are trying to do the same but.

We haven't heard a giggle in years.

We are creaking more than ever and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts Help us. Help him.

Photo (bookshelf) honours loss from the top shelf, only just in sight ~ house A photo is a picture. This one, brothers, side by side. One gone, other stranded. Sometimes people go and leave you compass-less and all you have is a frame on a shelf. Then its which photo hurts less than others (as in what do you do when remembering hurts).

A photo is a picture But if the picture Of the person In the photo Was perhaps able To listen What are you doing with that photo Joe? How’d you get that down from there.

Just looking grandpa The picture Of the person In the photo Would hear The little one Say something like He picked his name because he knows you were upset when Mummy didn’t name me that The picture Of the person In the photo Would recognise A name whispered By brother once his Wilbur… How did REDACTED know 9314 THAT’S NOT HIS NAME 2343 The picture Of the person In the photo Might feel glass Cra9ck At the force Joseph!

You have to do better Grandpa.

Box (in closet) keeps, holds, hides ~ house Keeps things hidden and safe even when maybe it shouldn’t. Some boxes are opened more and some are opened less and sometimes they are just waiting for you to be ready (as in where to hide the things it’s too hard to look at).

OPEN. Welcome in, take your time, stay a while.

Spoon (tea) – he swore I was lost then found me in his pocket. Hidden here to save face.

Promptly forgotten about. I quite like it though, it’s quiet.

Photo – image fading, one boy smiling at camera holding younger brother in his arms. On the back in pencil is written ‘Wilbur (5) Arthur (2)’ Tie – I am gathering dust. Long source of a debate not had in longer – blue with white stripes or white with blue stripes?

I can’t remember the last someone took a look.

Card - I am hand drawn in crayon. On my front - a green scribble. Inside is unintelligible squiggles. A black pen translates below - 'apparently this says, "happy birthday grandpa i love you more than eggy bread." Also heads up the green blob is a heart - the artist was not impressed with me when I couldn't identify it. I hope you appreciate the vision; I think she is onto something. happy birthday dad x'

The card is years old. There is not a single crease or wrinkle in the paper.

Postcards (various) - never sent.

Disposable Camera - photos not developed. how long does film last when kept in a box. How long do memories.

Photo - two men in suits grinning from ear to ear. Arms around each other. The taller one wears a blue and white tie and smiles at the camera as if he's just told a joke. The younger one smiles at the taller one in the white and blue tie. On the back in pencil - 'Hey Arty found this in mum's junk and thought you might like it. As you can see it's clearly blue with white stripes… Speaking of which I know you stole it! Send my love to family. Love, Will.

The photo is in mint condition.

Badge – ‘world’s best grandad’ world’s best world’s best grandad grandad

CLOSED. thank you for coming. I’m not going anywhere, please visit soon.

Storybook (bedroom bookshelf) read over and over and over again, comfort sometimes ~ house, Bedtime stories, bonding then ritual now just a thing you do. Normally spines don't become stiffer over time, but house makes things work strange ways sometimes. (as in how many can you read before time runs out before it's broken beyond repair).

Once upon this evening, Grandmother sits on Grandson's bed reading a bedtime story. She thinks he is listening. He thinks about his brother. They way he slunk to bed with his shoulders hunched and heart heavy. Grandson watches Grandmother.

She is not thinking about her grandchild in the other room. The one with the eyes that get sadder and sadder but if she doesn’t think about it then maybe it’s not happening. She is thinking about the book in her hands and the blanket in her lap and not about the sad eyes next door.

She finishes reading out loud and turns expecting to see Grandson's eyes drooping, sleep taking over her sweet boy softly and surely.

It is not.

Grandson looks at her long and curious.

She says, 'Its beddy bo time Joe.' He says,

'No.'

Grandmother thought he liked the bedtime story. He looks troubled.

'Why doesn't Grandpa like Will?'

Grandson asks.

'Don't be silly, of course Grandpa likes REDACTED -' Grandmother freezes, words caught just behind her ribcage, icy, sharp.

'I DON’T LIKE IT WHEN YOU CALL HIM THAT' Grandson yells.

For a moment Grandmother thinks she feels the ground shake, hears static and sees Grandson sink further into the bed. His blankets look softer now.

Hers is beginning to itch.

A shiver of defence slivers down her spine ‘Joseph. You cannot speak to me like - ’ The words catch in her throat again, thicker this time so she nearly chokes on them. There is a cold look in Grandson’s eyes that is startling for a 6-year-old.

‘I'm afraid I'm starting to not like you anymore' He says.

So much for a nice bedtime story.

Television (living room) to watch, distract, escape but not so much recently~ house There is silence as he watches. Do you watch or is it just on, does it just play, play, play, distraction is little pixels and absent voices filling space time hole (as in what plays in the background as you pretend you can’t hear your thoughts knocking).

The lights are low in the living room. OLD MAN sits in his armchair with a glass in his hand, it is long past his bedtime and he is frowning. He looks from me to the frame on the top shelf over and over again. The frown is less anger than it is turmoil. He only ever drinks honey brown with ice when he's happy or anxious. If he's happy. When he's anxious.

On the mantlepiece are school photos of QUIET ONE and LITTLE ONE. QUIET ONE's are from when he wasn't so quiet. QUIET ONE enters. He startles, not expecting company here.

OLD MAN: What are you doing up?

QUIET ONE: (looks toward the records on the shelf anxiously) Couldn't sleep. Just wanted to get, um, a glass of water.

OLD MAN: Hmm. (He clears throat and becomes very interested in his empty glass. When he speaks his voice is almost shy) Would you like to join me?

QUIET ONE: (he does a slight double take, did he hear that right?) What?

OLD MAN: Never mind.

QUIET ONE: (he scrambles quickly to save the moment) No, Grandpa I'd like - (he fails) Somehow, they don’t feel the crater in the foundations at their feet grow larger still.

OLD MAN: Joseph yelled at your grandmother tonight. She was very upset.

QUIET ONE: Yup. (he clenches his jaw, takes a deep breath and looks up at ceiling) I heard.

OLD MAN: You should apologise to her. (he stands up brusquely, doesn't look directly at QUIET ONE) I'm going to get a refill, do you still want water?

QUIET ONE: (he looks miserably at his feet, his chest is heaving heavily now, his eyes likely glassy now) Huh? Oh, water, yeah no I'm okay now actually. Will probably just head to bed.

OLD MAN leaves and QUIET ONE sniffles and then immediately takes a record and flees the room. The stairs cry loudly as he runs upstairs. There are some weights they can’t carry.

OLD MAN re-enters and inspects the record pile, then he walks over to the mantlepiece. He takes the photo of the QUIET ONE and stretches to put it face down on the top shelf. Out of sight out of mind. He startles as I begin to crackle.

I turn myself off.

I won't turn on for two days, no matter how hard they try.

Records (under sofa) brand new, wrapped in plastic, hidden ~ home Records normally live on bookshelf. This stack not yet. Top one will move soon, it knows. It's ready (as in who chooses your soundtrack and how to take control or fix or atone).

A SIDE how old were you when you realised that some love was not unconditional that perhaps the conditions were simply disguised did you cry curse scream hurt and hate or did you promise that the love for your loved ones would not meet the same fate one last question for you my friend when was it you discovered that your love too might have a finite end

B SIDE oh sweet child, its heartache in c minor once you had not a worry in the world now you can’t feel love from the old timer how hard it is to love so much it hurts and though its only getting worse please stop hiding red lines beneath your shirt will my music soothe your pain enough oh god I really hope it will because i’m running out of ways to make this less tough

Box (under bed) keeps, holds, hides ~ home Keeps things hidden and safe even when maybe it shouldn’t. Some boxes are opened more and some are opened less and sometimes you have to keep things in boxes so you don't forget even when you want to even when you should (as in where to hide the things other's can't see and you don’t want to).

OPEN. Don't look in here please. There's nothing you can do.

Socks - Once Were. Stuffed Down. Loose Boxers. Not Needed. Still Kept.

Safety Pins - We used to work with Bandages to bind. He doesn't need us anymore, thank goodness. He still needs Bandages. We all wish he didn't.

I asked you to stop. You can't go back. There's no hope.

Scissors - When he was six he used us to cut his hair all off. His Grandmother cried. His Grandfather yelled. His Mother took us in her hands and gently snipped it into shape. His father locked the scissors in a drawer. Now we cut tape.

If you aren’t going to help, leave.

If you won’t take things out, close this now.

Bandages - We are still in use. We don't want to be.

Shoelace - I used to be threaded in his dad's shoes then he got new laces then the kid put me in this box even though there's not much use for me anymore.

It's my job to keep things in. It doesn't mean I haven’t tried.

Old Passport - I keep his old name hidden, faded it out so its barely legible. I can't erase it though. He can't either.

I mean it. Stop rifling, it won't help anyone. I'm begging you.

Birthday Card - I am still here but no one has opened me since Shoelace and I moved in.

ENOUGH. You have a choice to make now.

Razors - RED RED RED-

CLOSED. coward coward coward coward coward coward coward coward coward

Toy (rabbit) companion, threadbare, loved, confidant ~ follows wherever the little one goes Used to belong to the quiet one, now loved more than anything by the little one. Comforts when toes dipped in new waters that are cold and unfamiliar and sometimes is the only one who understands (as in when you learn that sometimes you get it wrong even with care).

I made Will cry today. I didn't mean to, I promise. He said he was fine but then he locked the bathroom door, and he only ever does that when he's really, really sad. I don't like it when Will locks the bathroom door, but he told me not to worry about it. I still worry about it though; I get a funny feeling in my tummy when I hear the bathroom lock and I want to break the door down. I feel like the door would let me, but I don't do that because Will told me not to and I want to be a good brother.

All I asked him was if he'd ever not be my brother, because Grandpa said it was a phase and I asked Grandpa what that was and I was confused. Will says I can ask him anything, but I think maybe I shouldn’t have asked him that.

We had a really nice day and Grandma and Grandpa weren’t deliberately getting it wrong or putting the radio station with the nasty man on it that always makes a nasty noise when Will's in the room. We went in the garden and played all day because the sun was out. Grandpa even played goalie for a bit which he never does - he wasn't all that good though because I managed to score seven whole times - but it was nice for him to join in. He even smiled every time we got a goal which is strange because Mummy is always going on about how competitive he can be, but he wasn't even mad at all.

But then it was nearly dinner time and Will went to have a quick shower and I was helping set the table and heard Grandpa talking about phases. I don't really know what that means and I didn't hear the rest of the conversation, but I asked anyway. Grandpa was kind of uncomfortable and explained a bit, but I didn't really understand. Normally when I don't understand I talk to Will, but I couldn't because it was dinner.

Will looked so smiley so I thought it would be okay to ask afterwards even though I had a funny feeling at the back of my throat, and I kept asking Grandma to turn the radio off because it was making that noise again, but she looked at me weird and said it wasn't on. I could hear it though I really could, but the funny feeling was spreading around my body, so I didn’t ask again.

I think I maybe I got my words all mixed up when I spoke to Will because I didn’t even really hear all of what Grandpa said but I just didn’t understand, and I don’t like not understanding and then when I crept out of bed earlier, I pressed my ear to his door and I think he was crying. I feel really rotten because I hate making Wilbur upset. I hate Grandma and Grandpa making Will upset because I don’t understand why they don’t like Will because if they don’t like Will anymore when will they stop liking me?

I don’t think I like coming here very much anymore because everything feels much more confusing here and I don’t understand. I miss home and I miss my Mummy I keep getting the funny feeling like someone is pressing down on my chest when I’m here and I feel like the air is so thick in this house I miss the thin air and I m-miss my Mummy and I miss Wilbur.

Please, I just- I just want my Mum-my. I just want my M-Mummy.

Bed (bedroom) soft and warm and safe ~ home Sometimes it’s the only place you want to be, sometimes you have no choice. Little ones find comfort beneath the covers tucked up against mother, sometimes grow out of it, sometimes don’t. Either way, always space, always love, always trust (as in when warmth is counted if you cannot be).

soft, yet she still hurts i know her back and if her head aches the from the outside world, she tilts she could project, painless, on oldest oh how she wants to be able her body but times like these it is hard

when her hips are sore, she lies on lights stay off. when there is noise towards the sound, wishing she to the sofa where she hears her to hold him close. she never hates to love it she wants she - knockknock

the door creaks a little as it opens (her spine tenses at the light? the noise?) and closes again very quietly. we (i & she) expect little knees climbing up and under covers. instead, oldest speaks from beside the bedside table so quiet: “can i lay down with you for a bit? if you’re too sore it’s fine-” “get in here” gently in he gets (we (she & i) wonder how long it’s been since he has cuddled in to us like this feeling a bit guilty that it feels so nice to be needed) and curls into her body and when it hurts she does not show it because there was something timid in his voice that she can’t stomach. something shaky that sounds too much like when he talks to her parents, and she can’t have that here. can’t have him doubt for more than a single second that she would tear down and rebuild the whole world with her own shaky hands if he needed it. if she wasn’t trying to ignore the pounding behind her left eye, she might be able to ask her next question with more tact “what did they do this time?”. now it is he who tenses, her arms close tighter around him. i feel her take a deep breath, her heart is aching (i tell by the way her weight sinks further into me) and when he mumbles “nothing” i think it might get close to shattering. “you can tell me” she prods and he scoffs just a little - it is loving but it still hurts. she doubles down “i mean it, i will always choose you. if you never want to go back to that house you don’t have to-” “what about the hospital-” “we’ll figure it out. if it's just a couple nights at a time i’m sure miss cherry can watch you” to that – he snorts, she pokes him in the ribs and the room feels a little lighter. it gets heavier as he whispers, “i think it would kill me to be the one to tear this family apart anymore”. she could cry cry cry because how can she ever explain that its them them them tearing him apart. she whispers it anyway; aware it’s falling on ears that can’t hear it. he’s just a kid and her relationship with her parents is hanging by a thread and he’s not quite old enough to hear that it was strained long before he entered the scene. or perhaps she’s not ready to tell. perhaps she’s not ready to forgive them for this, him whispering shakily in her bed like he used to at four-years-old when he’d had a bad dream. to forgive them for Smiley One. but he’s here. i feel him smile into the pillow; she hears the smirk in his voice “your pillow smells like cherries” “shut your mouth and go to sleep” chuckling softly, she kisses his forehead, and he sleeps as she tries not to hold him too close, tries to keep that light alive just a little longer because he’s. still. here.

Clock (study) counting always, ticking, tocking ~ house We know we’ve lost time when it’s too late. The clock is the only one who truly knows that if time is a construct we are wasting it anyway as hands spin time spins everything spins out of control. Time doesn’t forget. People do (as in what would you do if you knew how much time was left).

Time is running out.

Tick Tock Time runs and runs and runs around my face and though hands frozen it does not stop running.

I see the quiet one sink further and further and further away and I see time running out.

Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick How can they not all see it? I saw it with Smiley One years and years and years ago. Time doesn't forget. People do. Old man said mean things and now Smiley One isn't here anymore and I fear Quiet One might follow.

Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock History repeats itself. Time doesn't forget. People do.

Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock

Television (living room) just a big chair, nothing lost down cracks, perfect leather ~ house There is silence as they watch. Crackle in the air as big thing is coming or something about to break (as in what were you watching when everything fell apart).

QUIET ONE enters the living room. OLD MAN and OLD WOMAN are sitting on the sofa.

LITTLE ONE went to bed a while ago, QUIET ONE looks as though he has come downstairs to try. That is, until he looks to Mantlepiece and notices his Photo missing. He breaks.

QUIET ONE: Do yous not want me to come here anymore?

OLD WOMAN: (looks towards Mantlepiece) redacted, pleaseThe ground shakes as QUIET ONE winces and brings a hand to his chest in pain. Foundations crack further, now it’s a crater, yet they do not see it. They do feel it this time.

QUIET ONE: That’s not my name, Grandma. (his hands shake, and tears begin to fall) OLD MAN: (he aims for comforting. It comes out defensive) Now don’tQUIET ONE: Will you please just listen for once? I try to honour your brother with my name, I try to give you time, I try and I try and I try and you still don't love me. I don't even tell Mum half the stuff you do because I don't want to come between you but it doesn't matter how good I am, how well I keep your secrets and hide my tears, I am never good enough.

OLD WOMAN: I don'tQUIET ONE: (shouts, his voice is so raw it scratches at their eardrums) I know you don't fucking care! I know this doesn't make sense to you and I never expected it to. I just thought you loved me enough that it might not matter, it was always going to be hard but I never thought it would be impossible. I thought I could be worth it.

OLD MAN: (looks at his wife and sees his horror reflected in her face) We didn’tQUIET ONE: You just, you make it so hard. It's been 4 years, and you haven't even tried. And I've - (he chokes back a sob) I've tried so hard. I can't do this anymore. If you don't want me just say so, please, I'm begging you (he gets on his knees and clasps his hands together). At least Dad left, you’ve made me watch as you stopped loving me and like you haven’t and I can't take it. I can't, I can't, I can't.

QUIET ONE flees from the room on shaky feet. OLD WOMAN hesitates, then follows.

OLD MAN: (frozen, no tears (yet), looks to the door) I don’t, I just - I don’t understand.

OLD MAN walks over to the sofa. He looks over his shoulder but there is no one there. He has already chased them away. From underneath Sofa he produces a brand-new record and removes the plastic. It is a rare record; he has been waiting for the right moment for this offering. He only goes under the sofa when he's really put his foot in it. When Radio has gone static. If I’ve gone static. To Shelf, record on top, will be gone by morning. OLD MAN hopes he likes this one. He usually likes them. OLD MAN fears it’s not enough, but it is what he has.

Computer (study) research, communication, words in lines in boxes in boxes ~ house Set up by man not brave enough to be here anymore. Communication past point of no return? What's being 'right' if you lose everything? Why more questions than answers? How to unbreak things broken? (as in type to rebuild to broaden to fix to fix to fix what your heels broke stuck in the soil).

Search History.

What to do with trans child What is transgender Need to know about transgenderism Signs of depression Trans teen suicide statistics How to support trans teen

Mantlepiece (living room) over fire place, display, offering ~ house Home is where the heart is and this is where we display it in picture frames so guests see family on our terms. Maybe their terms. Maybe radio stays here, maybe from high it sees sofa breathe, maybe a clock hangs above that tick tocks less harshly. You must adjust just a little to buy some more time (as in what you yield so you don’t have to move frames to the top of the shelf).

(left to right) First up is Little One with wide bright eyes red polo shirt, missing teeth, and big smiles.

Next is a trinket bought while on Sark on the last family holiday they ever embarked.

Then comes Sore One dressed all in black her eyes are so tired, but she looks nice in her cap.

Subsequently sonograms follow that up next to a small vase of some sweet buttercups

Now for Radio, still more static than not but maybe the sound will become less fraught

And last but not least is a brand-new addition the first real acknowledgement since the transition.

It’s Quiet One recently with short hair and tie it’s very much not a fix it but a promise to try.

Tie (envelope) white and blue or blue and white, an heirloom, a keepsake, an olive branch ~ house, An envelope is a big change from a box for white and blue, blue and white. Some things are meant for some people, you can’t always fight it. The pull will prevail if you let your heart let it (as in when words keep failing and gifts say a thousand).

I am passed in the envelope from shaking hands to wee confused ones, seal opened and he gasps, just a bit overcome so shaking hands take me gently looping round quiet one’s neck softly speaking step by step guide to the perfect windsor knot then even softer just a little admission saying ‘this was my brother’s’ gentle moments silence before he gains courage, finding vocal cords says ‘thank you’ for trusting me goes unspoken but implicit and with all that’s unsaid so much is understood and hope springs internal as the crack in the ground closes (just a little) and into the silence says quiet one ‘I like that it’s blue with white stripes’ shaky hands freeze just a moment then take face in their palms firm kiss pressed to forehead then at long last hold on tight