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30 April 2008
55. Kidman’s Gift – Part Two
The noise of the bar bombarded me as we entered the main door. After so much quiet living in Mordan House for nearly four months, after the silence of the town library, even the genteel rise and fall of voices in any of the town’s cafes, a bar full of people and music felt like being dropped from a helicopter into a war zone.
Voices scrambled around as if for dear life, and struggled with each other in noise-to-noise combat. It was a colossal war of sound and I almost held my ears at every aural explosion that sounded around me. Kidman just smiled, wiggled as she walked and bounced on her heels slightly as we pushed our way through the people and towards the bar. It was then that I realised how terrified I was, how much I wanted to turn tail and run, taking the consequences for desertion; willing to face the firing squad rather than endure this.
So, what kept me there? Kidman’s hand. Her hand was holding mine and guiding me through the people – if not for this, I’d have been in a corner of the bar already, knees tucked-up, body shaking, thumb in mouth, and with, probably, the distinct scent of urine emanating from a leak in the lady cupboard. Kidman, man, Kidman! She was getting me through this, as best she could. And I was holding on, as if she were a rifle or a shield, or a locket containing the hair of a loved one.
We reached the bar and Kidman nudged me to get the barmaid’s attention. Kidman looked at my face and I saw her recognise the fear that was there. She grinned falsely, but as a different kind of nudge to get me to smile, even if I didn’t feel a smile anywhere inside me. So I did. It felt horrible, like lobbing a grenade into the crowd.
Before I even had the chance to try and get the barmaid’s attention I heard her voice and looked up with surprise. She was looking at me. She saw me! I was curiously amazed at being noticed, at my absolute visibility in such a place of visual violence, and I swallowed and tried to remember how to speak.
Kidman said: “Bourbon. And water. A stiff double too, so hit me.”
“Uh, one double bourbon and water, please.” Bourbon? Where did that come from? When had I last been in the States and ordered Bourbon? “Or whiskey, I should say. And a glass of red wine.”
I did it! What a sigh came out of me, but what a jangle was still going on at the same time! Shell-shock is a terrible thing: one minute you’re all laughter and confidence, then some totally thoughtless prick slams down a paperclip and you’re suddenly behind the sofa playing with your bottom-lip! Yes, the barmaid cocked her head slightly when I mentioned the bourbon, and there was a degree of choosing of wine and whiskey to do that I rattled through without much thought, but aside from that she treated me as if I was normal. Nor-mal! How the hell could I be normal? I was ordering two drinks when there was only one me! What was I to say if challenged? “Oh, it’s for my Imaginary Kidman. Oh, don’t you have one? Everyone should have an Imaginary Kidman. Mine’s the latest model, complete with back-chat, ENP, and lifelike hair and nails! Better get on eBay then, huh!” But she was unlikely to ask; the bar was too busy for her to notice that there was one me and two drinks. Strange, I know, but I felt I had to order this presence a drink – it was the only way I could get through this night. Without my Kidman, I couldn’t do any of this. I was a part of it all, all this Kidman stuff, enthralled by it, but I could see its absurd, frightening shape at the same time!
We found a table - two people leaving just as we walked by them. I sat down, feeling suddenly secure to have a chair beneath me. So many things in life act as chairs, yet, when it comes down to it, you can’t beat having a real chair! In a sense, I sat on my chair as I sat beside my other chair, Kidman.
The bar was typical of the drinking dens that you find in Scotland, especially outside of the cities: it was all old wood on the floor, ceiling and walls; low, beamed ceilings; lots of little corners where you can tuck yourself away; little lamps emitting a reddish light that cast warm shadows everywhere; candles here and there, flickering in conversation with each other just like normal paying customers; and full of all different kinds of people in different kinds of dress, and all appearing unselfconscious and relaxed and boisterous. Funny kind of war zone, I realised. The chaos of war, but with the euphoria of a war just ended.
Kidman was still buzzing. Her head swayed from side to side and she looked at everything, smiling and laughing endlessly – taking it all in as if every little thing was a sip of whiskey to her senses. Her buzz began to give-off an electrical glow as a group of musicians, huddled on small chairs in some corner of the bar, began to play traditional Scottish music. The music skipped through the crowds, and bodies began to sway as the notes danced around them. Kidman began to tap her foot and shoogle little bits of her in a gliding, rhythmic manner. Yes, my elemental creature was in her element!
After a while, I started to stop seeing things through my own eyes and my own disposition, and started to see through Kidman’s eyes. What she was looking at was all the little glimmers of hope that existed in the world, that people ordinarily don't notice when endlessly bombarded by the dark and destructive bombs of this world, those that exploded around us and inside of us, in this midnight world of ours. She looked with glee through all the darknesses piled high and spread wide, as if seeing bits of humanness everywhere – admittedly small, but bright in themselves and filled with potential.
Across from us, through wall upon wall of hollering bodies, we could just make out a man and woman sitting close and looking at each other, then kissing tentatively but then with avarice, everything uncertain but guided by a great red helium balloon inside that rose up and pushed to get out. Ordinarily such a display as this would disgust and annoy me, but through Kidman’s eyes it seemed like a spark of hope. Sure, it might turn out to be nothing but sex between them, but, for those moments, there was a chance to flower, the possibility that something might grow that would give this blistered world a chance.
Kidman watched them and nudged me, saying: “Always remember that hope starts from the smallest glimmer of light, a spark even, and what you try to do in life is slowly but surely create a fire out of it. To hell with the darkness and to hell with how much of it there is!” Then she turned and looked at me: “Hope, I think, is a little like going down on a man: once you see even the tiniest spark, blow on it gently!”
I smiled, blushed slightly and turned away. Then I heard her say mischievously: “I know I always do!”
What happened next happened incrementally. Like a surfer being carried ever-faster and ever-higher by a swell that rises gradually as it moves towards the shore. On the surface, I seemed the same, but as little events gathered themselves together around me, I felt them having an effect on me, lifting me up and carrying me along. I went from being in a place where I knew no-one and where I was on the outside of things to being gathered into the fold of all that was going on in that bar. People came over to talk to me, these people then mentioned “the American girl from Mordan House” to other people and they then came over. Soon there were drinks being bought for me and I was paraded to different quarters of the bar to meet all manner of people. At what point I started to be up and dancing with everyone as the fiddle and harp played exuberantly I don’t know! But it happened!
And, somewhere behind me, Kidman’s drink sat on a table untouched. In fact, I lost sight of her completely after a while, even though I occasionally would crane my neck to see if I could still see her presence in amongst all the people.
It was wonderful! A permanent smile was on my face and it eternally billowed into laughter. It was the most wonderful evening I’d had in such a long time – even before Mordan House and the dead astronaut I found it hard to remember a night like this, especially since everything that happened with Philip.
Not sure at all what time it was when I left the pub. Not sure what prompted me to leave either – although I’m pretty sure that it was round about time for the pub to close. Not sure how much I’d had to drink, but it was a considerable amount of wine and whiskey. Not sure of anything much that was said or done within that last hour either! But, what I do remember was a face that I saw as I stumbled out of the bar.
He was talking to someone at the other side of the street and he saw me almost instantly, his eyes suddenly fixing on me with recognition. I think I whispered the word “James!” out loud. No sooner had I uttered it than he walked towards me.
I’d thought the war was over and that there had been a glorious victory celebrated by me in amongst a downpour of hope-sparks. Perhaps it had all been a skirmish followed by a Pyrrhic victory, and the real battle was just about to begin.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
09:20 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
23 April 2008
54. Kidman’s Gift – Part One
“Darling, I’m home!” I called.
Okay, that was a lie. No way I said that when I got back from the library that evening, my head still spinning with thoughts of a new way forward in my investigations. I’m pretty sure that what I actually said was: “I’m back! Where the hell are you? I’ve got some serious shit to lay on you!”
“Is that you?” called Kidman. “My best pal? My only true friend? The one I can’t do without? The one who knows me better than anyone? The one who will stand by me forever? My very own untitled darling? Can it really be you?”
Okay, that too was a lie. No freakin’ way Kidman greeted me like that! Not in this lifetime! I think what she actually said was: “Stephanie Small-Tits? Is that you? Untitled Titties? Are you home? Let me just put my glasses on. Ah, yes, it’s you, Small-Tits, it’s you! Oh yes, I recognise your puny puppies now!”
I was dismissive. “I’ve got stuff to tell you! They have a medium in town! I saw it on the notice-board of the library! Someone who can communicate with the dead! If we were to –”
“Do you want your present now?”
“Present? Oh, yes, my present. Of course. I didn’t like to ask …”
That’s another lie, right there! I’d forgotten, to be honest. My head had been so filled with thoughts of using a medium to communicate with the dead presence in Mordan House that I’d forgotten all about the fact that Kidman had said that she was going to give me a gift of some kind when I got back.
“Didn’t like to ask? What does that mean? Always ask! ‘Where’s my freakin’ pressie?’ that’s what you say! Is that too tricky for you? Need a training course?”
“That’s grand advice, Kidman. Thank you.” I was doing dismissive exceptionally well. You know, I very nearly didn’t type that last line, I was going to throw it away almost as soon as I’d become aware of it in my head! You may, in fact, have heard the initial pre-throwing-out scrunch!
“It’s upstairs! I’ve got everything ready!”
“Upstairs? Uh, where’s the visible ‘Am I Looking Stupid Today?’ tattoo? Upstairs is where most of the haunting stuff goes on! And you want me to amble up there when the sun’s starting to set? Oh, yeah! Let’s see how fast I can amble! Kidman? Thickman, if you ask me! You got poor grades, sweetheart, so go flunk yourself!”
That’s right, reader, lie from beginning to end! Here’s what I really said: “Oh, okay.” Yep. Both barrels. That’s what I gave her.
She took me upstairs to a room that Kidman said had the best lighting. Inside, there was a chair surrounded by a small table covered in make-up, an ironed and ready-to-wear dress plus accessories, and another table with those implements of the trade that women use regularly to preen and prune.
“We’re going to get you glammed-up! We’re going to aim for somewhere in around the hot, foxy, tasty, scrumptious, ‘lady cupboard’ me now, knock-out gorgeous end of the scale of feminine appearance! Somewhere just shy of ‘hooker’ but nowhere near Lyndsay Lohan look-a-like! Then we’re going into town – in fact, going out on the town, I should say – to get your man! Or a different man! The days of women being picky are long gone! There’s a storm, we’re a ship, and, hell, there’s a freakin’ port! And you, Step Fey, are the coxswain!”
There was no persuading her to drop this plan. I could tell from the full embellishment of her ENP! I said nothing and found myself being marshalled into a chair, then my body being pulled about and scraped and seasoned and varnished and various things applied to me in a variety of places.
“Like the way things are shaping up, do you? Like my little pressie to you?” she said as she finally worked on my make-up. I grunted in the affirmative. That was all. Merely grunted.
But here’s what I was really thinking: “No, no, no! Don’t do this to me! I can’t possibly do this! No, no, no! Make like a sheep, Kidman, and get to flock! That’s a nice dress, but get naked and frock off! Make like dust and go fleck yourself!”
You got me again. That was all a complete lie. It was all a lot more complicated than that. Dreadful dread and exciting excitement mixed with nervous nervousness, in amongst the most awfully awful fearful fear you could imagine imagining! And that was just the start of starters!
Soon we were ready to go and I thanked her for her such a thoughtful present, yet quietly and uncertainly. But that was just the start of the gift that Kidman had in mind.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
08:20 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
22 April 2008
53. Kidman’s Gift - Prelude
I dreamt that I was in a space-craft last night. Floating alone and with the distant world as my only company.
I looked out of the porthole for solace and in hope that I might see something that might distract me from my own sense of isolation, and from my own numbing, reverberating presence. And there it was. Just hanging there, in the distance, and appearing to stare at me as I stared out. The image of an astronaut.
I grew fearful. I felt vulnerable. Then suddenly the craft began to shake violently from side to side. I held on as tightly as I could and I managed to look back out of the window to find that the image of the astronaut was still there; eerily still, fixed in space, while my craft was buffeted uncontrollably. Then I lost my grip and found myself weightless and unable to control my movement – I put my hands over my head to protect myself and I tucked my legs up to my body. Then, in amongst the shaking of the craft, there was banging, and I could see the image of the astronaut hammering a fist repeatedly at the glass of the porthole. The glass soon shattered and the small pieces of glass floated-off, oh so slowly, as the craft continued to shake. I felt myself come up against a hard surface and I grabbed at it and found I was able to steady myself again. All the while, the astronaut was clambering through the porthole. My fear was rising, deliriously rising. In seconds, the image of the astronaut was hovering before me. Unexpectedly, the violent shaking ceased but there was a dullness in the craft now of depleted lights and dimming energy. I watched as the astronaut raised its hands to its visor and slowly began to lift it.
It was the anguished gurgling sound that I heard first, and then the blueness of skin on a face that was convulsing. A human face, but shaking as if rabid, its tongue ugly and distended, its eyes bulging and pained. The whole head trembling in spasms as if being asphyxiated. All the while, a foul, dreadful gurgling sound came from the mouth and filled the space-craft.
I screamed. I know I did. And I’m sure I woke up screaming too. The face inside the helmet was unmistakeable. It was Kidman’s face.
I know that I have to tell you what’s been happening over the last couple of days. This dream confirms it. As I sit here, typing away on my laptop, I can hear a slow and insistent knocking on the door of my suite of rooms. That’s Kidman also. She’s demanding that I tell you all about her gift. And, if she was paying attention to what I’m typing, she’d understand that that’s exactly what I’m doing. Just in my own way, that’s all.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about her gift. I’ll tell you all of it.
It seems like she believes me. The knocking has stopped.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
09:15 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
17 April 2008
52. A Little More than Lift-Off
Eighteen astronauts have died on space missions of one kind or another. Well, 18 that we know about! Another 11 have died as part of training exercises and 70 ground personnel.
In the library I looked at their faces and found it impossible to think that any one of them could be haunting me. It’s curious to me that most of them have died either trying to leave this planet or trying to get back to it. seven on space shuttle Challenger in 1986 when they had just left the ground, and another 7 on space shuttle Columbia in 2003, just minutes before landing. Three Russian cosmonauts from Soyuz 11 died of asphyxiation during re-entry. How many have actually died in space? None.
There have been, I’ve found out, countless rumours over the years of other Russian cosmonauts who died on space mission under the Communist regime, but the incidents were never publicised – hushed-up, in fact, as America and Russia competed for the kudos of gaining particular milestones in space exploration. Could that be the clue I’m looking for to discover my astronaut’s identity?
If so, how can I possibly find such things out where other researchers have failed? Especially tied to this house and with only a slow internet connection to navigate my way around the world and beyond? All I have, it seems, is this house and a very basic library focused more on Barbara Taylor Bradford and Wilbur Smith!
If that’s the way it is, then the house will have to be my own rocket, and the journey I take will have my suite of rooms as my cock-pit, the phantom apparitions as my guide and my own burning desire to understand as my fuel. Yet, if the truth be told, my own death during take-off or re-entry is strongly anticipated!
I keep returning to thoughts of the files in the cellar of Mordan House. Somewhere in there is the secret of space adventurer number 19 – the 19th astronaut to die in space, and the one who’s haunting me. if it hasn’t already been stolen.
I feel self-belief in my investigations rise up and for a minute I’m certain that I will solve the mystery. Then I feel nothing but emptiness and misery and hurt. Then certainty comes back even stronger. It’s like mapping the night-sky by daylight!
I’m going forwards. I’m taking systematic, logical steps. Maybe that’s all I can do. In trying to understand, I have just a little more than lift-off.
It’s as I leave the library to return home to Kidman’s gift, that I nod and smile over at Mrs Ormsley. It’s then that I take a glance at the public noticeboard. It’s then that I notice a flyer from a local psychic named Susan. And it’s then that I write her name down and leave the library, my head spinning with a new way forward.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
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14 April 2008
51. Reasons to Tug and Bite
Was there something outside of my window as I slept? Or was that just a dream?
There is some dim recollection of that night that consists of a light outside of the closed window with the closed curtains. Not a streetlight because the light moved slowly across the window. If it did occur then I wonder if the astronaut is possible outside of Mordan House. I think I had assumed that it was only apparent in the house and its grounds. But then my mind tells me that the dead astronaut is an apparition only of me and how I’m feeling and what I’ve been through. When I encounter this thought then I wonder what it matters that the apparition occurred outside of Mordan House! Why then should it not occur wherever my mind happens to be? But then I go full circle and I wonder what it would mean if the phenomenon happened to be real? There is nothing that I’ve uncovered that leads me to think that it’s real. My investigations yesterday revealed nothing that begins to prove it – in fact, they all lean towards disproving the idea!
Here are some of the things that Mrs Ormsley didn’t say to me over breakfast. She didn’t say anything about me sleeping in my car again. She didn’t ask me why I sometimes sleep there. She didn’t mention James. She didn’t mention that he was away and that she had tried to tell me as I left the library. She didn’t ask me what I was doing at Mordan House. She didn’t try to weasel anything out of me. And she didn’t try to put me down.
The last thing she said as she walked me to the front door after breakfast was: “Come back anytime you want. My door’s always open to you. If you see the light on, just knock.”
The last thing I said to her as I walked out the door was: “Well, if the ghost of the dead astronaut appears above the trees at Mordan House again then I may just be back!”
It was only after she closed the door that I realised what I’d said. Although I couldn’t see her, I could feel her, behind the closed door, pondering what I had said – I could feel the exclamation mark of her as tall as Godzilla, I could feel her again devouring my reputation like King Kong might devour a giant banana when it encountered it terrorising New York. For my part, all I could do was stand there for a second with my teeth feasting on my bottom lip. And when I returned to my car I gave my hair a tug so sharp that I felt the sting of it for miles.
Here are some of the things that Kidman didn’t ask me when I got back to Mordan House. She didn’t ask me where I’d been all night. She didn’t ask me what I had done with my previous day. She didn’t ask me what I was planning to do next. Just as well: I wasn’t sure myself. But then I found myself getting changed and setting off for the library again, to continue my investigations.
The last thing she said to me as I left the house was: “I’m going to have a nice surprise for you when you come back later, my lovely little untitled friend.”
‘Going’ – at least she’d dropped saying ‘gonnae’ and ‘dinnae’ and all of that! As I thought of this, the last thing I said to her as I closed the front door was: “That sounds nice, but I may decide to stay at Mrs Ormsley’s again. I’ll see how I feel.”
It was only as I moved towards the car that I realised what I’d said. I could almost hear Kidman’s internal scream of “That bitch Ormsley?” weakening the hinges of the door.
It was just before I reached the town that the stinging sensation across my scalp finally subsided and I let my bottom lip alone. I didn’t even think what Kidman’s surprise might be.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
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13 April 2008
50. Remember, a Man’s Light Is Always on a Timer
And I waited. And waited. In his silence.
There was one downstairs light on, but, of course, it could have been on a timer. How many men have I known who were conclusively silent, all the while I was deceived by the one solitary light that was on a timer!
First off, there was little Tom Murkman at my first school in Flagstaff. I tried to get him to tell me that he loved me one day while we waited for the school bus. He nearly told me too, but then he thought twice about it and bust my nose instead. I can still see the tightness of his hanging fists as I looked up from the ground. He didn’t look me in the eye; instead, he looked as if he wanted to go hunting and shoot an animal dead. I shouldn’t forget Andy Pinstley. He was my boyfriend in Phoenix. I was 14, I think. I remember calling him over and over again when suddenly he stopped wanting to see me. When he answered, there would simply be silence on the end, no words, no explanation. Or his dad would answer the phone and I’d get Andy’s second-hand silence. His dad obviously knew all about silence – his was thicker, fuller, darker, even more impervious to words. My longest love affair was with Sam Encko after high school. He loved me, so he said. He adored me, so he said. He was to be mine forever, so he said. The language of extremities masks the language of silence, so I now know. The light might be bright, but, as with all timers, it has to go off at some point! If you’re looking for truth from a man, look for subtleties, look for tiny contradictions, look for little words that actually hurt when you hear them, in amongst the words that fill you with joy – men can’t fake subtlety of feeling. That’s when you know that it’s not founded on silence. A couple of years later I met the woman that Sam Encko left me for. We had a drink and a laugh – no hard feelings. I asked her if she loved it when he spoke to her about how much he loved her, and she said he rarely did that, that most of all he would just hold her tightly and not want to let go. He didn’t do that with me! Men can’t fake the desire and need to hold you. Holding you is the silence that's full of fantastic sound. There’s nothing about it that’s silent, especially when nothing’s said. Oh, and there was the boss who bullied me back in Phoenix when I worked at the car dealership – that was the last job I had before moving to Scotland. He would keep all his real-life sounds - his moans and shouts and cries and gurgles – to himself, and I would only get the silence of it all. His silent treatment. Philip was like that - not only did he have a light on a timer, but he played music in the background too. His silence was concealed by a soundtrack. I only realised that it was all just the illusion of presence when I tried to get inside and I heard the alarm go off. I can still hear that alarm – and I can still feel it on my face.
Even in bed. Even there a man will prefer silence. He will prefer to bite down hard on a chunk of wood out of a headboard than shout out at the moment of ecstasy. And it’s so good to shout out, too! But where does all that loud ecstasy go? Maybe men keep it in some cupboard inside. No, surely it must sound inside. Look inside a man and everything’s buckled and bevelled where the sound has dented bone and sinew and tissue, or an organ even! – working the same way as a stress fracture. It’s all rubble and destruction inside of men, all kinks and deformities, as if every tornado of ecstasy has silently moved through the inner landscape, ripping up fences, damaging crops, toppling barns, lifting objects up high then throwing them down great distances from where they started out. Men never tidy up or carry out repairs inside, of course. They just shut the cupboard door and hope that no visitors ever open it by accident and peer inside.
I remember those old slap-stick cartoons where some character would swallow dynamite or a bomb, then there would be a great explosion inside while the character’s face stayed impervious, only something like smoke appearing from out of the ears. That’s men. The trick for men is to take the brunt of the explosion with a straight face.
As I walked back down the path and away from James’s house, a man walked past and looked at me. He said: “If you’re looking for James, he’s away for a couple of days. On business again. Drove him down to the train station myself.”
Away. The light was on a timer after all then! Typical! That was probably what that bitch Ormsley was going to say as I left the library. When she went “Oh” and “Um”, she was probably just about to say that James wouldn’t be home. So, the bitch got the last laugh in again. I stood looking forlorn and looking up and down the street, wondering where to go now and what to do.
As he was about to walk away, the man said, “Oh, are you Stephanie?”
“Yes, that’s right.” The question aroused me out of my indecisive state.
“I was talking to your mother the other day on the phone! She said to say ‘hello’ if I bumped into you! Now, wasn’t that a happy coincidence!”
My damned mother! There was another bitch who was always getting the last laugh on me! the man walked away, happy at his night’s work, and I went back to my car, dissatisfied. It was late now, and I sat behind the wheel of my poxy Punto for a couple of minutes, wondering if I should return to Mordan House where another woman was waiting who would want to get the last bloody laugh!
Finally starting the engine, I drove slowly all along the town’s main street, where there were little lights on in little homes. I imagined so many men all pretending to be in, but off somewhere being themselves, while their lights were always on a timer.
I came to the street where Mrs Ormsley lived and, like the early days of the astronaut’s haunting of Mordan House, I decided to sleep in my car outside of her house. Her light was on. It was comforting. At least I knew that someone was inside. No illusion of presence. I climbed into the backseat, curled up and quickly fell asleep. At some point, the curtains must have twitched. She probably saw my feet sticking up, as she said she had done before, and before I knew it I was inside her house and asleep in the spare room, and with barely a word spoken between us. It was the most wonderful sleep I’d had in months. I was warm, secure, and in real-life human company again.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
16:55 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
11 April 2008
49. There Was Me. And Then There Was Kidman.
“Get up, you untitled bitch! Get up, you stinking dormouse! Show some fight, you spineless lump, you gutless travesty! You wreck! You human pile-up, you!”
“I am up.”
“Oh. What’s that, then? Is it just that you haven’t made the bed yet?”
“I guess so. I’ve been up for hours.”
“Well, about time too! You lump! You pile of pitiful human cells!”
“Okay, I think you’re done.”
“What are you doing anyway? Are you going somewhere?”
“Yep. Going somewhere, me.”
“Where? What are you going to do?”
“Probably what you would do.”
“What! Get some scented cock for your lady cupboard?”
I rolled my eyes and carried on getting myself ready. She had been right to assume that I was still in bed, reluctant to get up. That’s what had happened all of yesterday, when I couldn’t even think about Kidman or any of those dreams of being a stronger person that all related to her. All I could do was indulge the way I was feeling. I was angry with myself - almost disgusted at my behaviour with James. My sheer stupidity and childishness! I was weak even when it came to pretending to be strong! I couldn’t play the role right; I could only put on a feeble mask – a gas-mask in this case! – and, oh so quickly, the mask began to crack, and the person inside began to show through – a useless, ineffectual person, in this case! I couldn’t blog! Not at all! From where I lay, although only a few feet away from my laptop, it looked as if it was actually way-off in some remote jungle surrounded by African tree-dwelling tarantulas, guarding the computer by preparing to drop into my hair should I make an attempt to seize it. It was the same also for thoughts of eating (the food in the kitchen guarded by ravenous dwarf crocodiles desperate for human carrion and thinking my near-dead carcass would do!). It was the same for thoughts of getting dressed (my wardrobe guarded by a couple of egg-stealing dinosaur oviraptors, and me with a couple of large-sized, free-range, tasty beauties under my pillow too!). It was even the same for the thought of opening the front door and getting some invigorating fresh air to clear my head (uh, hello, guarded by a freakin’ dead astronaut, if you hadn’t already noticed!). Yes, it was difficult to rouse myself in my emotional and psychological state, but even more difficult with the tree-dwelling tarantulas, dwarf crocodiles, oviraptors and dead astro-dude! Jeez, a girl’s got enough to deal with in life just having poxy, pathetic, puerile men to contend with, with their endless guarding of the door to love! See! Look at them! Look how they gnash their teeth! Look how they brandish their powerful cocks! Terrifying stuff, men are!
Kidman looked at me curiously as I left Mordan House and scrunched my way across the gravel that was wet due to a light rain. I got into my cheap, poor woman’s motor, swished the rain off my front and back windscreens and set off for the neighbouring town, taking deep relaxing breaths, and continuing to swish the rain away - not just from the windows but from inside of me.
At this moment, I didn’t need Kidman. At that moment, I was as much of her as I needed to be to get the intended task done. As she watched me go, her perplexed face said quite clearly that, for the first time, the Imaginary Kidman inside of me didn’t know what I was planning. There was distance between us. There was Me. And then, just over from that, there was the idea of Kidman.
I spent all afternoon researching in the library of the neighbouring town. And, for some reason, there was no Mrs Ormsley to irritate and confound me! I was getting back to what had been discussed between me and Kidman before all manner of stuff got in the way. All the questions that Kidman had previously posed were analysed by me through the use of old newspapers, encyclopaedias, and obscure books that yielded their knowledge happily and without obfuscation. What are ghosts? How many astronauts had died in space and under what circumstances? And what was the mystery of Josh’s disappearance? And how was his disappearance tied to Mordan House?
I had a notebook and pen with me, and I took down all the pieces of information that I thought were interesting, intriguing, and those that seemed obviously relevant. By the time the library was set to close I had amassed so much information – on page and in my head – that I felt exhausted and fit to burst with ideas and conflicting bits of information! As the lights in the library suddenly dimmed to herald closing time, I found that I had been so immersed in my work that I hadn’t noticed that I was the only person left in the building, aside from staff.
Then I heard a voice from the other side of the library.
“Yoo-hoo.”
Bugger.
“Yoo-hoo!”
Double bugger.
“Yoooo-hoooo!”
Just wondering. Would a triple bugger kill someone? Hope so.
“Stephanie! Stephanie? It’s me! Mrs Ormsley! Where are you? I know you’re here. Jane told me you’ve been here all afternoon. Stephanie? Ah, there you are!”
Damn. There I was. And there she was. Smiling at me as if I was an old nun rattling a charity box outside a department store. Me looking at her as if she was a little Vietnamese man who’d just charged out of the jungle with a grenade between his teeth. The library around us looking as if it didn’t want to be there and well pissed that, being a building, it couldn’t exactly sneak off somewhere and lay low for a while.
All of a sudden, my Kidmanian properties kicked-in before Mrs Ormsley had a chance to say anything. “Oh, I’m glad it’s you!” I said. “I wonder if you could let me know where James lives. I think I said something to offend him the other night, something that I didn’t mean, and I’d like to apologise.”
She was totally wrong-footed. In fact, she was so wrong-footed that she nearly kicked herself in the fanny with one leg, at the same time as her other leg nearly tripped over her ear, while her elbow just about went over her arse, just as one tit kind of bounced off her nose and the other almost hit a kneecap. Well, metaphorically-speaking!
There was a lot of blinking on her part, and a little frown too that indicated some mental machinations, but she just wasn't quick enough to conceive and execute a response, and, before I knew it, I had the information I wanted.
“Lovely to see you again!” I said coquettishly, at the same time as I gathered my things together at break-neck speed and started to make for the exit.
Then she attempted to rally slightly and I heard her call after me. “Oh, uh –!” But I didn’t stop and she didn’t get the chance to finish what it was she’d thought of saying. And that really was it! She had nothing for me! Nothing!
It wasn’t far to James’s house. Just along the street a little way, in fact. Before I knew it, I was outside of a large gate that led to a large bungalow that was encased in ivy, with dark little windows like eyes hidden within a very old raggedy beard. A façade like a man’s face! How typical for a male, for one of those testosterone-filled defenders of the path to love!
I didn’t hesitate to enter the gate, or to walk down the path, or to ring the doorbell. Although there was a lot of deep and slow breathing underpinning each movement in order to steady my nerves and allow the actions to happen!
Kidman, you see, had been right all along. Although now it was me who was right, because she wasn’t around! I had, after all, decided to try and get me some scented cock for my lady cupboard.
I heard the sound of the bell ring somewhere distant on the other side of the great closed mouth of this masculine door. And I waited. And waited. In his silence.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
08:20 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
09 April 2008
48. Remember, Whispers of Cold Can’t Hurt You
There were times, usually at night, when the wind would encircle Mordan House, its dark teeth eating away at the stone façade, gnawing the wooden window frames and the slate roof, making holes for itself to push through. It was looking for one thing and one thing alone: a cold companion to huddle together with. Once inside, it would scurry through the passageways, charge into empty rooms, tumble noisily down stairs, in search of the history of the House that was never actually a house.
Cold winds love history. History is cold like itself. History is empty, as shallow as palimpsest, as fragile as a child’s cough. And this house was empty of history more than most. What love had it ever known? What arms had welcomed it? What plans had been made with hope and joy within it? What kiss had it ever witnessed to warm it? What hurt had it seen to make it knowledgeable, so that it could learn how love stretched in and out of all feelings, no matter the colour? What new life had gladdened its walls, revitalised its shape and reminded it what it was like to be young? What death had shown it the true value of love? None, none, none.
Sure, the cold wind was drawn to Mordan House. Why would it not be? What was colder, more lifeless, less wise, greater in pointlessness, sadder, deader? So they would huddle together, the cold wind swirling in the house’s cold gut. The wind would draw itself in, growing plump on its own coldness, pushing against the walls, forcing them to bulge as the house relented to the empty frozen force that barked and growled within it.
Of course it would push against my door, its icy muzzle trying to force its way in. But I would barricade my door with a lock and with cushions to keep the cold wind out. Then I would close the other door to the room where I slept, doubling the security. All that would get through was little whiskers of cold that couldn’t hurt me.
My rooms. My rooms. In here, I work to kill history, and the only thing that destroys history is newness: grand schemes where an arm is raised just about to put them into action; the innovation of love as its charmed and magical mechanism just begins to turn; or the energy of an expectant moment, like that instant just before lips connect in a kiss. Just so. Just so.
I know the meaning of the cold and I know what the cold wants. As I sleep, I hear the cold wind’s whimpers of frustration. There is sometimes the slightest chill in the air around my bed, but I remind myself that whiskers of cold can’t hurt me. And I dream warm dreams of James because I know that it’s that or death.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
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08 April 2008
47. Shit-Bugger-Fanny
I anticipated his first words. I’m really, really sorry. I’ve been away for a couple of weeks. I’ve been longing to come and see you. I hope you’re not angry. I’ve never met a woman so generous before. I really couldn’t believe you would create something so perfect. Can I come in? I’d love to apologise properly.
“With his love sausage?”
Shh, Kidman! Not now! Of all times, not now! Go on, James! Say them! Say those words!
“Is that a gas-mask?” he asked.
Shit-bugger-fanny! I still had the shit-bugger-fanny gas-mask on! No wonder he looked so far away. No wonder he looked as if he had a scratch right from his forehead down to the belt on his trousers. No wonder his nose blurred into his eye.
I moved with lightning-speed to remove it, forgetting about the hat on top, which proceeded to get tangled-up with the gas-mask straps. I started to get a bit anxious that I couldn’t remove it with ease. Eventually I left the mask dangling round the front of my neck with the big straw hat tangled up at the back of my head. In a feeble attempt to portray comfort and poise I leaned against the door-frame, but as I did so the strap burrowed into my throat and I gagged slightly. To ease the tight pressure on my oesophagus I yanked the strap hard and coughed a couple of times.
“Are you all right?” he said with a mixture of concern and incredulity.
“All right? She nearly freakin’ died there!”
I ignored Kidman as best I could and found my hand was up at my hair trying to flatten it. “Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m quite at ease, thank you.”
“Quite at ease! What century are you in all of a sudden?”
I still ignored her. I looked at James and waited for his apology to come – at worst, a heartfelt expression of gratitude. I was ready for it. My throat was ready for it. I was quite at ease.
I noticed that he looked puzzled, lost for words. “Uh. My aunt,” he started. “She got it into her head that you’re a … secret agent. From MI5 or something. That’s why she was looking at your … chest.”
“Oh. I see,” I said, softly and in a highly understanding tone of voice.
I’m saying: Oh, I see. But I’m thinking: Your damned aunt? Chest? She couldn’t see my chest, James! No matter how hard she looked! My tits were always in the way!
“Oh, good thought! You can be proud of that thought! It’s just your words that are humiliating you!”
She was right! Kidman was right! I’d sat up all night knitting a shit-bugger-fanny scarf for his tit-loving aunt, he says nothing, comes nowhere near me for ages, then turns up and says nothing about the hard work and the scarf except some total claptrap about his aunt and shit-bugger-fanny MI5!
So I said: “Well, actually that just seems a wee bit plain silly. Of course, I never keep my nipple guns loaded when I’m off duty. And I always close one eye and cup a boob when I shoot, so that would have given her plenty of time to skedaddle.”
He blinked hard but then stared hard, slightly open-mouthed. He looked a little like a zombie staring into a shop window trying to decipher if a showroom dummy is real or not. All of a sudden I could see that he was taller but scrawnier than I remembered. Also, I was convinced that his teeth were less white and his feet were smaller than they had struck me at first.
He swallowed. It was a small sign of life. “She never thought you were a down-and-out,” he continued. “It was just that she couldn’t figure you out. She thought if she annoyed you enough that you would come clean about what you’re doing here. Then she started to think that you were a government agent. And, for some reason, she thought – that day in the library – that you had a microphone concealed …”
“In between my nipple guns?”
“I’m loving it, Steph! Loving it! This is pure Kidman! Kidman all the way up, Kidman all the way down!”
“And why would a secret agent be in your town? Or even in this dilapidated old dump, for that matter?”
Now my arms were folded. Now my eyebrows were arched. Now I was looking down on him from the doorway and sitting up on my toes a little. My nose angled towards him. My nipple guns pushed up by the corset. Had I remembered to load them? I couldn’t quite remember. I was dramatic. In control. Myself. My own agenda. Putting my self and my thoughts first.
“Well, on account of Josh,” he said diffidently.
There it was again. That blasted Josh.
“Josh tosh!” I exclaimed and pulled my folded arms up a little higher and felt myself lean back on the doorframe. The gas-mask strap tightened again and I emitted a small splutter.
Kidman would be loving this, I knew. She’d be cheering me on. Punching the air. Doing karate chops along the hallway.
James turned to walk back to his car. His hands dug deeply into his pockets and his head fell. “Josh was loved by everyone in our town. It destroyed the heart of the place when he disappeared.”
The words were forlorn and destitute. Grieving and lost. I wasn’t sure what to think. As he got back to his car, he shouted back to me, his tone still sad and quiet: “Thank you for the scarf. I’ve been out of the country. I’ve wanted to come and see you for so long. It was beautiful and very generous of you.”
Then he drove away. And I eventually closed the door. And as I walked down the hall I saw Kidman. She was looking at me with a scowl on her face. “Screwed-up there, Steph! Should have asked about Josh. Don’t forget that this is still an on-going investigation into the ghost of the dead astronaut.”
I knew she was right. I knew also that I’d been hard and unkind. “Shit-bugger-fanny,” I mumbled.
“Quite! Well, no point going to visit him now! He’ll tell you nothing after that display! Hell, you might as well take your love and ram it up your shit-bugger-fanny! That's all the action you'll be seeing!”
I didn’t want to listen to her anymore. I looked away and walked passed her with a shrug and grunt.
I went straight back into my rooms and my brain immediately started to piece together all the components of how James had looked. All the while there was a knot of anxiety in my stomach. He was taller than I remembered. He was thinner than I remembered. His eyes were darker. His hair was browner. His fingers a little longer. His dress-sense a little less considered than I thought it would be. His chin was more pronounced and his cheekbones less pronounced. His neck moved more fluidly. He was more uncertain in his movements. He was more steely gazed though. His feet were smaller than I recalled. His teeth less white. His nose shorter. His eyebrows thicker.
I lay down on my bed and held a pillow tightly to me and I thought about it all, and concluded that he was, in short, more perfect than I remembered.
But when I thought of his words about Josh, I felt anxious and sick, and all I could say over and over again was: “Shit-bugger-fanny, shit-bugger-fanny, shit-bugger-fanny.”
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
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07 April 2008
46. Brimming with Girly Glee
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m supposed to call you Untitled 10?”
“Yep, that’s what I said. I’m not Stephanie anymore. When I have a name again then I’ll be April – when I merit it, that is! So, until I tell you that I merit it, I want you to call me Untitled 10.”
“April! People will think you’re a deodorant with a name like that! I thought you wanted to be me! I thought you wanted to be Kidman – Nicole should be the name you aspire to! Can I call you Screw Loose instead? Can I call you Duh? Or Numpty? Or Cracked Artefact?”
“Nope. Untitled 10, please.”
“You’ve got a window broken, you really do!”
“Sorry, you can’t call me that either. Untitled 10 will do nicely.”
“No, I mean it! You have a window broken! In your bathroom!”
Then I remembered how I’d got back into the house after my encounter with the astronaut. I’d picked up a broken piece of paving slab in the back garden and thrown it through the window.
I clutched my nose and screwed-up my face, knowing full well what a broken window meant. “Oh no! The Smelly God again!”
Kidman pursed her lips and nodded sagely.
“Smelly God 8, I believe he prefers.”
“Incandescent odour of unmitigated foulness!” I exclaimed.
“Super sensory murder by stenchy-wenchy ponginess! Oh, and don’t forget plain old ‘yuch’!” replied Kidman.
So back into town I went. I dreaded these journeys, but some feeling of expectancy made me think that I might meet James and he would tell me that it was all a big misunderstanding – his absence, his lack of thanks, his lack of anything! Yes, it was all the result of a silly misreading! And then we’d laugh – ha ha ha - at how silly I’d been and how much he’d worried about how I must have been feeling about it all. And then I’d kick him in the leg and tell him never to do it again, or else he’d find me kicking higher and harder – ha ha ha. But none of this ever happened. Huh!
When I got to his door, I found that Emperor Pong wasn’t in, so I put a note through his grimy letter-box then wiped my hands on my skirt. The note explained, in very precise terms, the issue I was facing. It said: ‘Small window broken. Come soon please. Stephanie.’
When I got back, Kidman had been rummaging around in some of the old rooms in Mordan House. She was fearless in many ways. Yes, she always ran away when the astronaut descended, but her running away always seemed so practical, so pragmatic. Aside from that, she would investigate anything and everything. She was looking for clues to the house’s recent past but finding things that amused her instead.
When I returned, she had her head in a wardrobe in a room on the first floor, and she was looking through a pile of old clothes.
“So,” she said. “Did you go to see James while you were in town?”
“Of course I bloody didn’t!”
“Did you go to see that bitch Ormsley?”
“No! I’m not dressed appropriately anyway. I’ll get nowhere with her in this big old blousy jumper!”
“Suppose so. Anyway, look at these things!”
She was excited. Positively brimming with girly glee! She had found a collection of silly things to wear: she had a corset, a high frilly blouse, a long bright skirt covered in blotches of flowers, a gas-mask, a battered blue cord cap, odd shoes, odd sandals, a waistcoat, a parasol and a large floppy straw hat. She was delighted at her finds. I looked at them with uncertainty. What was the point of them?
She clapped her hands and jumped a little off the ground. “Let’s find more! You look in the room next door!”
I found myself doing what she asked. After looking through a number of rooms, I found two high brown boots, a man’s white shirt with long collars and cuffs, a dirty vest with stains from a variety of cleaning products on it, a dinky little belt and a very, very large white bra.
Kidman was jubilant. “Oh well done, Untitled 10! Well done, you nameless piece of shit, well done!”
I laughed. Kidman laughed too. And then that was it. All afternoon we laughed and ran about Mordan House, the sun streaming in from outside, as if playing alongside us and scampering in and out between our legs. We both dressed up and acted out ridiculous little scenes that mostly involved women being seduced by landlords, or landlords being seduced by women who were ahead in their rent payments!
“What?” Kidman would say in corset and high boots. “You can’t repay my deposit! Well, come here you stocky moustachioed hunk, I may have to take the payment out of your tight bahooky!” Then she’d chase me through the house, while I shouted out in a deep-throated voice, something like: “You can’t have my manhood! I’m saving it for a woman who truly loves me!”
At one point, we decided to re-enact a similar scene but in a World War 2 air-raid shelter for transvestites. Yep, that’s how silly it was getting! I put on the gas-mask - right over my eyes and my mouth and with this bulbous filter thing sticking out - the floppy straw hat, the corset, the man’s shirt underneath and clumpish odd shoes, while brandishing the parasol above my head. Kidman wore the big bra over the dirty vest, with the blotchy dress and the blue cap.
Down the stairs I ran, shouting in a deep cockney accent: “Lawd, luv us! You ain’t gunna git yer dirty mits on my love sausage not now not hever!”
And Kidman in a squeaky, ladylike voice, following after replying: “Love sausage for my tea, please! Mama, he won’t give me love sausage and I’m damnably peckish for it too!”
I ran to the front door and threw it open to run out to the front of the house. The bright sunlight enveloped me, but it also enveloped the Smelly God, who was standing with his smelly assistant just outside the door.
I stopped and stared. They looked even more grimy through the murky goggles, but one thing was clear and that was the look of consternation on their faces as they stood and stared back at me, toolboxes in hands.
I realised that there wasn’t much I could say, so all I said - and in quite an elegant manner - was: “You’ll find it’s the window in the bathroom.”
At the sound of my own muffled voice, and the sudden self-image that I had of myself in gas-mask, floppy hat, corset and odd shoes, I laughed a little, but not so much that they would hear. But then I realised that I was standing before one of the smelliest men outside of Smell Town, and wearing a gas-mask, so I laughed some more, still trying though to conceal it. But then it exploded, it charged out, a great raucous laugh and I bent over slightly and put my hand up to my face. As soon as my hand encountered the hard rubbery surface of the gas-mask, my laughter doubled, so much so that I turned and ran back into Mordan House giggling all the way. I giggled down the hallway, into the suite of rooms and into the bathroom, where I closed the door, sat on the toilet and tried to compose myself.
The laughter was wonderful, it coursed through me like a new kind of blood, and it seemed to gush out of the top of me and down over me, rich and warm and bright. I started to breathe deeply as I sat on the toilet seat, trying to control myself. Just then the door to the bathroom opened, and Le Big Stink and Le Petit Stink were standing there, still silent and still looking bemused. I remembered that this was where the broken window was, but I also realised that I was in the toilet with a gas-mask on. It suddenly struck me to wave my hand in the air and say out loud: “I wouldn’t come in here if I were you!”
So I did. And this started me off again. Worse than before. I got up and stumbled out of the bathroom door, leaving them to look at each other and listen to my laughter, twittering and screeching, as I went back out into the hallway. There was Kidman, sitting on the stairs and smiling. She tapped her forehead as if it say ‘remember’. Then she performed a mild ENP and smiled some more. I tried an ENP, but it was pretty ridiculous with my eyebrows and nose concealed by a mask, and more than a little uncomfortable with a corset on! So I laughed some more, every couple of minutes trying another ENP before tumbling onto the floor with laughter.
I could have taken the gas-mask off but I decided to leave it on for as long as the workmen were in the house. From time to time I would wander in and say something in a serious tone, like: “Good work. That’s going well.” Then I’d start chuckling away again and I’d fall out of the bathroom in fits of laughter. When the job was done I scrutinised the window up close through the glass of the mask, and said in my muffled voice: “Lovely job! Is that double-glazing?” Then I started myself off again. I'm pretty sure that Man Smell was just looking down at his feet and making some uncertain throat-clearing sound.
“Oh, let me pay you!” I exclaimed and hunted for my purse. When I found it, my eyes were full of tears of laughter. I found I could open it but I couldn’t see the money. Yep, you guessed it, I started to laugh in one of those silent ways where your body starts to move and eventually the laugh comes out in a great torrent!
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it next time,” said the Hoaching Handiman in a resigned voice.
“Oh, are you sure?” I asked with a slight hint of concern. But my attempts at behaving normally were making me laugh all the more, and all I could see was little glimmers of him and his assistant walking out through the door as I sat down on the hall floor. “Come back soon!”
The door closed and they were gone. After a while I could feel the giggles easing off, although I was reluctant to remove the gas-mask.
“Oh, dear,” I said to Kidman, who was sitting and smugly surveying. “You know, I think I got a little fit of the giggles there.” And I almost started myself off again, but I was saved temporarily by a knock on the door. Oh, no! I thought. They must have forgotten something! And I knew this would start me off all over again! Yet I couldn’t help smiling expectantly as I clumped to the front-door and opened it with grace and poise, and said to the Whiffy Workers in a charming sing-song fashion: “Good afternoon!”
But it wasn’t the Whiffy Workmen at all. It was James.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
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06 April 2008
45. Untitled 4
Do you know what aliens call our planet? They don’t call it Earth. They give it a name that reflects its character. They call it Untitled 4.
Only the planets that have ambition and purpose are given names. Those that don’t have such qualities - those that are conflict-ridden, destructive, lacking solidarity and sense - are simply given numbers. Hence, we’re Untitled 4.
How interesting would it be if people were only given numbers until they merited names. As an incentive we could still choose names for newborn babies, but they would be names that are meaningful and that give them knowledge of what they have to aspire to!
Until I merited my name, I might be Untitled 10! But what name would be an incentive for me to develop and grow inside, and in my life? Goodness, I don’t know. You know, I really don’t know what name I could aspire to!
Another thing I’ve heard is that aliens visit Earth the most during Spring-time. Oh, those bug-eyed little intergalactic vermin are so sweet! Come here and get a slimy cuddle, you little green thing you! And it’s Spring here now, of course. It must be that they come here when the planet begins to change. It must be that they love this time of development and growth on our planet. Do they look for burgeoning potential, perhaps? Do they see if the season has influenced us enough yet to merit a name?
Oh, to see this planet with alien eyes right now! To see the streams begin to swell with new, thawed water as the snow on the mountains melts; to feel the warm air flying in to invade the cold air, and to watch the tussle for supremacy in the skies around us; to hear the first bird song as they relish the coming of longer days; to watch flowers coming to life with colourful cries of birth, while other minds just begin to turn to thoughts of creating new life; and all because the planet leans towards the sun, just like love inside reaching out to rest against a lover. I’ve said it before, love is creative. Don’t ever stop creating!
You know, I think I will actually call myself Untitled 10 from now on! Until I merit a name that is about newness, about always coming out of the darkness and into the light, about strength in adversity no matter what collides with my life, about always being in bloom. So I will remain that number until I am all about love that creates and that doesn’t ever stop creating.
Until, therefore, I merit the name of this month. April. April will be my new name.
Oh, shit! What will Kidman say when I tell her!
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
16:45 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
05 April 2008
44. The Astronaut Stopped
At first it was barely apparent that the ghost of the dead astronaut was moving towards me, especially against the background of the black sky. But the image grew gradually larger after it began to move towards the ground. I recall this now, even though I don’t recall registering it much at the time. Also, there was a steadiness in the blackness of the visor, a steadiness directed towards me, almost reaching out to me - this steadiness in the blackness tried to finger my hair, my cheeks, the hem of my skirt. I recall that sensation now. But not then. It was also barely apparent to me that I had, at some point, decided to run and then started to run. The fear inside of me was barely apparent too. Moreover, I think it safe to say that thoughts of the disappeared Kidman were not something I was aware of either. One thing was apparent though, one over-riding concern eclipsing everything else: survival.
The trees into which Kidman had vanished were also my own destination. I knew I mustn’t stay out in the open. In amongst the trees might slow the astronaut down. He was both ethereal and physical – he didn’t move through things, that I noticed; he went round them or over them or in between them. If I was to survive then I had to try to use this to my advantage.
I ran with a ferocity and determination that I have never known before. Desperation is a sprightly little engine, seldom used - but due to the fact that it so often lies dormant, it appears to be in tip-top condition when called upon. That’s what I found as I ran in and out of trees, over verges, through bushes and thick undergrowth, running without destination, without thought. Desperation’s inner eye and survival’s goal were the only two elements that I seemed to need.
I only became aware of fear when I thought about glancing round to see if I could see the astronaut, and realised that I was too afraid to. Too afraid to look and too afraid to slow down. Ultimately, too afraid to die.
It was as I became aware of this – this fear of death – that I started to cry. Even as I ran, using every droplet of fuel I could beg, borrow or steal to channel through this body of mine, the tears started to flow, and the sound of my sobs started to interrupt my breathing as I ran.
I looked up – I don’t know where I got the courage from! – and saw an entanglement of branches high above me, black against a night-sky that looked suddenly muddy bluey-grey. The branches moved as I ran, as if creeping overhead, creeping down and around. From all around me I could feel the silence of the night, heavy like an ocean, with only the crackling and rustling of feet on dense natural ground for company, only my breathing and sobbing for friendship. How bizarre! The sound of rasping, sick breath was now a comfort! Tears were an indicator of life and thus a bonus! It was life, even if it was flawed and busted life. At least this life was not entirely characterised by staring into a black visor that only reflects back the shape and character of dead things. It was not absolutely owned by gloved hands that will only grip what will soon no longer require its life.
Then I realised why the sky had a murky blue tinge to it: it was due to the white glow of the astronaut overhead, following me above the treeline.
I tried to run some more, yet what more was there to give inside? Yes, what more was there to give inside? I continued to run, I continued to stumble, I continued to push-on relentlessly, so terribly desperately. And I continued crying, tears blurring my vision, forming mythical twin objects all around me and confusing me in my progress. Maybe it was the alcohol that started to play a part in how I was feeling, but, all of a sudden, I felt I couldn’t progress anymore. Not because my body was too exhausted, but because some enormous and clear emotion opened up inside me, within its own white light, and so much of my inner world turned inside-out, illumination taking the place of subterfuge. It had a voice, and the voice said: Stephanie Fey, what more is there to give?
As I heard these words in my head – my own words, you understand, very clearly my words – I stopped running. When had I last heard my own words inside of my head, so absolutely there, so precise and large? I couldn’t say. Certainly not since Philip. Always other people’s words, always the words of the walls I had constructed inside to protect me! Not genuine and honest words. Not for oh so long!
All I could hear was those words, reverberating: what more is there to give?
There was so much more. I hadn’t even begun. I had so much inside to let out. I hadn’t started. What would happen to it all if it didn’t find a way out? What would happen to me? I just needed someone to want it all, not someone who would kick it like a dog. Just someone who would want it all to come out, and to come out in straight lines, not in pockets, squashed packets, little warped, unrepresentative chunks. Love wasn’t made for that.
Because that’s what it was all about, of course, all this feeling. It was about love and about having so much more to give than this life had yet seen. And the awareness of it stopped me in my tracks, right there, right beside the grassy slope.
I could see the small clearing and the grassy slope in front of me very clearly. I turned around, slowly, jaggedly. The astronaut was hovering in amongst the branches of a tree, head angled towards me, its light revealing everything that was around me. All that was black was that rectangle upon his helmet, like a sunken coffin, so deathly dark. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to run anymore either. I just wanted to be, and to feel what it was like to be me, with all its yearning and sadness. And then, as I knew he would, he moved towards me.
Yet no sooner did the astronaut drop than the astronaut stopped. I stared at him, mystified. Why had he stopped? I wiped the tears from my eyes to see better, but it was unmistakeable, he had stopped for a reason I couldn’t understand.
The wood was so still, so silent. The air, however, was charged with some powerful and dreadful sensibility. I hadn’t really noticed it before. Yet, also, there was a scent, something putrid and foul, that only seemed to exist where we stood. This spot, this particular area of the wood, had a character to it that was menacing and consuming. Was it this that was stopping the astronaut? Was this repulsive location somehow charmed to protect me?
The rest of it is unclear. When did the astronaut disappear back upwards as if pulled by a powerful force? I can’t say. How did I get out of the wood and back to Mordan House? That’s a little bit fuzzy too. How did I get back inside the house? Not sure. How many hours did I sleep? Really don’t know. What exactly had happened to me, both inside and out? I didn’t have the tiniest idea.
But when I finally awoke, there was one thing that seemed somewhat clear: the new-found echo inside when I thought and when I considered my feelings. I’d had congestion, walls of eternally-speaking congestion, for so long. This empty resonance was different. Painful but so utterly mine. Not Kidman’s. Not the astronaut’s. Not Philip’s. Mine.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
08:30 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
04 April 2008
43. Kidman Ruins It Again
“No, no, no! No way! There’s no possible, conceivable way I can do that! You are crazy if you think I’d even contemplate that!”
Of course, Kidman ruined it again. The good feeling that I’d had towards her obliterated as if stabbed by a small dagger right in the middle of an embrace. Well, that’s what I get for letting my guard down and for asking her about the other elements of her plan!
I’d had too much to drink by that time, so my tone was even sharper than I might have liked, but what she was asking me to do was anathema to me, to all women in my position, to all women in general – just not to her, just not to Kidman! Yet she wasn’t the one who had to do it, she just had to tell me to do it. As this thought struck me, I decided to tell her it exactly.
“You’re not the one who has to do it! You just have to tell me to do it!”
See, I said it just like I said I would!
“I’d do it. Without hesitation.”
Oh, sure - so she says! She wasn’t even bloody well real! How convenient! She couldn’t prove it and I couldn’t disprove it. And, hell, I was going to tell her just that!
“So, you say! But, my little redheaded friend, you’re not even bloody well real, so you can’t prove it, and I can’t disprove it!”
Yep, I think it and, before I know it, it comes right out of my mouth! That’s a strong person, that is! Is that really Stephanie Fey saying all of this? Hellfire and blue cheese, she’s a strong lassie! You didn’t tell me she was strong! In fact, you lead me to believe she was a right useless bit of bint!
“You’re forgetting one thing. I’m K-I-D-M-A-N, Kidman.”
Huh, if she was Kidman, she should show people like me a little bit more R-E-S-P-E-C-T! That’s what I thought.
“Oh, yeah? Well, K-I-D-M-A-N, how about showing me some R-E-S-P-E-C-T, then?”
Stephanie Fey, you say? Jeez, this is a girl of conviction! C-O-N-V-I-K-S-H-U … Oh, I don’t know, but you get my drift!
“I bet that line sounded great in your head, Steph! But I’ve got news for you, it sounded shit in the real world!”
“F-U-K-O-F!”
Yep, I’m sad to say that the expression ‘Fuck Off’ was also in my head - and it came out, in peculiarly adulterated form, before I had a chance to be aware of thinking it. You see, I was angry now, angry and drunk! Angry, drunk and suddenly unable to spell! Spelldrunk, I think they call it. I poured another glass of wine, slammed the bottle down and walked out, out of the suite of rooms, out into the dark hallway, and out onto the gravel driveway at the front of the house.
The cold hit me like a great shove and I let out an exclamation of some sort – not of indignation but of relent. Great! Now I was angry, drunk, spelldrunk, and out in the cold at something like 3am! Who did you say this girl is? Stephanie Fey? She’s a right numpty, if you ask me! Sure, there’s convikshun in her, but then there’s just plain stupidity!
Light from out me sitting-room window stretched on the ground before me. There was a shadow within it, a shadow, I presumed, of Kidman pacing. Not that I really needed this light. I could see the moon and stars standing correctly and perfectly above me, behind dark errors of cloud. Yet this sight brought a calmness and a slight giddiness to me. Although my arms blistered with goosebumps, and muscles began to vibrate to some unknown rhythm not of my own body’s making, it felt good to be where I was. There are moments that can make you instantly drop all the baggage of life that you’ve been holding on to for so long without ever getting a rest. Bang! They hit the ground. And, with it, comes a wash of recognition that sweeps apart futility’s great doors as if they were just painted on, just a watercolour picture of doors that you had believed to be real.
I heard the sound of the front door click shut and Kidman was there at my side.
“So, will you do it?”
“Sure.”
Sure? Yep, total numpty! Waste of oxygen. Waste of good heart valves. Waste of blood. Waste of two good bottles of red wine.
I felt Kidman smile, but then I also felt her stop smiling. I looked round at her, and her face was serious.
“If I were you,” she said, “I’d show him your love cupboard and then run like a mad-arsed hooker!”
“What? James? When I go to see him? Are you mad?” I said incredulously.
“No, idiot! When you see him!” And her hand pointed in the direction of the moon.
My head turned like my neck contained the same mechanism as in some fabulous Swiss watch. It was elegant, unflinching, it went from Kidman all the way round and up to the moon, and in the sweetest, cleanest move imaginable.
He hung in the air to one side of the moon’s image. The moon seemed so passive, so wrapped in some insular sensibility that it cared not what was happening to me, or what would happen to me. The astronaut, on the other hand, shone like a bit of carved-out moon, but as if the winds of space and of emptiness had buffeted and eroded it over billions of years into this astronaut shape. A dead, lifeless rock taking on a shape appropriate to the 21st century of the planet it shadowed: the shape of a dead spaceman – desolate of hope, purpose, ambition, vision, life.
At the same time I saw Kidman, her dress hitched-up, running across the gravel and into the trees, without a single glance in my direction. This was probably the same time as the astronaut started a rapid descent towards me. And these events were certainly very close to the moment in which I realised that when the front door had clicked shut, it had also locked, and I was unable to get back inside Mordan House.
Finally, the astronaut had me on his territory. Right where he wanted me.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
08:00 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
03 April 2008
42. That Bitch Ormsley
When I think of Mrs Ormsley, this is what I think of: her stomach nice and full with lots of food and fluid in it, and her stomach muscles all relaxed and comfortable, not in the least bit tense. And that’s when I imagine punching her right in the gut!
And now, here I was actually seeking out her company. What a fool!
It took me for ever to decide what to wear, although I concluded that it didn’t really matter what I wore. If I dressed-down then that bitch Ormsley would just pity me, visibly concluding that I was disgusting (left brow) - but also concluding that what else other than down-right disgusting could she expect from someone downtrodden and generally dispossessed (right brow)! But if I dressed-up, she would look at me suspiciously: she would conclude that my cleanliness would be down to a swift half-hour using the mirror and wash-basin in a public lavatory, before the janitor decided to move me on after I’d declined his gracious offer of a couple of lost property hair-grips in exchange for a BJ; my neat and tidy attire would be at the expense of some poor cow who would be currently sitting in the back of a police car in a lay-by, her nakedness now concealed by a blanket, and with a compress held against the nasty gash at the back of her head, explaining that she didn’t see her assailant as she had been too busy inspecting the dead sheep that was mysteriously blocking the road. No, whatever I wore I would be the loser. But if I was going to lose then I thought I should lose in style. So I opted to wear a long dark green evening dress, high heels, plenty of make-up, a smart black handbag, long dangly ear-rings, and lots more jewellery for full dramatic effect. I didn’t really care that it was one o’clock in the afternoon. At best I would confuse her by my appearance. Confusion, rather than judgement, I concluded to be a better desired response.
As I walked out the door, Kidman wished me luck. “And remember,” she said. “If she gets snooty or nippy just ask her why she has a dog’s testicle on her face.”
“It’s a goitre.”
“Who cares what it is. Ask her anyway.”
Kidman didn’t mention anything to me about ENP. There was no need. I was a convert. If in trouble, ENP would get me out of it, and I aimed to use it as much as I needed to.
Another thing that I found myself to be doing was not thinking about something that I’d made my mind up to do. Ordinarily I’d let me mind twist in all manner of ways until I was exhausted and perplexed – yet, for all the deliberation, the outcome would be the same. So, today, as I drove towards the neighbouring town, I let my made-up mind get on with what it had, well, made-up. It seemed almost as if listening to Kidman, rather than fighting against her, had allowed purpose to take the lead when dancing with trepidation, and it allowed uncertainty to sit it out, realising that it had had its spell in the sun and that it should now just let others take over.
Of course, this became harder as I walked up the steps to the library where Mrs Ormsley worked. Much, much harder! It was not that I was having second thoughts about going through with it, it was that I was still unsure about smacking her if she said anything that I objected to! A hard dig in her (hopefully) relaxed, (hopefully) full stomach was still enormously tempting!
When she turned round and saw me, she suddenly had a look as if she’s just banged her face against an invisible wall. Damn those invisible walls! They get everywhere!
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Not time already for the Down-and-Outs Secret Ball, is it?”
The compulsion rose like indigestion. I felt a tingling in my fingers and my tongue cleaved to the top of my mouth. I poked her eyes with a sharp look, but I didn’t see them flinch or water.
Composure, composure, I told myself. I breathed deeply, aligned my nose like a tiny dagger, arched my brows and pushed my breasts up and out like a tray of cakes.
“No,” I uttered without the smallest trace of emotion. “I’m actually looking for some information and I thought you might be able to help.”
I could see it coming. The bombardment of subtle put-downs delivered in a gentle and frivolous manner, like smelling a rose as the thorn cuts.
But then – hold on a sec – now wait a min – what was she doing? It was hard to believe it - and hard to digest even once I’d started to believe - but Mrs Ormsley appeared to be looking at my cleavage. Looking? No, too feint a word. Staring, like some right dirty minx! Yes, that sentence gets it just right.
“Uh, information. Yes, information. Well, you came to the right place for that,” she said in a weak, slightly staccato fashion. Her eyes glancing at mine but then dropping stone-like back to my generous, tail-wagging, sprightly little pups. What was going on?
Of course, yes they were a little distended, as is nearly always the case with a well-executed ENP. They were, to a certain extent, curved out by the curved in condition of my back - thrust forward, jutting into view, rammed forth, overhanging and protruding. Presented, even. Yes, presented! My dilated lovelies were like a couple of full bowls handed over to young hungry orphans, like two long-awaited invitations on a butler’s silver salver, like wriggly bait on a fisherman’s hook. Like a couple of tempting water coolers, complete with cups, on a scorching hot day. Like a couple of fifty pound notes up for grabs in a run-down, inner city area. Like a couple of free footballs on Have Yourself A Free Football Day. Please tell me if a vivid picture of the scene is still alluding you!
Could this be the effect of the Eyebrows plus Nose plus Puppies equation? If so, then what were so many mathematicians doing wasting their time on lengthy formulas with brackets, and little numbers sitting on the shoulders of big numbers, when a simple ENP obviously unlocked so many secrets to the universe! Eureka, I exclaimed within. Voila! Ole! Take that, testicle-head!
“Come and sit down,” she said. “Tell me what it is you’re after.”
Come and sit down? Tell me what it is you’re after? Flummoxed, I agreed to both. I explained to her that I wanted to know more about Mordan House, about its history. In a sense, it was the wrong question, as it gave me nothing that appeared pertinent to my problem. Of course, I didn’t tell her about what was happening at the house – about the astronaut and all of that malarkey! - I just kept it all nice and simple, as if I was merely curious.
She explained that the house had been a mill in the 19th century. That explained its general boxiness on the outside. Back then it was called Mordan Mill. It was given a mild conversion sometime after that which generated lots of individual rooms, and was supposed to have had a full conversion into a house, but a couple of stray bombs damaged the roof badly and a lot of the structure, and the plans were put on hold. A rough repair job was undertaken, but not enough to tempt any buyers. After that, it changed hands a number of times but with no real result that gave it purpose or changed its fate. The refuge was just another in a long line of temporary uses for the place. It had, in fact, been used for a couple of illegal raves over the years too! The current owner was just another in a long line – and it looked as if he would not be the one to realise the long-held dream of it becoming a family residence. Mordan House, she explained, was not its real name, but more of a joke name for the place. Plans had existed for nearly a hundred years to make it into a house, but they had never been realised. It was like calling a place a Folly – it was a House, but not a house at all!
“So why did the owners of the refuge leave? Were they forced out?” I asked.
She looked at me quizzically, as if I was asking a really daft question.
“Catherine! Catherine!” An old woman’s voice came booming out of the library’s silence. Mrs Ormsley looked up and said “Oh, dear!”
“Is that you?” I asked. “Are you Catherine?”
“Catherine Cookson! Where the hell are the Catherine Cookson books in this place?” the woman shouted.
Then I saw the old woman who had been with Mrs Ormsley that day when I’d waited for James in the café. She was wandering about, frustrated, and trying desperately to find the books of her favourite author.
Mrs Ormsley got up from her chair to go to the old woman. She still pondered me curiously though. “Well, because of little Josh, of course. He worked there, don’t you know. Well, you must know that!”
And then she was gone, before I had a chance to ask more. Josh? Who was Josh?
As I left the library, a middle-aged man with a hold-all and wearing a duffle coat passed me. “Nothing yet,” he said and he winked. It dawned on me that he was winking because of my evening dress and the revelation of flesh at my cleavage and shoulders. Another dirty minx!
“No, not yet,” I mumbled, my head full of questions vying with irritation.
I stepped outside and into a flurry of snow. Snow! Where did that come from? As I traipsed along the main street of the town back towards my car, lots of faces squinted at me and another man winked as he passed me. I grunted, looked down, layers of snow building up on my head, and frowned at the world in a violent, deeply grieved manner.
When I told Kidman how nice to me Mrs Ormsley had been, all she had to say was: “Nice to you? How dare she! Testicle-faced whore!”
“Yes, I said, “you’re right! The dangleberry-faced bitch!”
And we both laughed. Yes, reader, I said ‘laughed’! Later on, we sat and had a bottle of wine together and we discussed what I’d discovered that day long into the night. And this gave Kidman the opportunity to tell me the next part of her plan.
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
12:00 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
02 April 2008
41. The Point of Impractical Love
Retrospect always condemns impractical love, yet always preserves, pristine, the memory of practical love. I’ve noticed this, and come to the conclusion that it’s a real bummer.
I think about the nature of love a lot these days. You do that when you are in love and it’s unrequited, with no discernible relationship to lean your love upon. The feeling of love, I’ve found, needs something physical to lean on – it can’t rest on the idea of itself particularly well, it can’t just steady itself within its own emotion. Without physical support, love is apt to flop or fall over. So love leans forward and out a lot, due its need for a surface to come up against, for some kind of hard practicality to prop it up. Love, you could say, has weak legs – that’s why it always looks for someone else to carry it about. In a way, women look at men and think: oh, he’s got quite strong legs, he can lug my love about for a bit!
Yes, for some women it’s about legs. But, for most, what constitutes a leaning post is a lot more complicated: who would think you could lean on the slope of a forehead; or the astute, knowing lines of fingers; or the tiny winking rivulets that appear at the side of each eye during conversation; or the wax and wane of pupils; or the bubbles that can rise up, lighter than air, from the sound of laughter; or, curious of all, the moment of quiet emptiness in a face, that can be the hardest and toughest stanchion of all.
I don’t know this man James at all, but I’m leaning forward anyway, longing for his practical surface for my love to rest on. Funny, in time to come retrospect will damn things as they are in me right now! Something in me will call me stupid and I'll be my own worst enemy for a while. Factions inside will war; there will be shouting and general clamour. Yet does all this stop me? Well, has it ever stopped any woman?
I climb the Clansman a lot these days, when my lungs are up to it. The weather’s been improving. Spring arrived the other day, although you might not know it by the still jagged nip in the air. All the way to the top I go these days too. From there I can see if I’m alone on the hill, as I can see where any hill-walkers would park their cars. When I’m at the very top, and I can see that it's just me and 'Man Mountain', I perform a kind of ritua