Illustrated Proof

This is the third short story of mine that my good friend Susanne from Blackpenart has illustrated in her expressionistic Noir Gothic style and the result is, I think you have to agree, simply excellent. You can view the previous two stories The Illustrated Unmade Again & An Illustrated Promise of Paradise by clicking on the links.

If you have enjoyed this story then make sure to take a look at my new collection of 69 inter-related poems and short fictions, Motion No.69, by Alex Severs and fulsomely illustrated by Thea Kiros.

Proof

All weekend long I had failed to act upon the ultimatum handed down by Sarah on the Friday night I left her to return home to my wife. Breakfast on Monday morning was my last opportunity. But I realized —as I sat down to cereals, toast and tea— that putting an end to a twenty-three-year marriage at 7:50 am on the drabbest of all days, seemed wildly inappropriate. I couldn’t cope with the inevitable ugly scene of harsh words, bitter tears, righteous indignation and promises of reprisals before leaving for the city and work. The trouble was I could now expect a row with Sarah. Hopefully, she would have the discretion to wait until after office hours, though I wasn’t optimistic. Her tact had been embarrassingly absent lately.

I kissed Catherine goodbye as I had everyday throughout the many years of our marriage, wished her a good day at work, for which she would soon be leaving, and drove away without a backward glance at her figure retreating into our house. Soon, the traffic slowed to its customary crawl, then to an absolute standstill. For once, I was relieved by the delay. Perhaps I could ponder a way out of my present predicament. Nevertheless, I needed more time than a temporary traffic jam afforded to come up with a solution; eternal gridlock might be required. The real problem was that I had no clue as to what I really wanted.

On one hand, I couldn’t quite shake the conviction that Sarah was just a means of establishing that I existed independently of Catherine; that I, in fact, actually existed at all. And yet, sometimes I felt that Catherine was the mistress of my destiny, controlling even the minutest of details, down to my last breath. My own thoughts and actions seemed so nugatory that I sometimes I wondered whether I was just a figment of her imagination. I can barely remember my life before Catherine. I don’t think I had a childhood, so dim is my recollection of that period. I must have, but it had to have been free of both trauma and definition.

My first memory dates from age thirteen and a moment of existential realization. I had been dozing in the bath, when I came out of my semi-slumber with a start and caught my reflection in the mirror that bordered the tub. I didn’t recognize myself. A series of questions raced through my mind in rapid succession. Who is that in the mirror staring back at me? Is it me? If it is, who am I and what am I doing here? These remained unanswered and left me wondering whether I possessed any claims to objective reality whatsoever.

At first, it was only my existence that I doubted. But in time, it seemed to me that the world’s claim to authenticity was increasingly based on dubious suppositions.

My early adulthood consisted of a series of restless moves from city to city —a vain attempt at finding a place where I belonged. Of course, the difficulty did not lie with the locales; it lay within me because no matter where I was, I never wanted to be there. There was always a hell of a place next door, so I’d go there instead. I expected cities to possess a massive actuality —all that tangible brick and steel, glass and concrete— but they were only hastily-constructed, poorly-planned stage sets. And on these stages, I became the tenacious, wavering, insubstantial consort of wan, wannabe chorus girls,

anemic corps dancers, and anorexic bit actresses. I required something or somebody to lend me a presence, to give me density, to solidify my essence, to provide an anchor to stop me from floating away into the stratosphere and dissipating altogether. That’s when I met and married Catherine.

Lost in memories, I didn’t notice that the traffic had moved forward a full three feet until the angry blare of car-horns shook me from my reverie. I inched forward before coming to a complete stop again.

Catherine was unlike all the girls I had dated previously, fleshly and fulsome, where the others had been stick-thin androgynies. Her blonde hair, blue eyes and heavyset bone structure more than hinted that her remote ancestors had originated in the frozen North. I had found her, and still find her madly irresistible. Catherine will always be the perfect woman for me; she is as attractive in her forties as many girls in their twenties, including Sarah. As soon as we had set up home together she set about taking me in hand.

Naturally self-assured, she had confidence to spare and by proxy, I became a man of the world. Not that I didn’t have setbacks and mood swings, but whenever I was paralyzed by a sense of unreality, Catherine would provide rock steady support and nurse me back to life. Not to mention that there was always comforting to be found between her heavy bosoms.

Catherine has a telepathic awareness of everything I experience. She knows when the pressures at the office are becoming too much for me to bear and she gently chides me whenever I develop a minor crush on one of the office girls. At least she did until recently.

Above and beyond all that, however, she was the mother of my twin daughters, who provided at last some sense of purpose to my existence. I was a husband and a father to two lovely girls. I had responsibilities and duties. To my credit, I have discharged my duties admirably with care, attention, due diligence and most importantly, a genuine love. But there comes a time when, although your children are always your children in your heart, that they must grow up and enter the world and become their own people.

The knot of traffic had unravelled itself and soon after, I entered the company’s car park. I was looking forward to this Monday even less than usual.

Late as I was, Sarah’s office was empty when I passed it on the way to my own. It was unlike her to be late. I was in equal measures relieved and disappointed. On one hand, I had temporarily avoided the inevitable questions concerning the current state of my marriage and the repercussions that held to my relationship with Sarah. But on the other, I almost anticipated her reproach for my inaction. All weekend, I had imagined Sarah anxiously counting down the hours until Monday morning, when her loneliness and grief would be assuaged at the sight of me.

Last year, her affectionate but wayward father died —her sole remaining relative since her mother had committed suicide when she was five. Her childhood had been singularly unsettled. By the age of fifteen, she had extended stays in every major Anglophone country on four continents. She and her father had doted on one other and his death had left a void in Sarah’s life which I was particularly suited to fill. Her father was my contemporary and judging from the photo she kept on her bedside table, I noted a vague resemblance —we both had the dark hair, pale skin and green-grey eyes of the Celts. Moreover, I felt an affinity to the person Sarah described endlessly after our lovemaking; a potent combination of wanderlust, melancholy, wasted intelligence, unworldly innocence and a knowing complicity in his own failure.

Sometimes I doubted that I could ever displace the memory of her father. I began to resent hearing every last detail of her childhood, in which her father —as a single parent— played a larger than usual role, during the hurriedly snatched hours we spent together. I eventually concluded that Sarah had accepted me not because I was similar to her father, but because I was his complete opposite; stable, staid and boringly predictable. Certainly, my mid-life crisis, and my attempts to inject some validity into my existence though the agency of a chit of a girl in need of a father figure were conventionally clichéd.

When Sarah still hadn’t shown up by 11:00, I finally cracked and phoned first her home and then her mobile. No answer and the calls didn’t go to voice mail either. Where was she?

As I sat pondering this question and what I would do if Sarah came marching up to my office now, demanding to know why I had not told Catherine about our affair, the telephone rang. Thinking it was Sarah, I answered. It was Catherine, calling me on her break, a working day ritual.

While we were talking, I was struck by the fact that Catherine, who usually possessed an uncanny ability to gauge my psychological depths, had noticed nothing unusual since I had first become involved with Sarah —my first real infidelity of our marriage. Or if she was aware, then she wasn’t letting on. In either case, it seemed out of character. I was an open book to Catherine and this wasn’t something to which she would turn a blind eye. Maybe she was unconsciously aware but was in deep denial, or maybe she thought it impossible that a twenty-two-year-old girl would fall for a middle-aged nobody like me. However, both scenarios seemed highly unlikely. Catherine was far too shrewd to overlook the evidence before her and she had always questioned the real motivation behind my constant self-deprecation.

The conversation proceeded as usual with the obligatory I-love-you’s signing off. Nothing was amiss in Catherine’s attitude and, yet I felt that something was being left unsaid on her side as well as mine. I knew that this creeping paranoia was a manifestation of my guilt, but knowing the cause doesn’t necessarily rid you of the effects.

The rest of the day was a limping agony, every moment dragging uselessly and painfully. My indecision was total. Whereas I had previously dreaded an encounter with Sarah, when it was deferred though her absence, I positively longed for her presence violently and absolutely. How would it be possible for me to live the remainder of my life without her? Could I deny my feelings concerning Sarah if questioned directly by Catherine? Could I carry on living the lie with Catherine, pretending that there hadn’t been some form of sea change in our marriage?

Yet how could I abandon my wife of twenty-three years, the only person whose company wasn’t occasioned by barely-suppressed feelings of loathing and nausea? Catherine was the only person who’d been able to fill in the blank spaces. So, what was I doing with Sarah when I had already been completed by another?

The telephone was glued to my ear as I repeatedly tried Sarah. Ringing out no answer. Ringing out no answer. Whenever someone passed the office I would mouth some form of inanity to pretend that I was busy bantering to a client and consequently raking in the cash for the firm. Where was she, why wasn’t she at work? It wasn’t like her to miss a day. In fact, Sarah never missed a day because I never missed a day. Sarah had nobody but me.

By three o’clock, the suspense was unbearable. I couldn’t wait any longer, I simply had to know where she was. Thinking perhaps her desk would yield a clue, I hurried to her still darkened office. I let myself in and closed the door behind me. Dread settled on me like a shroud. Not only was the office unoccupied, but it also appeared unused. Had Sarah left the company and not told me?

I had to leave the office. As I rushed back to my own desk, I passed one of my co-workers. “Have you seen Sarah?” I asked, trying not to sound panicked.

“Sarah? Sarah who?” he replied absently.

I didn’t answer. I returned to my desk to grab keys and coat and let my boss know that I was ill. As I sped towards Sarah’s flat on the other side of the river, I imagined the worst of the worst-case scenarios. I had visions of bathtubs filled with bloody water, clotted syringes, discharged guns, empty pill bottles, fishnet nooses… that body that I had touched and kissed, caressed and stroked, worshipped and revered mimicking a thousand different postures of death.

Parking was always a problem in Sarah’s neighbourhood, but I found a place with ease, probably because of the early hour. Sarah didn’t own a car —instead she relied on public transport and myself to get around— so I was still none the wiser to her whereabouts. I buzzed the front door several times but without result. Now, I was beginning to get really anxious. I had a spare set of keys, something Sarah had insisted upon about a month ago, even though up until now I had no occasion to use them as we had always gone back to her flat together. I opened the front door and ran up the seven flights of stairs to her flat on the third floor and entered without bothering to knock.

If I had found Sarah in bed with someone else, or I had discovered her dead body, I would have been less surprised than by what I beheld: nothing. The flat was empty, completely empty, save for the furniture doubtlessly belonging to the landlord. Nobody had left in a hurry either —the flat was clean except for an accumulation of dust. It was obvious that the place hadn’t been occupied for months and, yet I had been here just three days ago. It was devoid of any personal effects or stray items of clothing. Where was everything? Where were the clothes, shoes, lingerie, accessories, TV, computer, mobiles, books, pens, pencils, paper, ornaments, figurines, mirrors, pots, pans, plates, knives, forks, spoons, toothbrushes, combs, hairbrushes, toiletries, soaps, fragrances, kitchen towels, toilet paper, bed clothes, pillows, throws, coins, chequebooks, credit cards, purses, handbags, suitcases? Where had they gone? Where had she gone? And if she wasn’t here, and had never lived here, did Sarah actually exist? Had she ever?

If I searched around in the Human Resources department at work for the relevant and necessary documentation concerning Sarah Graves, would I find anything? If I contacted the various governmental agencies, would I be able to obtain a copy of a valid Birth Certificate or Driving License or National Insurance Card or Death Certificate to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sarah had once resided in the unoccupied flat where I was vainly searching for clues? That she had been born twenty-two years ago? That she possessed a definite, legal, irrefutable claim to reality? Even if I did stumble upon such proof, would it be enough to make me disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes? And was the evidence of my eyes enough to discredit my vividly tangible memories of Sarah?

I dug the nails of my right hand into the palm of my left to convince myself that I could at least feel pain. I could, but that did nothing to set realities aright. It merely demonstrated that this hallucination, dream, vision, delusion or whatever it was, possessed an internal, logical consistency. Yet surely that was quite consistent with the nature of delusions, visions, dreams and hallucinations. Certainly, if you are in the grip of madness, then by definition the hold of that madness upon you is gripping.

All this circular thinking didn’t change the central fact, however. Sarah had disappeared so totally that it appeared that there was no such person. Had I imagined her? Was she merely a figment of my overwrought imagination? Was she just a dream dreamt by someone in turn dreamt by another?

I retreated from the empty space, having found no answers, only enigmas.

I expected the streets to have subtly changed, to be transfigured and transformed, as if at last they could reveal their true natures to me. They were just the same old, same old streets however. There had been no rupture or rapture and the oh-so familiar scene contained no revelation for me. The only truth held by the streets with its buildings and in the incurious gazes of its passers-by, was a truth I had known all along —that I would always feel like a stranger here regardless of how closely I mimicked the mannerisms of its inhabitants.

Catherine was already home when I pulled up into our drive. I had decided to fake a migraine to deflect suspicion from my early homecoming and the haunted expression I’d be unable to mask. Catherine was very solicitous and mothered me accordingly, taking me to bed and tucking me in. She kissed me on the forehead and regarded me knowingly before drawing the curtains and turning out the lights. Did she know that I knew that she knew? “Sweet dreams,” she said, closing the door behind her, leaving me alone in the dark.

ID 23

Toyen-The Unfolding Screen

I recently suggested to Miss Heart of House of Heart that we collaborate together on a particular hare-brained idea. I am delighted to say that the gracious Miss Heart agreed to indulge my whim and displayed not inconsiderable patience with so idle and tardy a rogue. The result is the following poem, one half written by the vastly talented Miss Heart and the other part by myself. Like any work of the imagination it can be read in a number of ways or fashions. Suffice to say that there are many conflicting versions of events, that the same incidents can recur in different locations with a varying cast of characters and that all you may surmise doesn’t necessarily dispel the mystery.

2

The autumn leaves have begun to fall.
Late October London is covered in hues of orange and purple.
On my bench by the river I daydream that I am
an adolescent reptile escaped from Kafka’s Die Verwanlung,
Laid back, baking in the sun.

My nostrils absorb layers of perfumes,
but women are for later, for now I am content to observe.
To my advantage I know all about the ladies
but they know so little about me.

Thinking of you against my wishes,
Dying just a little, dying and dead all sweet hope
of our dream never realised.
I imagine my earthly body padded sat beside yours on a grassy knoll
to breathe in the scent of lilac and the mossy green River Delta.

In the dark I am nude but for a shadow across my torso.
You are so near and to distract my self from the honey of desire
I distract my mind with “In A Dark Time” by Roethke.
You plead and to make me stay burn your breast with my cigarette.

By chance we meet years from now at the Cafe Rouge Et Noir.
You are so fragile, your eyes the soft halo of sunflowers.
In my arms you sway like a young birch in a summer tempest.
I am reminded of yesterday when we gave away what we had already lost.
We sing sad songs and hold each other, knowing love has died and we with it.

3

Can we ever escape the past?
Changing the scene, mood and direction,
Demolishing those very tender memories
Guilty yet again by this sense of omission,
Just leave the ruins intact, buried deep down.

The stratum of history juts all around here,
A nightmare but not my own, belonging to these others
That press against me in these antique streets
Desperately pretending that they are in fact alive.

Sometimes I catch myself wishing you were here
To guide me, hold my hand, stroke my hair,
Soothe me after the storm has subsided
That glint in your eye, the passion causing
My insides to unfurl like a flower seeking the sun

Can the colour of love transform this gray
Brutalist cell into the vivid fan of a peacock
Strutting through a mescaline paradise?
Only your intensity can grant this miserable miracle.

But in a future as yet undefined
I know we will meet again once more
By chance, of course, and we will dance together
At the Cafe Rouge et Noir, torn between
Hate and love and a fierce unquenchable desire.

The Interview~~~Illustrated

The Interview_Auditorium-Susanne Rempt 2018

 

I am delighted to present once again one of my stories illustrated by my good friend Susanne Rempt. With her noirish, expressionistic illustrations that, for this story, border on the hallucinatory, Ms. Rempt contributes to the blackly comic atmosphere I was seeking to convey in this horror phantasmagoria.

For further artwork by Ms. Rempt visit her pages at Saatchi Art and Instagram. For other stories illustrated by Ms. Rempt they can be viewed at An Illustrated Promise of Paradise, Illustrated Proof and The Illustrated Unmade Again.

 

The Interview

Anna felt nervous about today. She was determined to make a good impression. O.K it was only a P.A’s position, but the pay was excellent, and it would take away some of the pressure. Without the constant worry about money she could concentrate on her real calling. True to recent form however, things had gone wrong from the moment she woke late after being up most of night rehearsing the upcoming interview. Filled with heavy dread she rushed around cramped studio trying to make up for time lost, but of course wasted hours could never be got back and her frantic efforts threw her into more of a panic. Indeed, things went from bad to worse as she bolted towards the front door, taking final swig of coffee to keep her focused and it spilt over best suit she’d picked up from dry cleaners only yesterday, at considerable expense given finances at present time. She had nothing else suitable to wear, the only thing remotely business-like was a white cotton suit set, jacket and blouse, but it was the nearly the end of November. There was nothing for it now apart from making do. She searched around for an umbrella before remembering that she’d left it in a taxi a couple of nights ago, but at least she had a raincoat, Thank God for small blessings.

Outside it wasn’t just raining, no this was different, a new angle on the ever-present rain, every drop left a yellow smear on her white clothes. This must have been the dirty rain she’d vaguely heard them forecasting on the news. Something about sand from the Sahara being absorbed by storm clouds, pushed across the Atlantic by an ominous low front before letting loose over London. Or something like that she wasn’t entirely sure because she hadn’t really listened but whatever else it was, it was nasty. There were no taxis anywhere to be had, she waited and waited, soon saturated to the skin. Being an attractive girl, she usually had no problem flagging down a cab but today every taxi was filled with their shadows and ghosts being carried forward to their nebulous destinations, so when a bus came she hopped on even though she never caught buses

As the bus slithered slowly though the sparsely haunted streets she remembered why she never caught buses. They were always so slow, taking too long. And how would she get from the bus stop to where her appointment was? She knew that the bus stopped at High Street Kensington and that the address for Reynolds Corporation was in W8, but where exactly? The 86 Fascination Street couldn’t be that hard to find however. Maybe she would have better luck getting a taxi in Kensington, if worst came to worst she could always go into a shop and buy a street atlas, another unwanted expense to be sure, but she had saved on taxi fare. One good thing you can say about the buses, at least they’re cheap.

Finally, the bus stopped at a sodden High Street Kensington. She got off and looked around for a taxi, but it was a total no go. Unfortunately, she would have to walk, her clothes were half way ruined by now, but surely they would understand about the rain. Why hadn’t she got better directions? Why did she expect everything to fall in her lap? She knew that she mustn’t think about her run of misfortune right this minute, must concentrate on what had to be done. Namely getting to the interview so that she could get work so that she might be finally able to get some organisation in her life. Then she would not have to think of all the things that set her apart.

She wandered around for a little while but very quickly she realised it was of no use, there was no way she would ever find Reynolds Corporation in this manner, so she went into Waterstones to buy a street atlas. First sensible idea I’ve had for a long time she thought. Inside the bookstore it was quite crowded with people sheltering from the rain, all standing hunched up over their paperbacks, little pools of heavy rain congealing around their ankles. Soon they would be immobilized, set fast.

She knew that she had to act quickly, time was running out, somewhere along the way she had lost her watch (where, when?) but she knew that the interview was due soon if she wasn’t actually already late, and who knew what other obstacles she would met today? After all it was a Wednesday. Street maps and atlases were supposed to be on the second floor according to the flashing neon finder board but the icy assistant, offended that she was being asked about atlases and not Kafka told her that they were on the third floor. This was odd as the building seemed to be only two storeys’ high but in unspoken answer to her unstated question the frigid intellectual pointed to the far-left corner where there was a rickety, unbanistered staircase. She nodded her head and climbed the wooden steps, counting as she went up as she always did for superstitions sake, one hundred, one hundred and one, one hundred and two and would it ever end and where was this decrepit staircase leading her? One hundred and seven, one hundred and eight, nearly there now surely. Are we yer vet, are we yer vet, she whispered to herself like a child been ferried to god knows where by sullen, silently seething parents, their holiday so carefully planned and longed for already turned into a domestic Stalingrad. No, not yet, but we‟re nearly there now. One hundred and ten, one hundred and eleven, as last, and the third floor lay before her, vast vistas of aisles and shelving stretching onwards towards a terrible infinity of nothing but books, books, books as far as the eye could see. A labyrinth of books where you would forget everything about yourself and your existence, a maze of books where you would lose yourself in other peoples lives and other people’s words, a prison of books from whence you could never escape from the dream of others and from the tyranny of your own consciousness. She turned and fled down the one hundred and eleven steps.

She didn’t slow down until the first floor, hadn’t wanted to see the icy assistant who had misdirected her so cruelly again, or the petrified browsers, but she still needed a street map, searched on the first floor but there was none, descended to the ground floor and there, right by the cash till saw a fold-out map entitled, “The Impractical Girl’s Guide to Kensington’s Streets and Byways” surely the very thing for her. She took a copy and gave it to the old crone at the counter and handed over the money. Then she left right quick.

The vile rain had intensified, drowning the streets in filth and stalling the traffic in its tracks. She stood under the doorway of an electrical goods shop and unfolded the map, which proved tricky as it was much bigger than was practical, obviously trying to live up to its title.

Before her eyes, on the map at least, was presented a Kensington transfigured, no longer Church Street and Abingdon Road, instead there was Desolation Row and Dreamside, Paradise Heights and Easy Street, Nightmare Alley and Morningstar Crescent. Fascination Street she found easily enough, on the corner of Glimmer Road, which ran adjacent to the High Street, which thankfully was still represented otherwise it would have been completely hopeless.

She ran from shop awning to shop awning the length of High Street Kensington trying not to get any wetter, but it was coming down in torrents and as there were few shops on Glimmer Road she gave over and started walking an even pace.

She found Fascination Street and was looking out for a stainless-steel tower or the suchlike but was surprised to see that it was a quiet residential street of rather grand late Victorian mansions. Nothing looked remotely like the European headquarters of a large multi-national publishing company. Just the secluded homes of London’s more moneyed inhabitants. Be that as it may be, 86 must be here somewhere, there can’t be another Fascination Street in Kensington can there? Out of the question and Reynolds was definitely on Fascination Street. It was difficult to see what the house numbers of the houses were as they were each well set off the pavement, so she opened the gate of one and went to the colonnaded entrance. She was in luck, for the first time she thought, about time too, it was no. 86, but the brass nameplate said “Dr. Dee’s Institute for the Perpetually Perplexed and Terminally Twitchy” she knew it must be some mistake, so she pressed down the buzzer. Reynolds Corporation must be a very secretive organisation to hide its presence so rigorously, really I mean, she almost laughed to herself.

She heard heels clicking on the presumably marble floor, they were that loud, and the door was opened by a nurse in stiff starched uniform. The nurse’s depth-less agate eyes gave her a searching once over and a knowing smile hovered on her red tainted lips.

“Hello I’m…” she began.

“Miss Anna Ferguson, I know. You’re late; Doctor Dee has been waiting for you. We couldn’t begin until you arrived.” the nurse interrupted.

“I’m awfully sorry, what with the rain and everything there were no taxis to be had.” she replied.

“No need to apologise Miss Ferguson, please do not concern yourself with such trivialities, the doctor certainly doesn’t. If you would kindly follow me.”
The nurse spoke perfect English but the phrasing of her sentences and her oddly precise pronunciation, vaguely American like she’d learnt English from the telly and movies, suggested that she was of Scandinavian or maybe Germanic origin, a suggestion borne out by her glacial blondness and her full, fleshy, heavy boned figure. She certainly had a strong grip, and long sharp nails. As she had stepped over the threshold of Dr Dee’s establishment the nurse had encircled her left wrist with her right hand, she had no choice but to follow. Not that she had any inclination not to. Everything was so off kilter that she had decided to adopt a policy of complete passivity in the face of whatever occurred from here on out. Certainly, questions kept plying her mind, as she didn’t have answers she tried to dismiss them, but she couldn’t but help thinking. Was this the right place? The address was right, but it certainly wasn’t like what she was expecting. Maybe she had mixed up the details and she was interviewing for the position of medical secretary. And who was this Dr. Dee? Maybe this was some new bizarre interview process, she had heard of the bigger companies using unconventional techniques to screen out applicants, but this seemed too idiosyncratic even by today’s corporate standards.

Where was the nurse leading her? Across hallways with intricate Italian marbling, past many mirrors, down stairwells and though empty offices.

The nurse finally let go of her wrists to open large double doors.

“Here we are Miss Ferguson,” the nurse said at the entrance at what appeared to be an auditorium from the tiered stage, podium, and seating, “I hope you will enjoy the lecture. Dr. Dee is such a wonderful speaker. Unfortunately, I have some work to do now, however I will join you later. Dr. Dee and I are so much looking forward to talking to you. That is, of course, if you will join us afterwards.”

“Lecture? I’m here for the position, Nurse…?”

“Nurse Woods. I do realise that Miss Ferguson. Do not concern yourself with details, the merest formalities. The process will commence in its own time. In the meanwhile,” she gestured towards the seats with a vague wave, “I suggest you find a place for yourself.”

What did this have to do with the position she was applying for? Nurse Woods was staring at her, no not at all kindly either but rather with a detached anticipation. A subdued but distinct murmur of expectancy rose from the unseen audience. She was decidedly uneasy but the feeling of passivity that had taken hold upon entering the building was even stronger now, overwhelming her into a resigned acceptance of whatever fate may have in store.

She entered the auditorium, after she had advanced in the dim ambient lighting sufficiently she heard the stab of Nurse Woods’s stilettos receding down the hallway from where they had entered.

Only two seats were empty out of about fifty, next to each other at the end of the third row, all others taken by an audience comprised entirely of women and girls, not a man to be seen. She felt wildly inconspicuous in her white clothes, as all the others were wearing impeachable black. Obviously, the new black was black for the fashionably insane and the insanely fashionable.

She hesitated for what seemed an inordinately long time before sitting down on the second to last seat. She was obviously an object of considerable attention. The middle-aged lady seated next to her turned and smiled, if a permanent rictus can be called a smile. Indeed, her face, sculpted away by excessive dieting, botox injections and the surgeons knife was no longer a face, it was a skull precariously perched on top of an elongated skeletal structure fashioned by Giacometti in his later anorexic period. She was a triumph of a morbidly decadent science over a barely breathing nature. She didn’t smile back, hugged her damp coat tight over her chest and watched the stage for any signs of the lecturer.

She didn’t have to wait long; soon the hubbub of sophisticated chitter-chatter gave way to a low, admiring “ohhhh’s and ahhhh’s” as the Doctor made his grand entrance. She knew now why the audience was made up entirely of neurotic ladies and hysterical girls, the good Doctor was obviously a bit of a lady-killer, a suave silver fox.

“Welcome ladies, I see many familiar faces today and a newcomer.” he was obviously referring to herself because he stared right through her, his cruel, sensual, thick lips curving into an asymmetrical, she could only call it wicked, smile. She shivered; this was a man who could make her come just by looking at her. “For the benefit of all those who do not know me and are unacquainted with my work here, I am Dr John Dee resident psychologist at the Home. My methods and theories are in their early stages and, I will be the first to admit, shall we say of a somewhat experimental nature but not without their successes.” He paused to let the fact of his modesty sink in. The ladies obviously found it charming. “Today I’m going to discuss, not about the why, but the how. The methodology, if you like, the methodology of suicide. As an act, suicide is redolent with symbolism, obviously as it is the grand, ultimate gesture of narcissism. Consider, for instance a particularly masculine form of self-dispatch, shooting oneself. Brutal, but instantaneous. Quite unladylike. This form of deliverance is much favoured by military and civilian police personnel, who eat their service issue revolvers; those who live by the gun must die by the gun, one way or another. Hanging is a different matter altogether, the favoured form of execution of criminals for centuries it clearly reveals a strong strain of self-loathing, the only thing to be said in it’s defence is that it is quick and apparently painless, but who would want to be found dead like that, with your tongue lolling out idiotically. A blatant and very unsubtle approach may be found in the people who choose to kill themselves by jumping in front of tube trains on the Circle and District line, a gesture that screams the fact that London kills.

“Suicides of artists and writers are of particular interest in this matter, as artists are egotistical in an extreme degree and are also highly aware of the symbolic importance of all thoughts and actions, and suicide is a rare instance of the unity of decision and deed. By definition not one suicide is an accident, but neither are there spontaneous or surprising suicides, all are pre-meditated and signified.

“My first example would be Sylvia Plath. Imagine the scene, unwashed dishes in the sink, the unattended children crawling around in soiled nappies, her head in the oven. Of course, her husband is out seducing any lady willing. Given this, the content of her death is glaringly manifest. Her appalling husband, a representative of the patriarchal society that reduces women to little more than indentured servants, subjected her to the indignities of childrearing and keeping house, killing her with neglect and his desire to impose his overwhelmingly masculine personality upon her. Let us not forget her dear Nazi Daddy either, with his jackboots and concentration camps and gas ovens… If I may inject a word of warnings here ladies, it would be this; try not to marry your fathers. The oven is hugely significant, just as a soldier in dishonor turns his own gun on himself; it was only fitting, no, more than fitting…it was the only possible means for her end, the symbolic importance of which could escape no interested party, ensuring in the elimination of her own life that a legend would be born.

“For my next example the symbolism is rather more convoluted, indeed torturous, rather like his writings. I’m referring to the highly public death of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. His death by ritual seppuku, physically appalling as it involves self-disembowelment and then de-capitation was supposedly motivated as a protest at the westernisation of Japan, but you cannot seriously buy that for a moment. His suicide has an intentional iconographic quality, not surprising as he was much given to Saint Sebastian. In this final scripted and staged moment of his life, a death that he had foretold and rehearsed many times beforehand, Mishima managed to satisfy his many contrary impulses and desires. His love of death, his aesthetic masochism, his mania for self-promotion and his militaristic fantasies were fused together and gratified in the act of seppuku, where he also hoped to gain a kind of immortality by notoriety, as he was probably cognisant of the fact that then current source of his fame, his novels and plays, would not stand the test of time.

“However, one must be on one’s guard against over-generalisation. Every suicide is a uniquely personal drama; no amount of statistics or analysis could reach the root cause. Why exactly did Van Gogh choose to blow his brains out? Weapons had played no part in his life thus far, apart from the ear-slicing knife. I like to think that he was releasing the demons that had tormented him for so long from within the confines of his skull. Or perhaps…”

So engrossed was she with the bizarre lecture and by the low, sonorous voice of the macabre doctor she failed to notice that Nurse Woods was sitting next to her until her knee touched her leg. She turned around, considerably startled.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you; I can see that you find the lecture fascinating.” Nurse Woods voiced buzzed in her ear.

“No need to apologise, I just didn’t hear you join me is all.” Anna answered nervously.

“You are quite jumpy, do not worry, the Doctor is nearing the climax of his lesson. Listen,” she nodded towards the stage and her fleshy hand gripped Anna’s arm lying on the armrest.

“Well, my words are all very fine and good, but as they always say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So, let me give you illustrated examples.”

The pressure of the nurse’s hand against her hand was opening up new areas of anxiety and unease. The audience of the sophisticated ladies and what she had earlier taken to be their daughter‟s but now she wasn‟t sure seemed to be alternatively concentrating on the stage where a slide projector had been brought out and herself.

The doctor stepped aside near to the wings.

Images were projected on the screen. At first, she couldn’t make them out; they seemed to be highly conceptualised pictures of imaginary events. Only after the third still did she recognise herself.

Herself.

Her mutilated body the star of an atrocity exhibition to sate the jaded tastes of these sinister strangers who clapped appreciatively after every new still of her death at her own hand.

How many times could one person die?

In a bathtub full of blood; hanging from a tree, black tongue between blue lips; face down on a table, gun in limp hand, her blood and brains a tachist explosion on the dulled yellowed walls; in a disturbed bed flecks of foam on her mouth; in the compacted driver’s seat of a car involved in a head-on collision; in a nightclub toilet empty syringe on the floor, an exclamation point to a life!

She couldn’t avert her eyes even though she felt sick to death. She moved to throw up, but she was restrained from all sides. Nurse Woods and the death’s head lady gripped her wrists tighter, hurting her. They didn’t say anything, not that they had to by this stage. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and hoped that they, her persecutors, would disappear.

But, of course they didn’t.

Instead Nurse Woods was tightening her grip. “The Doctor is coming to see you now, Miss Ferguson, it’s not the time to fall asleep. First impressions are very important, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wasn’t going to sleep. I would appreciate it if you let go of me, please.”

“I think we had better leave that decision to the Doctor, don’t you, Miss Ferguson?”

Doctor Dee approached, descending the steps of the stage, right towards her. He towered over her, his penetrating eyes restlessly looking her over. She would have liked to kick him or do something to break the awful spell, but felt completely powerless beneath his stare.

“Anna, it is a pleasure to meet you, though the circumstances are hardly conducive,” he sighed. “So, few things are as we wish them to be. One can only hope that the next world is an improvement on this one. Though I, for one, hold little hope of that. Oh well, we just have to make do, really, don’t you agree?” he paused for her agreement, but none was forthcoming. “You have been under a strain, lately, I know, I know. Life can be hard, unfortunately, most unfortunate really. You are not the only one. However, the thing is… well we had better discuss that later. At the moment you are tired and wet, and I don’t doubt, just a little confused. Now is not the time to formally start the interview process, I realise, though of course everything is being taken into consideration, maybe after you have changed and rested for a while we can begin, but for now I think you need a little something to make you relax.”

Out of his pocket he pulled out a hypodermic needle, he tossed the cap onto the floor and tapped the needle a few times. Her restrainers held her down as she began to struggle. She kicked and thrashed her body trying to escape or at least avoid the oncoming needle, but no use. The needle sank into her vein and she desisted as she lost control of her muscles.

“Now now Anna, what was the good of resisting, you are a clever girl you should have realised it would get you nowhere. And of course, the authorities will have to be informed. I will try to put in a good word, but still…” he trailed off.

She was trying not to think, to escape to a point outside the confines of her body, to a distance away from the imprisoning dimensions of space and time. Who knew what fresh horror lay in store next. What additional twists and turns could this nightmare take?

“Well it is obvious to me that you can’t prepare for the interview in the present surroundings. Nurse Woods, if you would kindly show Miss Ferguson to her quarters and arrange for her a change of clothes, as you’ll catch your death in those damp ones, and I will look in on you soon. Then we can initiate the procedure. I look forward to seeing you soon, Miss Ferguson.”

Nurse Woods dragged her out of her chair. Her legs were gone, she knew that they were there, but she couldn’t feel them, and they were of no use to her. Her eyelids kept on drooping closed and her head felt imponderably heavy on her neck, every time she nodded off into half-unconscious she roused herself with an effort, she knew that she mustn’t fall asleep, no no she mustn’t, not here, in this place with that doctor and his nurse and those women licking their lips in anticipation of…what, fresh meat? No, she mustn’t, but the law of gravity was proving to be almost irresistible.

She was taken to a room bereft of furniture apart from an old rusted folding chair, like one she used to sit in and look out of the window at school and a coarse fibred blanket. They were no windows and the walls were painted a dingy cream color. The sole source of light was an unshaded bare light bulb. Nurse Woods let her fall onto the chair, picked her up as she sprawled onto the floor and proceeded to undress her with a sadistic methodicalness, she dimly suspected in drugged state that here was a woman who enjoyed her work. Was it really necessary to remove her bra and underwear so that she was totally naked? She tried to voice her concerns but only a feeble croak escaped her lips.

“I will be back with some clothes. Miss Ferguson, I suggest that you proceed to make yourself comfortable. I will return shortly, however a good attitude is vital within the interview context. Good luck, Miss Ferguson.”

How long ago did the nurse leave? She had no way of knowing, no clocks were on the walls, no light penetrated the room. However, her lucidity had returned, and she was aware of that she was shivering, and naked. She was reluctant to cover herself with the blanket, who knew where it had been? The cold of the chair was uncomfortable against her bottom but the floor was hardly inviting. She knew that the door was a dead-end it would be locked, and it would go against her later, she tried not to look at it too much, because she knew that they were watching, somewhere they were watching her. She scanned the room for peepholes or camera lens, apertures or mirrors. She hadn’t managed to find any yet, but she knew that they were there.

She just wanted her clothes back, but who knew when the nurse would return? When she did she would ask to leave, as she felt that she was, given the circumstances, unsuitable for the position offered

I’m Waiting For You

Yves Tanguy-Je Vous Attends (I’m Waiting For You) 1934

I have always been intrigued by the bizarre landscapes of the French Surrealist Yves Tanguy, paintings that demand a creative response far beyond the standard art historical entry. With this in mind I approached the enigmatic Mia, aka Copper Cranes, one of the finest poets that I know, who constantly crafts verses that are elusive and hermetic, dense yet delicate, if she would compose a piece on the above painting, Je Vous Attends (I’m Waiting for You), that played such an important part in the personal mythology of Tanguy and his wife Kay Sage.

I am delighted that Miss Cranes not only agreed but produced such an outstanding and haunting poem as Last Call Before You Go, which is published below. My contribution to this collaboration is a brief essay on Tanguy, Sage and the concept of the chance encounter within Surrealist aesthetics.

Last Call Before You Go

Within a blinding sanguine flash
Escaping the unbridled muzzle of destiny
I find myself riding a scorching bullet,
The train of deliverance, to a place of remains:
Human cairns, les piles de vertèbres
Unrecognizable, yet familiar skinless parts
In this: historic, prehistoric, futuristic,
Post-apocalyptic landscape
With perpetual dinner parties’
Sunsetting shadows: 7 pm
All in search of the multifaceted singular you
Chasing craggy friction, smooth from tracing
A longing desire for all your bigness:
That which fills the heat of any room,
Your fanfare flames a come-hither awareness:
Clarity: the drive for scorn:
Perfection that leads me here
I sense your startling presence
Larger than life, surrounding, smothering
A gyration of hovering stillness
With its annihilating posture: verbal trysts:
Cruelty and misunderstandings:
The heaven on earth I cannot live without:
Effortless drunken brush strokes:
Wire and bullets, forever holding us together
Alas, I have found you: a gaping hole of loss
Collecting plundered eons
And inconsequential landmarks:
The keys to nothing — home to everything

The Dictates of Chance

The concept of chance was of vital importance to Surrealist aesthetics. Taking as a starting point the beautiful chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella upon an operating table of the Comte De Lautreamont and Stephane Mallarme’s enigmatic dictum that ‘a throw of the dice will never abolish chance’, the Surrealists came to believe that chance was the force necessary to change art, life and indeed transform the world.

Maybe because they were finely attuned to its workings and therefore always on the look-out for its unexpected arrival that chance encounters do seem to have played a disproportionally large role in many a Surrealist biography, especially in the life and works of the two best exemplifiers of Surrealist scorched earth strangeness, Yves Tanguy and Kay Sage.

In 1923 Yves Tanguy was an ex-Merchant Seaman from Brittany leading a rather aimless Bohemian lifestyle in Paris. One day he passed a shop window displaying a painting by Giorgio De Chirico, Le Cerveau L’Enfant (The Child’s Brain). This random, chance encounter had an electrifying, galvanising effect upon Tanguy. He there and then decided to become a painter, despite the fact that he had no formal training whatsoever. It was an inspired decision. Tanguy was possessed of a unique, singular vision that defies all explanation and would greatly influence later Surrealists (especially Dali) and the Abstract Expressionists, notably Pollack and Rothko.

Tanguy’s great contribution was to paint irreal figures that are neither animal, vegetable or mineral, in a painstaking, precise naturalistic fashion, therefore adding to the illusionism of the extra-terrestrial landscapes with their depthless horizons. He would render this strange realm that could be interpenetrated as either a collective memory of the pre-organic origins of life or as a prophecy of the distant future or maybe a mental photograph of the unconscious, obsessively throughout the rest of his career.

In 1938, the wealthy American Kay Sage, who had recently, began to pursue an artistic career after the failure of her marriage visited the International Surrealist Exhibit in Galerie Beaux-Arts. She was so taken by another one of De Chirico paintings, La Surprise,  that she brought it and it would remain in her possession until her death. Another painting she noticed and admired immensely was, ‘I’m Waiting For You’,  by Yves Tanguy. This exposure to the works of De Chirico led Sage to change her artistic direction from semi-abstraction to Surrealism. This change of direction led to a solo exhibition that Tanguy attended and he was so moved by the paintings that he decided to seek Sage out. A meeting was arranged through mutual friends, the result of a series of chance encounters that led to their marriage in 1940 in Reno, Nevada.

They moved to Woodbury, Connecticut shortly afterwards. Their marriage was by all accounts difficult and tempestuous; however Tanguy’s death in 1955 from a stroke devastated Sage. She almost completely stopped painting her own eerie, dread-filled and depopulated surreal landscapes, instead making small sculptures out of wire and bullets.

In 1963 Kay Sage left this poignant and heart-rending suicide note: “The first painting by Yves that I saw, before I knew him, was called ‘I’m waiting for you.’ I’ve come. Now he’s waiting for me again-I’m on my way.” She shot herself through the heart. Tanguy’s friend, the art dealer and brother of Henri, Pierre Matisse scattered their mixed ashes on a beach in Tanguy’s beloved Brittany.

Tempting Fate: Part Eight

Andre Masson-Card Trick 1923

First of all my apologies in the delay of this instalment of Tempting Fate which I planned to post in the first week of January. You can find the previous parts at Tempting Fate: Part One, Tempting Fate: Part Two, Tempting Fate: Part Three, Tempting Fate: Part Four, Tempting Fate: Part Five, Tempting Fate: Part Six and Tempting Fate: Part Seven. As always thank you to drmegsorick.com for her infinite patience and invaluable editorial support.

                              IX.

After finally emerging into the daylight from the scrum and press of the ticket barriers, Margot immediately declared that they couldn’t possibly go to Kubla Khan’s at this early hour. The shutters may have been lifted, but nobody who was anybody would be caught dead there at this time of day.

‘Besides Max, you are looking as peaky as I feel,’ she said. ‘I think that we are both in need of some refreshment. Yes, a little pick-me-up would act as a tonic, do us both a world of good. So what do you say to that?’ Margot asked, more to herself than to Max.

Max nodded absently. ‘Sure.’

He’d been so absorbed in the act of putting one foot in front of the other, suppressing the nausea brought on by the sight of the grey concrete towers dissolving in the sickening heat haze, that he really hadn’t been paying close attention. Now, though, he wondered where exactly they were walking to.

‘I know. Let’s go to that new place,’ Margot said, answering his unspoken question. ‘You know, that place they spent a fortune on? It was in the news. They called it the beginning of an urban renaissance or some such public relations nonsense.’

She stopped, lifted her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes in an effort to jog her memory. ‘Oh what’s it called?’ she asked aloud. ‘The Babylon. No. That’s not it. Something like it though. Babylon, Babylonia, Bethlehem, Bedlam…’ She shook her head. Then clicking her fingers, she said, ‘The Babel, that’s it. Let’s go there.’ With a look at their surroundings, she added, ‘Though I’m sure we’re headed in the completely wrong direction.’ When her gaze landed on a cluster of buildings that had briefly obscured the sun, she pointed. ‘There. Let’s go that a way instead.’

Again Max just nodded. He tried to speak but discovered that his swollen tongue was incapable of forming words. They had to get somewhere soon though, he thought. As Margot’s mind spiralled in ever decreasing, tightening circles, his limbs and extremities were being overtaken by a debilitating leadenness. Soon, very soon, he sincerely and desperately hoped, they would find this damned hotel and be seated in a dim nook with tall, long glasses of some refreshing, viscous, alcoholic drink. He could see it so clearly. He could almost taste it. Why were they not there already?

These thoughts were familiar. Memories, perhaps? Thoughts he’d had before? Glancing out of the corner of his eye at the mirrored, reinforced, window of the shop-front they were passing, he realised his mind was like that sheet of glass —reflecting everything and yet remembering nothing. The images that appeared before his eyes made a momentary impression, then moved off and vanished forever.

They scurried down empty avenues designed to disabuse anyone of the quaint notion that streets were for pedestrians to stroll upon. It simply wasn’t the case, especially not these days and not here, of all places. No, an avenue was a place for traffic to tear down, brakes untouched —woe betide anyone stupid enough to try to cross the road. Getting to the opposite side required being born there. And so they turned up sinister, dead-end alleys built primarily to facilitate robbery and rape, emerging finally, on the canal area. Margot immediately perked up, remarking that it couldn’t be far away now.

‘Thank God, I thought we were well and truly lost there for a while,’ Max said, finally finding his voice again.

‘Dearest Max, your lack of confidence in me is simply appalling,’ she said. ‘Though, I believe we are both on a bit of a come-down, which simply won’t do. But never fear. I believe I have the solution to having peaked too soon. I just never expected it to be such a long day. Anyway, all’s well that ends well, isn’t that so?’

‘I realize you have some master plan in the works, Margot. I just wish you would enlighten me a little.’

‘Oh Max,’ she said, smiling. ‘That would just spoil the surprise. Where’s your sense of adventure? When you woke up this morning, I bet you never thought you’d end up lost in Birmingham, did you?’ She gestured to a squat, low-rise, balconied building which had BABEL TOWERS emblazoned across the entrance. ‘Look, that must be it.’

‘It must be indeed, though it’s not really a tower, is it?’ Max remarked.

‘Not to worry, I am sure they will add bits onto it later. It does look shiny and new, though, doesn’t it?’

‘Sure does. Anyway, I couldn’t care less. I just want to get inside and take the weight off and have a drink. I’m completely parched’

‘Come on, then, stop dawdling and we’ll be there right quick.’

‘Coming, Margot,’ he said, pouting. ‘Are you just going to get bossier and bossier as this day goes on, or what?’

‘You’d better believe it, darling. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Besides, that’s the reason why you love me so,’ Margot suggested rather tartly.

‘Oh, you think so?’ Max replied, though he had to admit that she probably had a point on this score.

And as she marched up to the bar —with its space-station curves and mirrored surfaces— and commandingly ordered two gin and tonics with a squeeze of a lime, he felt just a little bit more in love, if such a thing was possible. The fleeting thought of his somnolent father finally waking to discover their absence entered his mind and was dismissed straight away. Hadn’t he already had that thought before?

They slid into the seats of a banquette in a shadowy nook, just like he had envisioned. Suddenly awestruck, he wondered if he was now psychic. Had the drugs Margot so thoughtfully provided unlocked a hitherto unused portion of his brain to reveal everything in the world in all its essence? He sipped the viscous gin that wonderfully refreshed his parched mouth and throat.

‘We really shouldn’t be mixing drink with what we took earlier —not really the ideal combo, but what the hell. I really needed this. Besides we are definitely on the comedown phrase, and that certainly won’t do if we are really to make a night of it,’ she said. ‘And I really want to make it a night we will never forget, don’t you, Max?’

Max sipped his drink. ‘Of course.’ Though, it was already a day that would live long in the memory.

‘Anyway, so,’ Margot said, pausing to rummage in her handbag. She withdrew her hand to present two sugar-cubes in her open palm. ‘This may be too much, but too much of everything is just enough, don’t you think?’ She laughed. ‘Though it may be in this case just too much. What do you say?’ She handed him one of the sugar-cubes.

‘I say yes. Thanks, Margot,’ Max said as he swallowed and reached for his drink.

‘Good boy, hopefully we can expect fireworks very shortly.’

‘No doubt. Do you want another drink?’ Max asked as he rose.

‘Absolutely, same again. Here, take some of your Dad’s money to pay for it.’

‘Cheers,’ Max said, smiling as he accepted the ten pound note.

Then cash in hand, Max wound through the crowd toward the glowing Shangri-La that was the bar. As the drug took effect, he felt the resurgent joy that had been slipping away, slowly return.