Neil Gaiman's, whose short stories are always worth a look, has collaborated with a chap called Lee Edwards, the result is Down Among the Dead Men (from the book Zombie Apocalypse Fightback), the animated version of which is on YouTube and is rather good.
Hello
- John Conway
- To steal something from a better writer than myself, I'm a drunk homosexual with low moral fibre.
Friday 15 February 2013
Sunday 10 February 2013
I've been thoroughly enjoying an excellent audio version of Pride & Prejudice (read by Lindsay Duncan no less) courtesy of Newcastle Central Library (wonder how long their wonderful audiobook service will last with the coming cuts) and I have PD James' Death Comes To Pemberley waiting in the wings.
I assumed this would ensure I'd have my fill of Austen for the month, however in last Friday's Guardian the inimitable Simon Cowell has reviewed a new biography by Paula Byrne, entitled The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. This being Pride & Prejudice's 200th birthday it's probably inevitable that something would be out, but this sounds more interesting than expected.
Seemingly the book eschews the standard birth to death narrative, instead instead trying to understand Austen through the medium of objects connected to her life and the stories connected to said objects.
I assumed this would ensure I'd have my fill of Austen for the month, however in last Friday's Guardian the inimitable Simon Cowell has reviewed a new biography by Paula Byrne, entitled The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. This being Pride & Prejudice's 200th birthday it's probably inevitable that something would be out, but this sounds more interesting than expected.
Seemingly the book eschews the standard birth to death narrative, instead instead trying to understand Austen through the medium of objects connected to her life and the stories connected to said objects.
Thursday 7 February 2013
Short Story - Just A Witch
Published in Material Magazine (Issue 4, 6th February, 2013).
The young boy limped through the snow, blood lay in his tracks.
Around him windows glared defiantly at the night, but in the sea fog the lights of the street felt like they were blanketed, pale and orange they failed in their task. As the fatigue and pain and grief pounded against the boy's skull, he understood that the meeker the lights shrank the closer the glaive was in return, he had to keep running.
The crossroad waited ahead, just a few minutes past that until the guest-house was in sight.
Please.
Please.
She was just a witch.
The voice was in his ear, he had to repress the urge to turn, because he knew that the glaive wasn't actually right behind him, couldn't be... still...
She was just a witch.
The voice repeated.
The sight ran through his mind again, the corpses in the temple. Headless, even the silent and stern Mistress Wu who had seemed... seemed so... he had screamed then. How had that man got to them first? The boy had been promised, many things, by those now slaughtered, and by the prophecy that had said...
A car almost did the glaive's work for him, as it was the boy fell as it blared past; his broken arm took the worst of it but no time to acknowledge that now.
Ignoring the pain, and the car that did not stop, he dragged himself up to run again. Footsteps in the snow, the boy risked one quick glance and saw the glaive's ragged cloak whip around a lithe and grim figure; the man walked, never ran, and still he was catching the boy.
Above, the air was filled with the sound, it echoed in circles, from the voice of the servants.
Witch.
A taunt rising, again and again, it had been written repeatedly in her blood, the stump of her severed arm the brush, the church walls the canvas.
Witch.
And the glaive had been standing there, waiting, that creepy man who had always seemed one step behind, had always shrieked in pantomime rage as the boy had seemed to gain victory after victory. And then he was smiling, happily, like a teenager with his first love, and the boy realised he was a mouse being toyed with by a cat.
Well.
The glaive had spoken in a soft, slightly camp voice, so different to the sneering drawl he had addressed the boy with in their earlier encounters.
That's what you get when you stand in the way of the dark.
And then he’d come for the boy, the boy who'd raised the trinkets he’d collected, marvels and treasures that a prophecy had said would consume this representative of one of the world’s more sinister faces. And as their subtle trails of delicate magic had begun to fill the air he’d panicked, and almost dropped one. But that hadn’t mattered, because the glaive's hand had twitched as though a dramatic gesture was too much effort, and they had crumbled from his grip and into ash.
The ragged cloaked man had smiled again, consolingly.
I can read ancient prophecies too, you know. So very nice of them to tell me what was going to happen in advance. I do so hate to spoil it for you all, but regrettably it must be so. I'd offer you the chance of surrender - flee with your life, join my hellish crusade perhaps - but that would be rather silly of me, yes?
Then he'd come for the boy, and the boy had ran. Through snow drowned streets that smelt of the sea, pounding through the tiny village, he had run to the house of Roe, and found the door shattered, and the man dead inside, his naked body quartered. The others had all been in the church, there was no-one now.
I got to them all.
The glaive had gloated in whispers across the clamour of the road.
All of the people, all of the artefacts. They were easy enough to find, well, they had to be, or how would a child manage? They’re all gone boy, just the bloodline left to purge. And the prophecy already did most of that before me, the last male of the line... Why, that's you! And three females, as I recall.
And then true despair had gripped the boy, he had run for home, because he knew who else the glaive was after that night. And now he was running on from that crossroad, to the distant cottage, a rental home for the winter. His mother had so wanted to spend this Christmas alone, with her two children and their unborn sister, a rest after hard times, a new start.
He ran, not daring to look back again, trying not to think of the pain. He saw the lights through the window ahead, reached the cottage and... and... and the door was open...
Pushing through he found the glaive, waiting. His sister's body was already slumped against one wall, the man had added her head to his collection, the boy saw some of her hair hanging from the wicker basket carried by one of the servants. But even that couldn't hold the gaze of the boy, whose raw eyes looked in horror towards the man's outstretched arm, and the sword he held.
Then the glaive, who seemed to have been calmly waiting, made a final downward push. The blade ran through the stomach of the boy's mother, finishing her, and the baby within, with an agonised and pathetic gurgle.
Just a witch.
The man spoke softly
And I think that really is the end of it, with one final life.
He jerked the sword up, and as the boy tried to move back he felt the arms of the servants twine round his own limbs and hold him in place. The glaive pulled the blade from his mother’s stomach, and with a single swipe removed her head and held it up by the hair.
Just think, five hundred years ago they saw. They saw the other thing happen, saw the future. Oh those venerable, stupid men. Can you imagine the delicious irony? They were so sure it was solid, but they decided to interfere anyway, and they wrote...
He broke off with a curt snigger.
They wrote a prophecy, a prophecy to show you the right path. And that's what made you lose, because it was so simple, they may as well have drawn a map. Because the future's never solid, you know? They thought they could contain this, make me fight on their pre-destined lines. Don't walk those holy roads, don’t kill in the sacred places, leave their weapons intact for you to find.
These laws are a fat old man who works in a city park, boy, he tells you to keep off the grass, but that's it. He can't do anything when the bad children disobey, because he’s terrified of them.
He raised the tip of the blade lightly to the boy's neck.
You should never fuck with the dark.
The man spoke, and with a gentle flick he decapitated the chosen one. His servants shrunk back as he picked up the last head.
It even told me about the third child.
The glaive stared into the lifeless eyes and open mouth.
Even led me to the unborn baby. Tsk. No-one left to avenge you, even. What a miserable way to go.
He placed the head into the bag. The house now burning around him, he looked out across the village and into the dark sea beyond.
And that was just the beginning.
The glaive said these last words to no one in particular, as the dark crept on.
Copyright John Conway - 2013 - john.charles.conway@googlemail.com
The young boy limped through the snow, blood lay in his tracks.
Around him windows glared defiantly at the night, but in the sea fog the lights of the street felt like they were blanketed, pale and orange they failed in their task. As the fatigue and pain and grief pounded against the boy's skull, he understood that the meeker the lights shrank the closer the glaive was in return, he had to keep running.
The crossroad waited ahead, just a few minutes past that until the guest-house was in sight.
Please.
Please.
She was just a witch.
The voice was in his ear, he had to repress the urge to turn, because he knew that the glaive wasn't actually right behind him, couldn't be... still...
She was just a witch.
The voice repeated.
The sight ran through his mind again, the corpses in the temple. Headless, even the silent and stern Mistress Wu who had seemed... seemed so... he had screamed then. How had that man got to them first? The boy had been promised, many things, by those now slaughtered, and by the prophecy that had said...
A car almost did the glaive's work for him, as it was the boy fell as it blared past; his broken arm took the worst of it but no time to acknowledge that now.
Ignoring the pain, and the car that did not stop, he dragged himself up to run again. Footsteps in the snow, the boy risked one quick glance and saw the glaive's ragged cloak whip around a lithe and grim figure; the man walked, never ran, and still he was catching the boy.
Above, the air was filled with the sound, it echoed in circles, from the voice of the servants.
Witch.
A taunt rising, again and again, it had been written repeatedly in her blood, the stump of her severed arm the brush, the church walls the canvas.
Witch.
And the glaive had been standing there, waiting, that creepy man who had always seemed one step behind, had always shrieked in pantomime rage as the boy had seemed to gain victory after victory. And then he was smiling, happily, like a teenager with his first love, and the boy realised he was a mouse being toyed with by a cat.
Well.
The glaive had spoken in a soft, slightly camp voice, so different to the sneering drawl he had addressed the boy with in their earlier encounters.
That's what you get when you stand in the way of the dark.
And then he’d come for the boy, the boy who'd raised the trinkets he’d collected, marvels and treasures that a prophecy had said would consume this representative of one of the world’s more sinister faces. And as their subtle trails of delicate magic had begun to fill the air he’d panicked, and almost dropped one. But that hadn’t mattered, because the glaive's hand had twitched as though a dramatic gesture was too much effort, and they had crumbled from his grip and into ash.
The ragged cloaked man had smiled again, consolingly.
I can read ancient prophecies too, you know. So very nice of them to tell me what was going to happen in advance. I do so hate to spoil it for you all, but regrettably it must be so. I'd offer you the chance of surrender - flee with your life, join my hellish crusade perhaps - but that would be rather silly of me, yes?
Then he'd come for the boy, and the boy had ran. Through snow drowned streets that smelt of the sea, pounding through the tiny village, he had run to the house of Roe, and found the door shattered, and the man dead inside, his naked body quartered. The others had all been in the church, there was no-one now.
I got to them all.
The glaive had gloated in whispers across the clamour of the road.
All of the people, all of the artefacts. They were easy enough to find, well, they had to be, or how would a child manage? They’re all gone boy, just the bloodline left to purge. And the prophecy already did most of that before me, the last male of the line... Why, that's you! And three females, as I recall.
And then true despair had gripped the boy, he had run for home, because he knew who else the glaive was after that night. And now he was running on from that crossroad, to the distant cottage, a rental home for the winter. His mother had so wanted to spend this Christmas alone, with her two children and their unborn sister, a rest after hard times, a new start.
He ran, not daring to look back again, trying not to think of the pain. He saw the lights through the window ahead, reached the cottage and... and... and the door was open...
Pushing through he found the glaive, waiting. His sister's body was already slumped against one wall, the man had added her head to his collection, the boy saw some of her hair hanging from the wicker basket carried by one of the servants. But even that couldn't hold the gaze of the boy, whose raw eyes looked in horror towards the man's outstretched arm, and the sword he held.
Then the glaive, who seemed to have been calmly waiting, made a final downward push. The blade ran through the stomach of the boy's mother, finishing her, and the baby within, with an agonised and pathetic gurgle.
Just a witch.
The man spoke softly
And I think that really is the end of it, with one final life.
He jerked the sword up, and as the boy tried to move back he felt the arms of the servants twine round his own limbs and hold him in place. The glaive pulled the blade from his mother’s stomach, and with a single swipe removed her head and held it up by the hair.
Just think, five hundred years ago they saw. They saw the other thing happen, saw the future. Oh those venerable, stupid men. Can you imagine the delicious irony? They were so sure it was solid, but they decided to interfere anyway, and they wrote...
He broke off with a curt snigger.
They wrote a prophecy, a prophecy to show you the right path. And that's what made you lose, because it was so simple, they may as well have drawn a map. Because the future's never solid, you know? They thought they could contain this, make me fight on their pre-destined lines. Don't walk those holy roads, don’t kill in the sacred places, leave their weapons intact for you to find.
These laws are a fat old man who works in a city park, boy, he tells you to keep off the grass, but that's it. He can't do anything when the bad children disobey, because he’s terrified of them.
He raised the tip of the blade lightly to the boy's neck.
You should never fuck with the dark.
The man spoke, and with a gentle flick he decapitated the chosen one. His servants shrunk back as he picked up the last head.
It even told me about the third child.
The glaive stared into the lifeless eyes and open mouth.
Even led me to the unborn baby. Tsk. No-one left to avenge you, even. What a miserable way to go.
He placed the head into the bag. The house now burning around him, he looked out across the village and into the dark sea beyond.
And that was just the beginning.
The glaive said these last words to no one in particular, as the dark crept on.
Copyright John Conway - 2013 - john.charles.conway@googlemail.com
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