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The Well My first broadcast and online production.
My Teenage Memoir withdrawn from Andersen Press.
New Twittertale - LOST IN THE SNOW
Photo: John Coombes
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Visits to India and Lithuania How lucky am I? This Wednesday (Feb 10th) I'm off to India for an eight visit withe the British Council as part of their LitSutra Programme - meeting with high school students, under-grad and post-grad students in Mumbai, as part of the Kala Ghoda Festival), Kolkata and Kalyani.I can;t tell you how much I'm looking forward to this - I love India. It's always great to do things with the British Council and take the opportunity of talking about books and writing in other parts of the world. Then off to Vilnius in Lithuania, where I'm doing some publicity for my publishers over there, Alma Litera. You can see the work they publish for young people here and some of the covers here. I've been to Vilnius before, had a grea ttime, The young people there are so radical - interested and curiouis about everythingm adn prepared to take a chance on anything. It's the only town in the world where they have a moument ot Frank Zappa. So it's me and Frankie - great stuff!
THE WELL - PLAY THE GAME, FIND THE GHOST, REVEAL THE STORY. My first work for TV and online It's a scary one. Stay away if you don't sleep well at night ... The Well shows on four, ten minute episodes with game play online in between. You have to play the game to release the hidden story - ghosts, in a word - to find out what exactly happened last time the well was opened ...and stay a lttle ahead of the show. See the episodes and play The Well game - it's like Resident Evil, according to Time Out - but with real ghosts ...
THE WELL - With Karen Gillan on the left, who is going to play the assistant in the new series of Dr Who currnelty being filmed. Don't forget - you saw her here first!
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One of my most recent works - a memoir of my teenage years - has been dropepd by the publisher becaue of fears of litigation. Read about it in The Guardian here. Read my response here.
LOST IN THE SNOW
The snow is melting in my garden. Each day a few more things, plants or steps or stones emerge.
Humps and bumps reveal themselves as benign secrets – flowerbeds, a log, a bag of compost not yet emptied.
Today, though something special.
A little girl.
She's aged about four years old, with long browny yellow hair, a blob of a nose, slightly upturned and a pretty smile.
As soon as I see her I run out to say hello. She’s pleased to see me. I'm pleased to see her.
I bend down in the mud to kiss her.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her.
“You look old,” she says, and laughs.
We sit and talk a while until she gets bored and wants to run around and play. But of course shecan’t.
Only her head and shoulders are clear of thedrift.
"Perhaps tomorrow," I say, and she looks at me reprochfully.
Instead, I build a snowman for her right next to her, so she can help smooth down his sides. As a finishing touch, she fluffs up his woolly hat before I place it on his head
"He's got a big head," she says.
"Yes, but he's still stupid," I repl;y, and we both laugh like anything.
Now her hands are too cold. I take them in mine and rub them and blow on them untill they sting.
She cries a little bit.
I run inside and make her cocoa, anxious in case she too melts away But she's til there when I get back.
She wipes her eyes and sips.
Soon the cocoa is gone and she is tired. She rubs her eyes. But it can’t be bedtime already.
“Try and stay awake,” I tell her.
“Silly Melvin,” she says.
She wants me to tell her a story. What sort?
“Mr and Mrs Bottom smacker,” she says.
So I do. As I talk, her head begins to droop.
"Do you suppose,” I say, “That if snow carries on melting, you’ll be able to come into the house?”
“That would be nice,” she says. “What would we do?”
“Oh, we’ll bake a cake,. Or find some more stories, or playgames.”
“Will Oliver be there?”
“He’s grown up now. But we could get the little boy from next door to play.”
She grows quiet and thoughtful. Then she says this:
“When I die, can we hold hands?”
That’s the last thing I want.
“When you die,” I say. “I won’t be there. I’ll have died myself a long time before that.”
She wails and holds out her arms. “Want to hold hands!” she wails.
I bend and hug her and promise. Yes,. We’ll hold hands. I promise.
After that I have to sing her a song. Then she leans her head against me and goes to sleep.
It’s dark now. I’m cold, I’m stiff and I’m wet, from sitting in that icy garden for so long. I go inside, where my wife clearly thinks I’m mad.
I hope that all the snow will melt and that I’ll be able to go out in the morning and bring her in. Or perhaps she’ll come into the bedroom to wake me up …
And yes, the snow melts. But in the morning she’s not there any more.
It’s always the same.
Whenever the earth seems about to give up it’s dead, it takes them back before they can walk free.
As if death wants to trick me into thinking he has a sense of humour.
I have a sad day. I spend most of it in bed.
Tomorrow, though, something happy. My daughter's comes to stay for a few days.
Her air is darker now. Her nose is still a bit of a blob,but she still has her pretty smile and that slight upturn.
She can stay a week. Loads of time.
But – I can’t ever have the years I missed with a little girl aged four, and five and six and seven and eight
That little girl is gone forever. Children don’t grow up. They don’t die. They simply disappear.
Ends
Previous Twittertales.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
SHORT STORIES
I've decided to tell the stories here on the website instead of on Twitter - it's just too hard to read them there. Stories are told in several pulses each day until they are finished.
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Read an interview with me about the Twittertales on Candy Gourlay's blog - Notes from the Slushpile.