A true Christmas ghost story

I had begun seeing shadows. Nothing definite; nothing that I could categorically state was 'something', although each sighting was accompanied by a general feeling of ill-ease that left me wondering if I had imagined everything in the first place.

The shadows were confined, at first, to the periphery. I would catch sight of 'it', something, someone glancing off - against - the edge of my field of vision and that was all there was to it. I could never hold these anomalies fully in my line of sight. I was unable to focus fully on them... Try as I might they vanished, or perhaps... I began to question if they were never really there at all...

I should have paid closer attention perhaps, but in the run-up to Christmas amidst all my other business commitments I was happier to concentrate on getting the job done and dusted before both the deadline and the fast approaching Christmas holiday close-down.

The house clearance would pay well, provided I could finish all my chores on schedule. The list might have seemed endless, but in reality was a piece of cake to someone like myself who managed that kind of extreme removal on a semi-permanent basis.

Should I have been concerned about the shadows? Why should I have been when there were much more pressing matters to attend to... Like where I was going to dispose of all the old, 'unfashionable' brown furniture which was a feature of virtually every one of the houses' nine rooms? Like why the living room - the one that connected the kitchen and the lounge - was so cold all of the time?

"It's Winter, what can I say?" The estate agent attempted to placate me. The other rooms in the house were very warm, to the point where I found it uncomfortable to work in them in anything heavier than a T-shirt. Not the living room though. That was like an ice box.

"Just make sure it is clear of furniture and everything else by the 20th of December. We are going to list the property on the 27th and I expect it to be on the market for no more than two days. I want this pile sold by New Years Day, so I am counting on you to do a good job," he stressed.

It was unnecessary. I always did a good job. That was why I didn't need to advertise anymore. It was all word of mouth and repeat business. I was on the books of every estate agent in the city. Business was booming.

I was curious.

"What happened to the previous owners?" I enquired.

"Owner." He corrected me. "An old girl. Lived on her own after her husband died. No family to speak of; at least - no family you would want to speak of - a distant cousin, inherited everything. Our client now. A very lucky beneficiary - the place is worth a hell of a lot of money."

I could tell. The house was stuffed with treasures. The 'unfashionable brown furniture', for example, was Sheraton - not the mass-produced early 20th Century revivalist reproductions - but genuine Sheraton. That kind of furniture was seriously valuable to the right person. I wasn't that kind of person myself, however, I had several customers who were.

It wasn't just the furniture either. The domain was rammed with fine quality porcelain and ceramics, glass, paintings, silver and jewellery. It lay where I imagined it had perhaps always lain, or at least had laid for quite some time. It appeared now to be unappreciated, unwanted and unloved; although I was sure it hadn't always been that way.

The contents spoke of happier times, more opulent times where wealth and it's trappings had been accepted and assimilated into the very fabric of the building; had become part of the lives of those who once lived there. Like the old girl.

"Alice Freemantle. Born, lived, died here. She was married but never had children. The client says she died of a broken heart after her old man passed away."

"Where?"

As I said, I was curious.

"Right there, in the living room. One of the home helps found her in the armchair. Thought she was asleep at first, apparently, but she had been dead for about two days. She was clutching a photograph of her husband in one of her hands. I guess she just slipped away in the chair, in her sleep."

I made a mental note to dispose of the armchair. I never found the photograph; I figured they must have buried her with it, or burned it with her.

The deadline gave me enough time to complete the task to an expected standard, although was a lot to do on my own. Dennis, my assistant was away with his family, skiing, which meant, seeing as I trusted so few people, that I had to do the bulk of the emptying, cleaning and disposal on my own.

I cleared the bedrooms first, then the huge bathroom. All the linen and clothing went to a local drop-in centre. The suites of furniture - identical in each boudoir - comprising of matching 'his' and 'her' wardrobes, dressing table, night stand, bedside cupboards and chest of drawers - went straight to auction. I estimated their value to be around four or five hundred per set.

The jewellery and personal effects went home with me so that I could sort and evaluate them at a later date, at my leisure. I already knew that my haul would put me in the enviable position of not needing to work again for several months. As I say, the house was a gold mine.

After the bedrooms I moved on to other rooms in the house and it wasn't long before I had the job well under control, with the exception of one room.

It was because of the temperature of the room, I initially convinced myself, that I avoided working in the living room. However as the job neared completion I was aware there were other reasons that had forced me to ignore it for almost the entire time I had been working there; ones which I simply wanted to disregard.

The first time I saw it - them - I must admit it startled me. I was carrying a box of bric-a-brac through the room to my van parked on the drive when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was a shape, soft and pale coloured, low and moving at speed to my right.

I must admit it caused me to catch my breath and stop dead still in the centre of the room. My breath, when it eventually escaped from my open mouth, condensed into a grey plume, rising up into the frigid air and it was that, I convinced myself, I had seen. That thought allowed me to continue, but it was not long before I realised my original assessment of the phenomena was incorrect.

Making coffee in the kitchen the following day, I saw a nebulous shape streak past the open doorframe in the living room. Again, it was nothing definite, yet I was certain what I had seen was human.

I immediately checked the front and back doors in case some inquisitive passer-by, or opportunistic thief, had wandered into the house to check on what was inside or what I was doing there; both were locked. Following up on my hunch, I then checked the entire house from top to bottom, room by room. I was entirely alone.

It unsettled me. Working alone has it benefits, though I generally preferred to get the job done as quickly as possible and move on to the next assignment. Not having Dennis with me, slowed me down, but more than that, it allowed me to dwell unnaturally long on stuff that had begun to to make me feel uneasy around the house.

Chimeric thought took over. I pondered on possibilities, fanciful and ridiculous. I actually considered the possibility of the spirit of Alice still being with me, trapped in the house. It's what happens when there are unexplainable occurrences that you are unable to discuss logically with another level-headed human being. I began whistling to keep myself company.

Had everything stayed the same I may have even shrugged it all off after a few days as nothing more than fantasies created by my overactive imagination, and eventually forgotten the whole episode. However, on the final day something happened that led me to consider, for the first time in my life, the possibility of supernatural occurrence.

It was the 19th of December, the last day before the deadline I'd given to have the house cleared. Despite my best intentions it had become obvious that I would not be able to clear the remnants of the furniture on my own. In particular I knew I would need help to lift and load a particularly large, heavy and cumbersome aubrey located in the living room. That was why I enlisted the help of Matthew.

We had worked together a few times before and apart from his volatile temper, when things went awry, he was perfectly suited to the house clearance business. He had his own van, he was built like a power-lifter and most importantly, he was completely honest. I trusted him implicitly and could rely on him to work alone at packing smalls without ever worrying if he had taken a fancy to anything I might have missed. After Dennis, he was the only person I could have ever considered employing.

It was sad that I could not use him more often and I told him so, but he was grateful for the opportunity and the chance to make a few extra pounds just before Christmas. The other thing about Matthew that made working with him a pleasure was, that apart from when his anger got the better of him, he always seemed to be happy. It made any job seem like so much less of a chore with his buoyant cheerfulness never too far away.

After arriving early to give us plenty of time in case of any unforeseen problems, I unlocked the house and went straight to the kitchen to make us both a cup of tea. Matthew sat at the table. I had just put the kettle on, when there was a knock at the door. I wasn't expecting any visitors and so was a little curious as to who might be outside at such an early hour. It was one of the neighbours, a dour red-faced woman who was, apparently, 'unimpressed' with the manner in which I had kept her and her husband awake the previous evening.

That was perplexing. I hadn't been at the house the previous evening. I'd finished working there at three in the afternoon.

"Impossible!" She snorted. "Who else could it have been? Turning all the lights in the house on and off all night."

I was genuinely puzzled. Perhaps it was the estate agent, I ventured, checking on the progress of the clearance.

She was having none of it. She folded her arms across her chest and warned me that if it happened again she would call the anti-social behaviour hotline and let them or the police deal with it. I tried to reassure her that I hoped to be finished by 4pm at the very latest, but her blood was up. She warned me again and strode off down the drive without looking back.

"Who was that?" Matthew inquired when I returned to the kitchen.

I told him and he shrugged. It transpired, hearing raised voices, that he thought it might have been the agent reiterating the importance of clearing the house on time. He was unconcerned as soon as he learned it was nothing more ominous than a nosey neighbour. So, with that behind us we drank our tea and started to work.

We worked solidly for more than four hours, humping and lifting, packing the remainder of the small - mainly worthless items, such as pegs and pens and keys - into boxes. I remember we stopped around 10.30am for a cup of coffee and carried on. Whilst Matthew was with me I saw nothing out of the ordinary. It appeared that the peripheral shadows preferred solitary visitors to the house, another indication that the whole idea was fanciful.

Once everything was stowed and loaded we commenced a sweep of the house just to make sure that we hadn't missed anything. I believe we had been very thorough. We emptied the kitchen and filled the bin outside the back door with the mugs we had utilised and any others we hadn't. The coffee, the tea bags, the half-empty bag of sugar and tub of powdered milk all went in with the rubbish. As I said, we were very thorough.

Yet, it appeared that we had overlooked one thing. We were securing the items in the back of the van, ready for transit when Matthew remembered that he had put his jacket down in one of the bedrooms. I continued with the task while he went back inside to retrieve his clothing. He appeared a couple of moments later, with something in his hands.

"You've forgotten something." He said as we walked towards the van. He was carrying a brass cornered writing-slope, a key protruding proudly from the lock.

Impossible I thought. Between the pair of us we had scoured the house from top to bottom. There was nothing, not even a scrap of paper left in there. Where had he found it?

"Your nosey neighbour from this morning has just given it to me."

It didn't seem likely. She hadn't passed me on the drive. I glanced at the houses on both sides, hoping to see her returning to one of them. I didn't. I wondered if perhaps there was a short-cut around the back of the property adjoining the houses.

"She gave me a start, to be honest. I walked into the living room and she just was standing there."

I suddenly felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I took the box from him and asked if she had said anything.

"She just said, 'make sure you take this' and handed me the box."

I must have looked ill because Matthew asked me if I was O.K. I felt sick.

I put the box on the tail-lift of his van and slowly opened the lid. Inside was a packet of neatly addressed envelopes all tied together with a length of thin red silk cord. Each letter bore the name Alice and some were prefixed with the endearments 'darling', 'my lovely' or 'my precious'. Beneath them was a single deckle-edged card, marked in ink in the same hand that read 'my sweet Alice'

I turned it over. It was a photograph.

"Why the fuck would your neighbour give you a picture of herself?" Matthew asked.

The end is nigh...

As the minute hand stands poised to usher in the date that the Mayans believed would signal the end of time (21.12.2012) the mechanism of our imminent destruction still seems to be largely academic.

The last apocalyptic disaster (Not the great deluge / flood alluded to in the Old Testament and subsequently confirmed by scientific enquiry as being a real global event) saw the destruction of the 'terrible lizards' and was caused, scientists believe, by a huge extraterrestrial object striking the Earth and entombing us, hidden from the Sun, by the resulting fall-out.

There appears to be nothing on the horizon in regards to some wayward meteorite or comet - unless it is a 'dark comet' composed of dust and rock rather than ice and rock and imminently more difficult to spot moving at speed through the Solar System towards us; but at least we are looking to the skies. What if the danger is already with us..?

Whilst we continue to speculate about what will wipe humanity from the face of the Earth there are some who are considering that rather than 21.12.2012 being 'the end of days / time' that Mayan prophecy may only serve as a pointer to indicate the beginning or onset of the end of days.

We seem to be obsessed with a quick painless end to life on Earth - after all, who wants to imagine our extinction to be a long, painful drawn out affair - when in reality we have been slowly killing the Earth for hundreds of years and that slow death is already well underway.

Pollution, war, genocide, famine, chemical poisoning, global warming, deforestation, overpopulation, destruction of non-renewable resources, the extinction of species after species, disease (naturally occurring, man-made and those ignorantly proliferated by mankind's arrogant belief in their own insusceptibility) environmentally induced stress, declining fertility...

The list of the Earth's ailments is endless...

Sadly the common denominator linking all of the problems above (which is by no means exhaustive) is man himself.

21.12.2012 is an auspicious date indeed, it heralds in a new age. An age of decline that if not checked, if allowed to continue unresisted will be the our undoing and ultimately our end. Painful as that might be.

'T'is the season...

There is hardly a day goes by now in the fast approach to Christmas that the negative elements at large in the World are not brought to our attention; often in stark contrast to the season that promises such hope, joy and goodwill to all (edit intentional) whether we like it or not.

The news worthiness of each story seems to be dictated by the assumed reaction of the readership by the reporter and their editor.

Selling copy in order to sell advertising space means that most UK tabloids will not hesitate to serve up stories that are more atrocious than the one before.

Sadly the readership, keen to understand why there is so much death, terror, horror and destruction are becoming desensitised to accounts and images which only a few short years ago would have been considered to shocking to publish.

Horror begets horror. Fear begets fear. Welcome to the atrocity exhibitions...

We need not wonder where it will all end. Only when...

The gathering darkness continues...

Or put another way...

The gathering darkness...

What we see before us is a more common or Gardnerian form of worship...

Creative Apathy - Part 3

I suppose we should be grateful for a publishing contract when one finally comes along?

After long days, weeks, months, years of careful plotting and distillation of ideas into a cohesive narrative, our hard work - and I do mean hard work, because as all writers will confess, mentally, the process is exacting - is rewarded by recognition by those who profess to having a knowledge of the literary market.

Word whores.

Publishers care not for the hard work it appears, nor the ideas, the imagination, not even the plot. Publishers care about copy, or more precisely, how many copies they can sell.

Is a book commercially viable?

Is the author a commercial asset?

Is the story worthy of a commercial franchise?

The worthiness of a book is not dictated by syntactic excellence, but by how many people feel it is worth parting with their hard-earned cash for. That is what publishers trade on, and why not? After all, they are in the business of making money from their products.

Safe and familiar may seem the most profitable way forward for publishers, however familiarity breeds contempt and before long those many, many similar novels become pulp as those that drive the market become bored, or tired with a product that offers nothing new. Todays trend becomes yesterdays fad and tomorrows vague recollection.

New. New. New.

New is dangerous. New is uncertain. New is the way forward.

In our fast-moving, consumerist, throw-away society the real trend is forward, bigger, better, faster, more technologically advanced. The innovators of the past are those that went beyond the limits of their own expectation and cast off the shackles of conservative conformity. It is risky, yet when it pays off the rewards are immeasurable.

Traditional publishing is but one way of finding a voice available to the many. There are more options now than ever before and it is within the writers grasp to seize and utilise them.

Admittedly there are authors whose work may not stand the test of time, though it should be market forces that decide their worthiness; it should not be the preserve of those who have cynically manipulated and controlled the marketplace in the past. Cream rises.

Think back. Authors who self-published who later became household names - Joyce, Lawrence, Taylor to name but a few. Publishers initially poured scorn on their work but very shortly after had to sit up and take note as their books became impossible to ignore. Contracts followed.

It is time to shake up the world with your words. Cream does rise and when it does along come the cats, salivating, with their guts moaning, eager for a taste of what that cream has to offer.

All that remains, when that does happen, is to decide whether you like cats or not...

Creative Apathy - Part 2

Any time spent, in what few bookshops remain on the high street, will reveal a great deal about the current state of affairs in the world of literary fiction. The publishing houses are generally putting their eggs into a peculiarly fragile basket. I like to call it 'zeitgeist fiction' although others have referred to the same thing as familiarity or trend publishing.

You will recognise the various threads of 'zeitgeist fiction' or ZF by their theme or (more latterly) jacket design. Some years ago, you might recall the publishing trend was for books dedicated to harrowing tales of human cruelty towards children with such titles as 'A child called smack me' and 'Forced into sex slavery before the age of seven' and 'Uncle Jimmy made me do it'*. The covers were all very similar - white, with an out of focus image of a child of one sex or another, crying. They were very popular. With some readers. Enough to ensure countless similar stories rapidly appeared, at least.

Vampire fiction was another ZF trend skilfully exploited by many, many publishing houses (and authors) eager to feed the apparent need (or lust) for tales of post mortem exsanguination. Whilst bookshops have always had a space on their shelves for classics by authors like Stoker and Rice, the last few years have seen whole runs of shelves now dedicated to the phenomenally successful glut of pre-pubescent and post-adolescent rape fantasies with fangs.

Sex has reared its head again in the latest ZF offerings and the beginning of the tidal wave of mummy-porn and mainstream erotic fiction with titles such as 'Fifteen shapes in beige' and 'Chained and whipped into submission like a whore' which has meant that such tomes are no longer consigned to the dingy corners of stores like Waterstones, previously only frequented by weird nervous old men in raincoats and butch lesbians, but now (some might think, thankfully) rub shoulders with Ian Rankin, Hilary Mantel and Umberto Eco.

This ZF phenomena is not a worrying new trend, it has happened numerous times in the past. For example, the explosion of Science Fiction in the late 1950's and 60's, the abundance of NHH (or natural history horror) spawned by the likes of James Herbert in the 1970's and the plethora of sword & sorcery tales in the 1980's and 90's. I am not even going to begin to mention the similar literary trending that occurred in the 19th Century.

The interesting thing about these trends are that they begin, often, with just one product, or rather, book.

The book needs only to capture the imagination of the public to become popular.

Popularity of that product ensures that there follows, very shortly, a need for more or similar products and the various producers (competitors in the same marketplace) begin looking for suppliers to meet the increasing demands of the ravenous consumer. Anyone who studies market forces will realise that whilst demand is high, output has be increased to meet it, in order to capitalise on the trend. It is not surprising that some producers turn over their entire production to keep up with demands.

Yet...

If production is targeted only to meet the existing demands of the marketplace, how can new markets ever be created? If suppliers only distribute what is required at a given point in time, what happens when that market becomes saturated? The law of diminishing returns works as well in the world of publishing as it does in any other economic field (no pun intended).

Publishers should not be allowed to put the vast numbers of brilliant undiscovered authors out there in a position whereby they only produce what they think a publisher will want to read. That creates nothing more than creative apathy and imaginative subjugation. The need for integrity and innovation should always be paramount, and certainly the current publishing trends are in danger of destroying countless opportunities and discouraging many new authors.

New. New. New.

New ideas. New thought. New challenges.

Time for a new approach...

*The book titles in paragraph two and four are, obviously, not real. Any resemblance to books with similar titles, are completely unintentional although they do clearly illustrate a point.

Creative apathy - Part 1

As a business person, the difficulties in establishing long-lasting credentials that will lead to a credible reputation at first seems relatively undaunting. You have an idea, you expand upon it and deliver it to the wider World so that they can either embrace it, or reject it wholeheartedly; hopefully, you imagine, they will embrace it.

Enthusiasm is at an all-time high in the early stages; after all who wouldn't want to learn about your idea, or better still, be part of it? So much time and energy has been invested in that dream that it seems incredible that anyone, let alone other business people, would attempt to sabotage it.

However, in business there are many, many others with great ideas. Naturally, you might believe your idea is the best, but likewise everyone else imagines their idea is the more superior. Creativity is a process that requires so much of it's originator that it understandably engenders all-consuming pride and a maternal/paternal instinct that forces us to protect it at any cost. The idea is our child and in it's first faltering steps we are there to guide and save it from harm.

In the world of ruthless dog-eat-dog executives and entrepreneurs, the rules of existence lean heavily towards survival of the fittest. If the scales can be tipped in favour of one idea at the expense of all others it's creator will generally not baulk at the opportunity to do so. It is how businesses - who adopt new strategies & those that cannot adapt - attempt to survive. Their is little or no cooperation with others and any altruism is reserved for self-centred sycophantic progression. Today, sadly, that is the way that many businesses operate...

It is not surprising, therefore, to find the same behaviour manifest in other spheres of human interaction, including the arts.

Today, I read that the price of Damien Hirst artworks have tumbled dramatically, but rather than attempt to understand the reasons behind this phenomena, a number of tabloid hacks, his critics (and others who have nothing invested in him personally on any level) have immediately gone on the attack. 'His work never really was art', they bleat. 'Hirst always was overrated' and 'his art, at best was a cynical manipulation of a market already saturated with similar pointless dross'.

In their attempts to destroy the concept of modern art as imagined by Hirst - undoubtedly, an innovator and inspiring voice for thousands of aspiring artists the World over - they have no idea of what they will unintentionally and inadvertently create. The destructive processes unleashed were not formed as a result of carefully considered critique, but jealous spite borne out of a desire to see the successful creation of another utterly devalued.

It has happened many, many times before and, will continue to do so as long as man remains the so-called dominant species on this planet. Destruction is not the final process however. Perversely annihilation makes way for new life. Destruction enables creation. Already new forces are at work, ready to step into the space that will left void by Hirst's exit from centre stage.

Nature abhors a vacuum...

My identity is also my logo

All I need to do now is understand fully how this linkage of data works...

Third excursion into the ether

Sounding more like a tag line from another cinematic rendition of a J.R.Tolkien story, I stumble blinking into the radiance generated by the illuminated ones that have gone before me. Yet... Yet... I have, I recall, been here before.

With a strange sense of déjà vu, I step forward, the memories of my times here before now no more than scars, a vague cicatrice in the fabric of existence. Weird recollections of half-mumbled praise and the numbing feeling of terror at the thought of creating something dangerous, something monstrous that might in reality turn on me - it's teeth gnashing inches from me - intent on consuming me, or worse, only partly devouring me.

My first excursion was bold. I was brazen. I cared not for what affect my sudden appearance might have on those who, unwittingly, stumbled upon me. I offered my thoughts, my soul and my beliefs and for a while I achieved that which I had set out to do - I achieved recognition. Though my fame was short-lived and a moment of recklessness ensured that my light was extinguished permanently...

Such was the way of the World back then. There was no place for the mystic. There was certainly no place for the agitator, a role I seemed destined to fulfil.

And so...

I ventured out again. Differently the second time. Certainly I was more cautious and in feeling the trepidation that seeped into every organ of my body, was not the weapon I felt I was intended to be. I was a wolf without teeth. I became a shadow that was bounced from wall to wall, place to place in the fickle glow of the Sun. The winds buffeted me and one day, I, anchored by nothing more substantial than a chain of good intention was dashed against the rocks of prosaic indifference and vanished.

How should I continue this time..? Certainly, the unfeeling are often cut adrift or worse destroyed; picked at and picked on by the ever-growing circle of predatory creatures out there, in the periphery of existence - always striking from the shadows - cowardly except when in numbers that swells their confidence. Therefore I will choose empathy over sympathy and purpose over aggression.

This time.

It is a journey that I embark upon alone, unaware of how may many join me as I travel forward and how many will remain at it's end...