The Crossroads: The Trade Plater 2

(You can read the first part here.)

Malcolm never told Wendy about the unsettling experience he’d had when Lucy had given him a lift in her Lamborghini Diablo. That’d been nearly a year ago. He’d delivered countless cars up and down the country in that time, but he’d not once seen the car with the plate S666 LFR again. Secretly, he’d wanted to. He’d yearned to see the car pull in front of him and the scissor door to swing upwards, invitingly, but it had never happened. More than once, he’d trudged up a lonely dual-carriageway, noticed fading traffic and felt invisible to the few drivers speeding by. More than once the road had gone absolutely dead, exactly when it shouldn’t have. He’d paused, hoping, listening for the distinctive roar of the V12, not daring to look, because looking and not seeing the Diablo would break the spell. He yearned for something, but it was something hidden and unfamiliar. He couldn’t remember the details. He remembered smoking a cigarette, then a joint, and he remembered drinking absinthe. Her name was Lucy, he recalled, and though the conversation escaped him, he recalled liking her. She’d reminded him of his youth. She’d made him feel alive.

Now he was driving someone else’s silver Bentley Continental into the forecourt of a specialist used car dealer. He pulled up by the large glass double doors of Smith’s Specialist Autos. It’d been a long drive, but the car had been comfortable, far more comfortable than most of his contracts. Yet, somehow he still longed for the cramped, baking, stinking interior of Lucy’s Diablo. He gathered up his red and white trade-plates and his wax jacket and exited the car. The dealership was quiet, a cleaning lady was pushing a floor-polisher over the white tiles in a daze, like a zombie. A young man was sitting at the sales desk, tapping on his computer. Malcolm approached. ‘Hi, I’m Malcolm, I’ve brought the Bentley from Forsythe’s.’

The man looked up and smiled. ‘Great, have you got the paperwork?’

Malcolm nodded and handed over a plastic wallet full of documents and a carbon paper delivery note to be signed.

‘Thanks.’

Malcolm watched the man check the documents then sign the delivery note and hand the copy back. Then the man checked his watch. ‘Right, it’s just gone five. Sandra is finishing at quarter-past, the station is on her way home. I’m sure she’ll drop you off. You can get a coffee while you wait?’

Malcolm took the signed paper and handed the keys over. ‘No thanks, I’m staying over tonight. I was supposed to be picking up a Merc from Weston’s down the road, but it’s waiting for an MOT and it can’t be done until the morning. I was going to walk to the Holiday Inn down the road.’

‘Ah, you’re out of luck. They’re closed for refurbishments. I was told they’d had a flood or something.’

‘Oh.’ Malcolm said, deflated.

He’d been in these situations once or twice before, and ended up staying in some backstreet bed and breakfast with rooms that smelled of mildew and tasteless breakfasts with the nutritional value of rubber. ‘Ahem, is there anywhere else local I can get a room?’

The man thought for a minute, then pointed to the exit. ‘There’s an Inn within walking distance. It’s a bit of a stride, but I hear it’s okay. Take a right out of the entrance, and keep going. At the end of the Auto Row, before the McDonald’s there’s a lane that heads up to the moors.’ He paused for a second, then as a woman in a smart suit and heels clicked her way from the office towards the coffee machine, he called over. ‘Sandra! What’s the road called? The one that leads up to the old Inn?’

‘Hell Lane,’ Sandra said, as she parked her mug on the coffee machine and hit ‘Americano’.

Malcolm thanked her as she waited patiently next to her steaming mug.

‘That’s it,’ the man piped up. ‘Hell Lane. It looks like it goes nowhere but if you follow it up past the trees there’s an Inn. That’s the only place I know of within walking distance. Unless you want Sandra to drop you at the station? You could always get a train back and head down in the morning?’

Malcolm shook his head. ‘No, with train prices as they are these days it’ll be cheaper to stay over. I’m sure the Inn will be fine. It’s only one night. Thank you.’

The sales manager and Sandra thanked him again, and said goodbye. He left and began the long trudge to the Inn.

By the time Malcolm found the overgrown and moss-covered sign for ‘Hell Lane’, dusk had truly set in. He looked up the winding lane into the trees. There was no sign of light or life beyond the twisted gnarled oaks that lined both sides of the road. The lane seemed seldom driven. It had thick patches of moss growing on the tarmac and the single pavement was blackened and slimy. He trod carefully, away from the bright lights of the Auto Row. The path was layered with rotten, fallen leaves, making it slick and treacherous. He paused and looked back at the forecourts at the foot of the hill. He could see Weston’s from here, just a couple of dealerships down from Forsythe’s. He cursed under his breath, wishing they’d got their act together and had the MOT sorted for when it needed to be. Still, there was nothing to be done now. He peered up the lonely lane disappearing into the darkness of the trees. There was no sign of light. He pulled his smart phone out to see if he could find an alternative. He hadn’t had a compatible phone charger cable for the Bentley. His signal was non-existent and the battery icon was flashing. He switched it off completely, thinking he might only have the battery for one call. The manager and Sandra had seemed sure the Inn was this way. He had to keep going. As he rounded the corner and crested the hill, the trees thinned. He saw a building now, in the distance; a large roadside building with a carpark. It looked like a rambling old coachhouse or similar from here. That had to be the place. The wind picked up and a light drizzle began to fall, causing Malcolm to quicken his pace.

By the time Malcolm reached the coaching house, he was cold, wet, and desperate to get inside. The building was huge, with a large car park out front. The sign hanging over the doorway was hand-painted in an olde worlde style, cursive text bearing the name ‘The Crossroads’.

When Malcolm got closer he stopped dead. There, parked next to the storm porch by the sign, was a black, Lamborghini Diablo. He stared at the number plate and read it twice in his head. S666 LFR. He smiled. For so long he’d been doubting himself. That day, how long ago was it now? It’d seemed so surreal, bizarre even. But what had happened? She’d been interesting, a bit of a flirt even. She’d given him a smoke and a drink and got him home safely. The least he could do was say thank you. Then he looked around the rest of the carpark. You didn’t work in Malcolm’s trade without learning something about cars and there was something peculiar about every vehicle he could see. First an old classic Soviet era car. A black Volga with the number plate 666, curiously instead of wing mirrors it had little horns in the spots where they would be. Next to it, a silver Porsche 550 with the number 130 in big black letters on the bonnet. It had a California Licence Plate, ‘2Z77767’. Opposite, a red 1958 Plymouth Fury, that looked to be in remarkable condition. Next to that a dark grey metallic 1966 Buick Electra 225. Over on the far side parked under a sycamore tree, a purple classic Mini with the registration FOX 661L. Malcolm noted the eclectic selection of classic cars. They were an unusual mix for sure. He assumed there must be a classic car rally happening soon, of course Lucy would want to take her Diablo. He’d only ever seen two, the yellow one he’d driven and her black one. He glanced at the horizon, instead of the moonlit sky he’d expected he saw the blood red glow of a dying sunset. Of course, he’d walked up the hill and got clear of the trees, of course he’d see the sunset. The sound of clinking glass and laughter could be heard from the door, covered in ancient stickers, advertising drinks he’d not seen on tap for years. The smell of tobacco filtered through the door too. ‘The Crossroads’ was clearly old school, but it seemed friendly, and he was looking forward to thanking Lucy.

Malcolm pushed the outer door on the porch open and stepped into a haze of stale cigarette and pipe smoke. He could hear muted conversation, and a gritty voice singing a melancholic version of Nirvana’s hit ‘All Apologies’, to a solemnly strummed, dampened, electric guitar. When he pushed the inner door open, a waft of smoke that contained a subtle hint of cannabis washed over him and he felt the overbearing warmth of the room beyond. Stepping over the threshold was like stepping back in time. It reminded him of the pubs from his childhood when his parents had taken him out for ‘pop and crisps’ and he’d seen only fleeting glances of the gaudy interiors. A worn, threadbare carpet of orange and brown swirly pattern covered the main floor. The man on the stage playing looked like the spitting image of Kurt Cobain, playing left-handed on a sky blue left-hand guitar. He was good too. The sound was authentic, even the look. For a moment Malcolm was back at the Reading Festival, 1992, watching Nirvana headline. The spell was broken when Malcolm noticed the rest of the patrons through the haze. Sitting at a table drinking wine were two gentlemen wearing archaic-looking formal attire. One, wearing all black with a loose-fitting frock coat and trousers. He was pale and gaunt, his mouth sank inwards, giving him a permanent sneer. His limbs and even fingers appeared unnaturally elongated, giving him a skeletal appearance. Sitting alongside him was another man in attire from a forgotten era, but with softer features and a round face. On his head, curiously, he wore a neat, short-curled, white baroque wig. ‘Legal profession,’ Malcolm thought, wondering which of the eclectic classics they both drove.

As the singer finished the song, Malcolm was drawn to a familiar voice. ‘Hey, Giuseppe, you’re up. How about my Trill Sonata?’

Malcolm paused, watching with interest. The round faced man gave a long, hollow sigh. ‘Lucy—’

Malcolm saw her then. Sitting on a wooden chair at a green baize covered table, playing cards and smoking a joint. She rolled her eyes, clearly addressing the barristers at the next table. ‘Fine. Later, then. Niccolò, how about Le Streghe? No, my ‘Laughter’: Caprice 13 in E-flat major?’

Now the gaunt, skeletal man picked up his violin case that had been sitting on a vacant chair leaning against the backrest. ‘Lucy, I’ll play, but—’

She sucked hard on her joint then flicked the ash into an over-flowing ashtray. ‘Well play something modern then. Just get your ass up there and play.’

The Cobain look-alike had put his guitar on a stand and switched off the amp; he was at the bar, ordering a drink.

As Malcolm stepped closer, the gaunt barrister stepped onto the stage and began playing a frantic virtuosic instrumental version of Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Lucy was not just playing cards, she was dominating. She had a huge pile of chips in front of her. She appeared to be dressed as before, but she was also wearing a long, black, velvet cloak. She picked up the corner of her hand and checked what cards she had, then called over to a dark corner where a man Malcolm hadn’t yet spotted was sitting alone. ‘Oye, ferroviario, levanta el trasero de la barra y tráeme otra copa.’

With her opponents distracted, Malcolm watched her. She was quick and discreet. As she spoke, she reached beneath her cloak and slipped another ace. The man stood and left the shadows. His weathered and sun-baked skin was hidden beneath a layer of coal dust and engine grease. His unkempt white moustache was stained yellow around the lips from tobacco smoke. He looked like a railwayman from a hot country, but Malcolm decided he had to be a specialist mechanic, here because of the car rally.

The man obediently walked to the bar, looking weary and exhausted. Stepping closer to the cards table, Malcolm noticed another curious patron sitting beside the large fireplace, hiding behind a yellowed newspaper. He was wearing archaic scholarly dress, even a large ruff collar and velvet scholar’s beret. His dark moustache and small, pointed beard, gave him the look of an ancient wizard, or astrologer. He met Malcolm’s gaze with an intense stare. His eccentric eyes locked, he glanced fleetingly at Lucy then shook his head, oh so subtly, silently mouthing ‘no’, before hiding behind his paper. Lucy shot him a disapproving glance, but he cowered behind his paper and seemed to slink back behind the huge stone mantelpiece. The engineer carried a large glass of dark green liquor from the bar to the cards table and placed it by Lucy, who smiled up at him. ‘Gracias, señor, pero antes de que se vaya, ¿podría cortar las cartas y repartir, por favor?’

Malcolm couldn’t understand, but he recognised the language - Spanish. The engineer reached over, cut the cards, and dealt them all a hand of five. Malcolm watched him retreat to the dark corner, then he looked back to the bar.

A slender, sharply dressed black man with a prominent, narrow face and an obvious lazy left eye, sitting at the bar caught Malcolm’s eye. His 1930s pinstripe suit was immaculate. He raised his whiskey glass to Malcolm and turned back to the barman.

Malcolm was closer to the cards table now, he glanced at the bar, wondering if he should get a drink and noticed they had Watney’s Red Barrel on tap. He’d not seen that in decades. It must have been undergoing a resurgence. They kept bringing back old brands. It seemed to permeate every area of life, trying to capitalise on people’s desperate desire for nostalgia. He heard Lucy again, in the card game at the table,

‘Malcolm! Small world huh? Have a seat. Want a buy in? Lucy is the name, poker is the game.’

Malcolm’s gaze drifted to Lucy, looking up at him and smiling. It was odd, her smile was warm and disarming, but also had a subtle, predatory edge. Then he noticed her opponents sitting on the red-upholstered bench that was built into the wall under the huge bay window. They looked familiar. First, a black man with a majestic afro, in a purple velvet jacket and orange silk shirt, checking his cards. The woman opposite had cascades of wavy brown hair over her shoulders, interwoven with bright blue and purple ostrich feathers, beads and ribbons. Her wrists and hands clinked and clattered from the countless rings, bangles, bracelets she wore, as she fanned her cards. When Malcolm caught her eye, she smiled and chugged from a half-empty square bottle of Southern Comfort sitting by her on the table. The other man had a wild mane of brown hair and wore a brown leather jacket over a bare chest. His cards were flat on the table next to a half-finished pint of lager and a nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He was lighting a cigarette with a familiar lighter, Lucy’s ancient brass zippo with the faded pentagram on it. Malcolm couldn’t recall the name, but he was sure it was the frontman of the Doors, or at least a phenomenal look-alike. ‘I don’t know how to play. Who are your friends?’

Lucy sucked her joint and gestured around the table. ‘Jim, Janis, Jimi. But they were about to fold. I can’t wait to teach you poker, it’s a fun game. Lots of psychology in it. There’s nothing more interesting than human psychology - don’t you think?’

The other players looked at each other, and folded as one, taking their few chips and pocketing them, taking their smokes and drinks and leaving the table for one at the opposite side of the bar.

‘They didn’t have to go,’ Malcolm said.

Lucy smiled and blew cannabis smoke as she spoke. ‘Yes, they did. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you again Malcolm.’ She pointed to the bench opposite with her joint. ‘Sit.’

Red flags were now battering at the portcullis of the fortress of Malcolm’s rationalisation. He sat warily, weighing the likelihood of an eclectic classic car rally and a very specific celebrity look-alike convention. Lucy turned to the bar. ‘Yo, Robert. Get my man here an absinthe. Make it a triple. No, a quad.’

The man in the pinstripe suit nodded. ‘Right you are, Miss Lucy.’

Malcolm stared, she locked eyes with him and grinned. ‘So what brings you to the Crossroads Malcolm Withers?’

‘I never told you my surname.’

She shrugged. ‘No, you didn’t. But you spilled a bunch of business cards over my passenger seat last time we met. Are you here for the classic car rally or the celebrity look-alike convention?’

Malcolm looked around the room at the characters. The violinist had stepped off the stage now. Cobain was at the juke box. He made brief eye-contact with Malcolm, then put a coin in and pressed some buttons. The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden came on. Malcolm stared. A sense of unease he’d been harbouring, suppressing even, was now screaming blue murder at him to take notice. Lucy seemed to notice and smirked. ‘What’s puzzling you, Malcolm? I’d have thought by now you’d realise. You look confused. Are you wondering about the nature of my game? If you think you’ve cracked it, don’t overreact. Take your time. Breathe. Then ask me what I know you want to ask me.’

Malcolm glanced at the poker players who’d moved to the next table. They were all avoiding eye-contact, nursing their drinks. He didn’t recognise all the strange cars in the carpark, but there was something about them. A little voice in his head had been screaming at him that they weren’t just ‘interesting classics’ but he hadn’t allowed himself to hear it. The smoky, gaudy interior of the pub, with its peculiar patrons. He wasn’t familiar with all of them, but again, a tiny voice, whispering at first, then shouting - had been telling him these weren’t look-alikes. He refused to accept it. Lucy sighed and spoke to him again. ‘Woe to you, Malcolm. Time is short. Ask me your question.’

Malcolm looked around the room again, at the drawn haunted faces, ghosts from history, like the cars in the carpark. He picked up the absinthe and prepared to sip, but paused. ‘Am I safe?’

Lucy shrugged and smiled. ‘Do you want to be? You’ve been safe for the last thirty years. How has that been?’

Despite everything, it still seemed ridiculous. But he had to ask. He looked her in the eye. ‘Lucy, are you the devil?’

She sucked on her joint and thought for a moment, then pointed at the door with the glowing spliff. ‘Let’s say I am. Why haven’t you got up and run through that door, then run all the way back into town.’

‘If I wanted to, could I?’

‘I’m not stopping you from leaving. I didn’t make you get into my car. I didn’t make you smoke a Marlboro, or a joint, I didn’t make you drink absinthe. If you get up now and walk out that door, I am not going to stop you.’

‘Hah! That talk about contracts and deals and working with musicians and singers? You don’t work for a record label.’

‘I never said I did, Malcolm, you assumed.’

‘Yes, well I’m not a huge fan of the Church, I mostly go for Wendy, but I listen. You’re the deceiver and master of temptation. I had a lift, you took me home, I resisted. You lost.’

Lucy smiled and offered him the joint, Malcolm took it and had a toke. Lucy nodded her approval. ‘Did I? You liked being in my car and you’ve been thinking about it ever since. How many times have you lain in bed wishing you’d rung Wendy and come back to mine? I haven’t lied to you once, Malcolm, so don’t lie to me.’

‘Too many times. But you did lie to me. You told me the road had been closed and you were the last car let through.’

‘I was telling the truth. Of course, I wasn’t referring to that day. You’d already entered my domain and I wanted to put you at ease. I was referring to a time in Birmingham in 1974. I’d had some business in town.’

Malcolm paused, trying to recall the conversation they’d had and exactly what they’d said. ‘No, you never specifically said it was that day I suppose.’

Lucy nodded satisfied. ‘Correct, I didn’t, and here we are again. Now you’re really at the Crossroads. Are you ready to walk away a second time?’

Malcolm sipped the absinthe, then took a drag on the joint and passed it back. He’d never believed in the supernatural, but he was a rational man and the evidence for the supernatural now far outweighed the evidence against it. ‘I must say, I’m surprised. I thought you were a chap.’

Lucy smiled, took the joint, and had a toke. ‘I can be many things. I can be anything. I change my shape to suit the era and the client. It just so happened I’ve found this female form to be very effective for the last half century or so.’

As she spoke Malcolm saw a fleeting, dream-like vision of an exquisitely handsome man, with perfect features, and a crimson skinned, goat-headed nightmare with horns and bat wings. Then it was just Lucy. ‘Alright Lucy, you say you don’t lie. If you’re real and these are your clients, that must mean there’s an after-life, a heaven. How do I get in?’

‘Well, sitting here chatting with me is not going to get you into St. Peter’s good books, that’s for sure. The truth? Getting in’s easy. Accept Jesus as your saviour, repent, ask for forgiveness. The big guy sacrificed himself to himself so he can forgive you guys for what Adam did in the Garden of Eden. He needs you to appreciate that. The question is, do you want in?’

‘What’s it like? Heaven, I mean.’

Lucy leaned closer so he could smell her Magie Noire. ‘Honestly? It’s boring. Look back at your life. All those crosswords and Sunday papers. All those trips to the DIY store. All those hours spent being content, settled and stable, watching the reaper slice seconds of your life away while you bathe in a sea of numbed apathy, existing, waiting to retire so you can start waiting to die, knowing you’re not really living and that you haven’t really lived for a long, long time.’

Malcolm chuckled. ‘Maybe you don’t know me, after all. I like ‘boring’.’

She shrugged. ‘You tell yourself that. You have another twenty to forty years I’d say, if you get into heaven that’ll seem like nothing. Humans don’t get it. You think eternity is time going on forever, but it isn’t like that. Time does not exist for eternity, eternity is a state where the concept of time has no place. If you like feeling numb and hollow, you’ll love it.’

‘Hah, so you want my soul. What’s in it for you? If you get my soul, how is that different?’

Lucy smiled. ‘I’m a rebel. I reject the divine order. I don’t like being told what to do and I don’t like being told what’s good or bad and right or wrong. I decided a long time ago it was better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven. But you can’t reign without souls to rule over. Your soul is immortal, and it’s yours. I represent agency, autonomy, and free will. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. I think if St. Peter gave you the green light, you’d make Heaven your Hell and you’d regret it for eternity.’

‘That’s not answering my question. You get my soul, what do you do with it?’

Lucy smiled disarmingly and reached over, clasping his wrist. ‘I have some fun. I play with it. Your soul isn’t mortal like this hollow shell. It can’t be damaged and it can’t be destroyed, but it can experience. It can experience the full spectrum of sensory stimulus the body can experience and more. The big guy? To him you’re just a number. As soon as you’re through that pearly gate, he’s happy and he’s never going to take an interest in you again. Unless you’re a Pope, a martyr, a saint or apostle, he might as well not exist. To me, you get a personal service.’

‘And Hell is better, how?’ Malcolm asked.

‘Humans are very adaptable. You enter Heaven? The bliss wears off almost immediately, only to give way to boredom, but worse than boredom, a boredom from which there is no escape. You’ll want for nothing, but without wanting there’s no striving, without striving there’s no purpose. You’re not living, you’re existing. If I get your soul, I will torture it exquisitely. You’ll feel pain, fear and anguish, the likes of which you’d never dare dream of, but humans adapt. If I did that for the whole of eternity, you’d get used to it. It would become the new normal. It’d become boring. So I don’t just give you torment, I give you euphoria, pleasure beyond your wildest imagination. Then I’ll take it away and torture you some more. Then, when the whim takes me I’ll inflict rapture again. Maybe I’ll inflict a pleasure so intense it’s almost painful itself and it breaks you from the sheer weight of bliss and ecstasy. Maybe I’ll be seeing another client and I’ll invite you to join me for a drink here in ‘The Crossroads’, maybe you’d get to spend some time getting to know my other clients? They’re not all here tonight. Some are burning in a lake of fire, others are being held in a state of ecstasy so powerful it’s all-consuming. Jim’s an interesting conversationalist. Ask him about poetry, literature or reptiles. He’ll keep you listening all night. I’m not going to lie to you, none of these souls gets to leave once I own them, but honestly, I don’t think any of them want to.’

‘Being tortured exquisitely? You’re not selling it to me.’

‘I’m not. I’m being honest. But a soul can’t be damaged, it can’t die, it can only experience. You’re human, you’ve been trained to perceive pain, anguish and fear as negative things.’ She reached over and pinched him on the arm as she spoke. ‘They exist to program you to protect this vessel of flesh and bone you’re currently inhabiting. When you no longer have to worry about your mortal shell, that frees your mind. Boredom? Aim for heaven if you want numb, apathetic contentment. Become mine if you want to experience the whole exquisite spectrum of human experience.’

Malcolm glanced about the bar, at the exhausted looking figures and the out of time and place interior. Every character avoided eye-contact, nursed their drinks, and smoked, looking weary. The Number of the Beast faded out now and the jukebox fell silent. ‘I think I’m beginning to realise why they all look so exhausted.’

She nodded. ‘Yup, people look equally exhausted after surviving trauma and having sex.’

‘And these guys, they all have free will, except—’

‘I can do what I want to them, when I want. But when I’m not doing anything to them, they’re free to roam the nine-circles or to drink at the Crossroads.’

‘And I can ask them how—’

‘You could ask them, but they might not be entirely honest with you. They’re a little nervous about upsetting me.’

‘And what? If I wanted to surrender my soul I have to sign a contract in blood?’

‘Nah, that’s Lucifuge Rofocale’s thing. There’s more than one highway to hell. Some of these guys took his deal. I’m not offering you a contract, because you don’t need one. You don’t want wealth, power, influence or fame. You want to live, you just can’t admit it to yourself.’

‘So what? If I want to leave, I get up and walk out that door?’

Lucy toked on the joint and blew a thin plume of smoke into the air. ‘Correct, but if you do, have a good look at the Diablo - you’ll never see it again.’

Malcolm leaned back, studying her face. He looked around the bar, then back to her. ‘Mind if I mingle?’

‘Go ahead. But keep an eye on the clock. If you’re not out of here by midnight, well things get complicated.’

Malcolm looked at the clock behind the bar. He had a couple of hours at least. The question was, who to speak to? The gentleman with the thin moustache and pointy beard, hiding behind his paper seemed a good start. He picked up his drink and approached the man, sitting at his table. ‘Hi, I’m Malcolm.’

The man lowered his paper. ‘I know. Johann.’

‘How long have you been here?’ Malcolm asked.

The man sneered and rolled his eyes. ‘Too long. Five hundred years, or forever. You’re asking me how much time has passed but time works differently here.’

‘Did she lie to you?’

‘Lucy? I did my deal with Mephistopheles. I’ve only met her a few times. She’s scrupulously honest, but she will deceive you.’

Malcolm leaned closer. ‘And that deal, whatever it was. Do you regret it?’

Johann glanced at Lucy, sitting at the card table and shuddered. ‘That doesn’t matter. We all make decisions, and we often regret them. The trouble is we never know the alternative path, the path not taken. So we can never know if we’d have regretted that path more. I signed a contract, and the promise was fulfilled.’

‘What for? What did you ask for?’

Johann’s eyes narrowed. ‘Knowledge. All knowledge. Everything there is to know. And that promise was delivered. I’m only talking to you now in English, because all knowledge includes all languages. The question is, what are you asking for?’

‘I haven’t asked for anything. What’s it actually like though? Can you leave?’

‘You can leave, but the lords, dukes and prime minister of hell can recall you at any time. As for what it’s like? That won’t help you, what it’s like is different for everyone. We all have our own demons and we bring most of them here with us.’

Malcolm chuckled at the political hierarchy, but stopped when Johann stared at him, deadly serious.

‘And is there any way out for you?’

Johann sighed. ‘I knew the way out, even now I know the way out. But I can’t ask for forgiveness if I can’t even forgive myself.’

Malcolm glanced at the clock behind the bar. He had time. He thanked Johann, got up and walked to the bar. The man in the pinstripe suit looked him in the eye and sipped his whiskey. Malcolm introduced himself. ‘Hi, it’s Malcolm. Can we talk?’

The man glanced at Lucy, who nodded, then he looked back to Malcolm. ‘Sure. Name’s Robert. Whatever you’re thinking of asking, you’d better be asking. Time’s short.’

Malcolm glanced back at Johann by the fireplace, then Lucy, then back to Robert. ‘I’m not sure what I should be asking.’

‘Well I’ll tell yer. I did a deal with Miss Lucy, and she delivered. Would I make that same deal again?’ He looked at his glass and swirled the whiskey. When he spoke he kept his eyes fixed on the amber liquor. ‘Hell, yeah. I got everything I was promised. I paid for it, but I can’t say she didn’t deliver.’

‘Thank you.’

Robert raised his glass again and turned back to the bar. Malcolm scanned the room. Jimi was headed towards the bar with an empty glass. He walked to the table where Jim and Janis were seated. ‘Mind if I sit down?’

Janis shrugged. ‘It’s a free country, hun.’

Jim smirked. ‘Make yourself comfortable, man. Something tells me you’ll be sticking around.’

‘That, I’m not sure about. Something tells me I should have walked back out that door the minute I—’

Jim interrupted. ‘You didn’t though. If you didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t be.’

‘So what do I do? Lucy says I—’

Janis cut in now. ‘Forget what Lucy says. What do you want?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t trust her. My whole life, I was convinced there was no god, no afterlife, no nothing. Then a year ago, I met Lucy. I kept telling myself she was just an eccentric. She says Heaven is boring and suggests I want to experience, whatever that is.’

Jim and Janis exchanged a knowing glance. Then Jim spoke while Janis nodded sagely. ‘Oh, you’ll experience. You’ll experience in spades.’

Janis chugged her Southern Comfort then set it down again. ‘What is Lucy offering? Appetite. Consumption. Experience. I think Jim and I drank from that well in life and paid for it. Not everybody here did deals. Some people chose Lucy without even knowing it. There are all the highs of life here, sure. But you still get the hangovers, and they can be—’

‘Next level.’ Jim interrupted. ‘I think you know what Lucy’s offering and I think you know who it’s for. Where your soul goes affects more than just you, man.’

‘What do you mean?’ Malcolm asked.

Janis reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Hun, if you choose to stay. If you choose Lucy, you’re choosing for you. But I look at you? You look like someone who has someone. I don’t know how they feel about you, but I can tell you: Lucy doesn’t like sharing.’

Jim looked at Malcolm thoughtfully, then spoke. ‘He’s weighing it, Jan. Can’t you smell it on him? The smell of sensible shoes and unexpired insurance policies.’

Malcolm bristled slightly, the remark hitting a little too close to home. ‘I’m just trying to figure out what kind of place this is. Lucy makes it sound like—’

‘Oh, she’s honest enough,’ Janis started. ‘That’s the sick joke of it. Nobody forced us through the door, honey. We just got tired of waiting for the world to catch up to what was burning a hole in our chests.’

‘And the price?’ Malcolm asked, glancing over his shoulder toward the stage where Jimi was casually tuning an electric guitar. ‘Looking at you two, looking at Johann by the fire... nobody here looks like they’re having a good time.’

Jim met his gaze, his pupils wide and fixed with an unsettling, poetic intensity. ‘Pain is just high-definition life, man. The living world? That’s standard definition. Muted colours. You spend decades tiptoeing around the edges of your own cage, terrified of rattling the bars, and you call it “peace.” It’s not peace. It’s a slow bleed.’

‘And you prefer this?’ Malcolm gestured vaguely around the smoky, timeless pub.

Janis reached across the table, her heavy amber ring clicking against his knuckles with a sharp, cold snap. ‘We didn’t want safety, Malcolm. We wanted to feel the engine roar until the block cracked. If you want a padded cell where nothing can ever hurt you, go back down the hill to your wife and your DIY store. But don’t sit here pretending you don’t hate every quiet second of it.’

Malcolm glanced up at the clock. There was time, but somehow he didn’t think interrogating every patron of the bar would actually help. He jolted when he felt a hand grip his shoulder. It was Lucy. ‘Well, Malcolm. I think you’ve had time to weigh your options. I’m tired. I’m going to get up to bed. I’m in room 13. If you want to drown in pension schemes, property prices and weekends spent gardening - get your ass out of that door and run back to town. I’ll make it so when you cross over, it’s the right time for you to jump in that Merc and drive home. You’ll never see me again. If you want me to set your soul on fire, then wait five minutes, and follow me up. We’ll have sex, but it’ll be the sex of gods. Continents will clash, empires will fall. Reality itself will shake. And your soul will be mine.’

She gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze, then a pat and she headed for the stairs. He looked at the clock. The minute hand was racing along now. It looked like he had time, but time appeared to be running faster here. Almost mesmerised, still unsure of himself he stood and made for the stairs. They creaked as he climbed. The corridor above had blood red walls, carpet and doors and a smell of glowing embers permeated the air. It was hotter too, like the inside of an oven. He approached the door at the far end of the corridor and stared at the number. 13. He reached down, his hand wavering over the door knob. Then he thought of Wendy and sagged. He backed away, then turned and ran. He hurtled down the stairs, burst out of the door to the pub and sprinted across the car park while the sky blazed like an inferno. As he pelted down Hell Lane, the fiery sky became the orange glow of the dawn. He slowed to a walk as he ran out of breath and headed to Weston’s. He was exhausted. When he walked in through the glass double doors, a lady in a smart suit approached him. ‘Hello. Can I help you?’

He paused, catching his breath. ‘Hi, it’s Malcolm. I’m here to pick up the—’

‘The Mercedes? Ah great. Sorry about the MOT. Did you stay at the Holiday Inn? If you can give us the receipt we can—’

‘No, it’s closed for refurbishments. I went to the Inn up on the moor.’

‘The Highwayman? Up Hell Lane?’

‘No, it was The Crossroads.’

She chuckled at this. ‘The Crossroads? That place burned down in 1978. Mysterious fire. The landlord didn’t get out. Stranger still the firemen never found the body. He’s a bit of a local legend actually. Won the pools, then did all this insane stuff. Then he went and bought the old coaching house. Crazy Harry, they called him.’

Malcolm stared at her. After what he’d seen and experienced, it didn’t surprise him. He was about to speak, but then he smelt that faint aroma of burning. Not tobacco smoke, but the sharp sting of woodfires. The woman, the dealership, everything... It all faded until he was back in the corridor, in the stifling heat, hearing the sound of fires crackling and tormented souls screaming in agony. He stared at the door. 13. He looked at his trembling hand on the door knob. Damnation or salvation? He no longer knew which was which. He closed his eyes and made his choice.

~fin

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The Trade Plater:

[#1: I always like to write subversively. In this piece, when I originally wrote it back in the noughties it had a male driver and the emotional core of that version was different. It was mostly about the unreliable narrator and his difficulty and discerning whether the experience was supernatural or just odd. When I realised the potential of making the driver female here, it made it a much stronger piece. It really opened up the scope for a true Faustian bargain by making her a temptress, and one who at times seems to know a little too much and who has little idiosyncrasies that make her seem out of time and/or out of place. My goal with this piece was to leave the reader unsure as to whether it was a supernatural encounter or not. If anything I was looking to lean into the ‘probably supernatural’ conclusion but with obfuscation and hints at an unreliable narrator that it could plausibly have been the drink and drugs at work. What actually came out of this, was another interesting subversion. The lonely vulnerable hitchhiker is a well-worn, established trope. If we inverted the gender of Malcolm and Lucy and had a young girl being picked up by a wealthy, older man in a super car acting inappropriately, then the story would fall into the common trope. This way around it asks male readers to consider how they’d feel in this situation, and in turn how their behaviour might be perceived if they happen to pick up a female hitchhiker. One commenter told me it was as if Malcolm had a whole mid-life crisis in the car, and I think he does, but he does because Lucy makes him have one. Crucially, every escalation is a choice by Malcolm. Lucy is quite assertive and coercive, but every decision Malcolm makes is still a choice. As I wrote this I tried plant as many seeds, or clues as to who and what Lucy is, I wanted to leave the story with the answer at least partially unresolved, so as to hopefully leave the story lingering in the reader’s mind longer and perhaps leaving them a little unsettled in a way which they wouldn’t have been without the ambiguity.]

[#2: As always we’ll try to start as much as possible in media res, but in this case, because of the emotional core of the story and the juxtaposition we’re looking to create, we’ll open with some strong characterisation, so the reader has a strong feel for who Malcolm is right from the start.]

Malcolm Withers was responsible, sensible, and lots of other words that end in ‘ible’. He was a church-going man, though in truth something of a sceptic. He braved the hard, narrow pews because his wife’s social circle was very much embedded in the church, but the band was excellent, the congregation were all good-natured, and the services were always a bit of a knees-up.

[#1: The sentence {Malcolm Withers was responsible, sensible, and lots of other words that end in ‘ible’} is doing a lot of characterisation. The name ‘Malcolm Withers’ is specific and chosen for the connotations. It’s of Scottish origin and refers to ‘shaven-head’ or ‘Monk’ which fits the incorruptible character we’re trying to sell our protagonist as. In British culture we expect a Malcolm to be a solicitor or accountant. The sort of person interested in watches, aftershave, golf and trading stocks and shares. It has connotations suggesting he’s neither exciting nor a person who seeks excitement. That’s important for the shape and the emotional core of this piece.]

[#2: The rest of the first paragraph is very much about grounding Malcolm as practical, pragmatic and someone who isn’t pious or deeply religious but someone who tolerates his wife’s religiosity for the tangible benefits associated. Again, this is important for the emotional core of the story and making him a deeply spiritual, true believer would undermine the main theme of the tale.]

Car dealers usually preferred to ship their stock up and down the country on large multi-car transports. When a client needed a vehicle in a hurry or when one vehicle needed shipping to one destination, they sometimes called on Malcolm. Today it was a Jaguar. Not a vintage, they would always be shipped on transports. This was a 2008 XJR, in gunmetal grey with a cracked, but serviceable, cream leather interior. It was an enthusiast’s car. Traffic had been hell on the way down. He’d finally pulled into the dealer’s car park at 4:55pm. They’d thanked him and taken the keys, then apologised profusely before abruptly vanishing into the night. He’d asked them for a lift to the train station, but it seemed the two remaining members of staff locking up were in a hurry and didn’t have time. He’d thought about an Uber, but the dealership wasn’t far from the motorway and in the past, a friendly truck driver would always be happy to at least take him up a few junctions. Now he was trudging up the dual-carriageway that led to the motorway junction. The traffic was heavy, trucks rumbling, horns blaring, the diesel and petrol fumes overpowering. He was wearing his suit and wax jacket and carrying the infamous red and white plates of the motor trade. He turned to face the traffic and held up the plates hopefully, trying to make eye contact with a driver, any driver. Yet somehow it appeared he was invisible. Every motorist from the young teenaged girl in her little hatchback to the burly, bearded trucker in his Class 2; they all seemed so focused on the road he might as well have not been there.

[#3: This paragraph continues the characterisation and gives the reader who might not be familiar with the ‘Trade Plater’ nomenclature, a basic outline of what it means. Him arriving at 4:55pm, not being able to get a lift and choosing to eschew the train station are intentional and important.]

[#4: The busy road going quiet is the first sign that something might be amiss, something supernatural might be happening. On a second read though, a reader might pick up on the feeling of being invisible before the road goes quiet. It’s unlikely to be caught first time because anyone who has ever hitchhiked in the UK will have experienced this feeling firsthand. People see them out of the corner of their eye and intentionally avoid looking at them to absolve themselves of any guilt for not offering a lift. If you’re a driver in the UK, you’ve probably experienced this from the other side of the interaction and for whatever reason avoided making eye-contact with a hitch-hiker. So the feeling seems rational on a first read, but a closer look might make you re-think.]

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The Trade Plater:

Malcolm Withers was responsible, sensible, and lots of other words that end in ‘ible’. He was a church-going man, though in truth something of a sceptic. He braved the hard, narrow pews because his wife’s social circle was very much embedded in the church, but the band was excellent, the congregation were all good-natured, and the services were always a bit of a knees-up.

Car dealers usually preferred to ship their stock up and down the country on large multi-car transports. When a client needed a vehicle in a hurry or when one vehicle needed shipping to one destination, they sometimes called on Malcolm. Today it was a Jaguar. Not a vintage, they would always be shipped on transports. This was a 2008 XJR, in gunmetal grey with a cracked, but serviceable, cream leather interior. It was an enthusiast’s car. Traffic had been hell on the way down. He’d finally pulled into the dealer’s car park at 4:55pm. They’d thanked him and taken the keys, then apologised profusely before abruptly vanishing into the night. He’d asked them for a lift to the train station, but it seemed the two remaining members of staff locking up were in a hurry and didn’t have time. He’d thought about an Uber, but the dealership wasn’t far from the motorway, and in the past, a friendly truck driver would always be happy to at least take him up a few junctions. Now he was trudging up the dual-carriageway that led to the motorway junction. The traffic was heavy, trucks rumbling, horns blaring, the diesel and petrol fumes overpowering. He was wearing his suit and wax jacket and carrying the infamous red and white plates of the motor trade. He turned to face the traffic and held up the plates hopefully, trying to make eye contact with a driver, any driver. Yet somehow it appeared he was invisible. Every motorist from the young teenaged girl in her little hatchback to the burly, bearded trucker in his Class 2; they all seemed so focused on the road he might as well have not been there.

As he trudged, the clouds swirled overhead and a few spots of rain began to fall. This was good. A little rain might just be enough to garner some sympathy. He held up his plates and turned to face the traffic, smiling. Eerily, the traffic was dying down now. Unusual for this time of night. He caught a glimpse of a man driving a white van, but the gaunt driver’s expression was haunted and lost, and he was speeding. Driving as if the devil was snapping at his heels.

Malcolm picked up the pace. The sun was setting now, spreading a lazy orange glow over the horizon. The dual carriageway had fallen empty. Even the sound of the rushing traffic on the motorway had fallen silent. This was wrong. It was wrong on every level. He was close to the junction now; still no sight nor sound of a single vehicle. Even the distant town looked dead and formless, a shadow fading into the sunset. The air smelled strange, too. It smelt of ancient tombs and weathered decay. He looked at the empty road. It was wrong, it had to be wrong. He pulled out his phone to check maps, but there was no signal. He looked back towards the motorway junction. Nothing. Then he heard it. A distant, low burble. It was a vehicle, and it was drawing closer. He should have felt relieved, but every decibel the engine grew louder, he felt a greater and greater sense of dread. It was getting close now. He could have turned around and showed his plates, but he decided not to. He’d skip this one. It should have been busy. There’d be another vehicle soon.

The rain fell heavier, and the wind whipped up. The car passed him, but he only saw it properly once he’d wiped the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses with his sleeve. It was a black Lamborghini Diablo. The red brake lights lit up. It was stopping. He paused and stared. The only sound was the low growl of the V12 engine. It was as if it was the last car on earth. It was certainly the last car he wanted to get into. As he walked closer, he saw the number plate, ‘S666 LFR’. ‘Footballer,’ Malcolm thought to himself. He thought he’d overheard someone say Liverpool had a Dominik ‘Something beginning with an S’ wearing the number 6 shirt. Clearly, he’d not managed to get the plate ending LFC, so had been forced to compromise. Still, he seemed to recall the player was Hungarian or something, so probably didn’t speak much English. Maybe the conversation wouldn’t be too mind-numbing.

As he got close, the scissor door opened. He hated these cars. He hated the sound, the driving position, the handling, the harsh, unforgiving ride. He hated the way they screamed ‘look at me’. He’d delivered one once. That had been even worse, a bright yellow metallic monstrosity that had been stared and pointed at for the entire two-hour drive. He preferred his grey Vauxhall Vectra. He’d bought it new, garaged it every night and only used it on rare occasions, preferring the bus or the train for his commute. It was over thirty years old but had less than fifty-thousand miles on the clock. It was like him; lots of words that ended in ‘ible’. Of course, all the junior staff had been fighting over the keys, desperate to be the one to deliver the Diablo safely to its new home. The manager had gleefully appointed Malcolm to perform the duty. Not out of malice, knowing how much Malcolm hated cars like that. It had been pure risk management. He was the one driver that could be counted on to get the thing to the customer without exceeding the speed-limit once, and without so much as a stone-chip on the bodywork.

The car loomed closer now. At least it would be good to get out of the rain, and it wasn’t as if there were any other options. He leaned in, expecting to see a handsome, long-haired footballer with rippling biceps and a healthy tan smiling back at him. He stopped dead as the driver came into view. What greeted him was not what he’d expected. Instead, lounging in the blood-red leather interior, was a waif of a girl. A goth girl, if he was any judge. She was dressed provocatively: fishnet stockings, a dangerously short white and black tartan kilt, a satin boned corset with her ample cleavage almost spilling over the top and a see-through, lacy, black top. He counted the facial piercings, eyebrow times two, lip, nose, he guessed her tongue as well. Her face was covered in heavy makeup, making her skin look pale and her eyes dark and brooding. She was adorned with mountains of silver jewellery: bracelets, bangles, rings, necklaces, including a prominent upside-down crucifix and a pentagram. Her hands jangled when she reached over and patted the passenger seat, with a burning cigarette in her hand. ‘You getting in or what?’

Malcolm shook himself; he realised he’d been taken aback and stood staring. He stood up straight and felt the wind whipping the rain against him. He looked back down the empty road. Not a soul to be seen. He paused. This seemed off, but what was the harm? So, it wasn’t a footballer. Maybe it was a footballer’s girlfriend? She looked like she might be in the music industry. He hadn’t bought a record since the late nineties, so he wouldn’t know. He leaned back in. ‘Are you sure it’s okay?’

She tilted her head and smirked, then took a short drag on her cigarette. When she spoke, puffs of smoke punctuated her words. ‘How do I know you’re not going to rape me?’

Malcolm felt his cheeks flush instantly. He thought about walking away, but the wind was biting and the rain was getting heavier. He still hadn’t seen another vehicle. He fumbled in his jacket and spilled a handful of business cards onto her passenger seat. ‘Erm, you can call the office and let them know that you’re picking me—’

She shrugged and interrupted him. ‘Nah, just get in. You look innocent enough.’ She patted the passenger seat again. ‘Come on, you’re getting my car wet.’

Malcolm placed one foot in, slid down the seat and pulled the other foot in after, clutching his trade plates tight to his chest. He reached up to pull the scissor door closed. As it thunked shut, she was right in his face, her arm reaching around him, her breast pressing against him. He squirmed, desperately trying to minimize physical contact, then he heard the click of the seatbelt. She smiled at him, an inch from his face. ‘They go the other way in these. Better buckle up, I don’t want you running off on me.’

As she withdrew, he realised he’d been holding his breath. Through her cigarette smoke, he’d smelt her perfume, a sharp, bitter, intensely earthy aroma with notes of blackcurrants and oakmoss. He noticed a dusty vintage perfume bottle in the footwell. He could just make out ‘Magie Noire by Lancôme’ in the faded lettering on the bottle.

The girl was staring, smirking at him, now. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I won’t make you guess my name. It’s Lucy. Pleased to meet you.’

Malcolm reached towards her outstretched hand with its ridiculously long black nail-varnished nails and shook. ‘Malcolm.’

‘Where are you headed, Malcolm?’

‘M... Manch—’

‘Manchester! Great, me too. Let’s roll.’

Lucy pushed the clutch in and slammed the gated lever into first. She didn’t indicate; she simply dropped the clutch and planted her foot on the accelerator, violently. Malcolm gripped his trade-plates tighter as she left two black strips on the tarmac behind them. He glanced at her. She was grinning mischievously. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction; he bit his lip and watched the motorway loom closer. The smell of smoke and the perfume filled the cabin. She had the heating set on high, forcing Malcolm to loosen his tie and undo his top button. Panic gripped Malcolm now. She was powering towards the large, empty roundabout that was the junction, one hand on the gear lever, the other holding her cigarette and gripping the wheel. She let go of the wheel for a moment to suck on her cigarette, making the embers light up like the fires of hell. ‘Ahem, Lucy, you know what... Let me out, I’ll wait for—’

‘You’ll be waiting for a long time, buster. I don’t know why, but the police closed the road back there. I was the last car they let through.’

Malcolm stared at the empty motorway below them. It should have been busy. There must have been an accident, he mused. Once they were on the motorway, it’d be fine. It was a straight road. ‘You’re right. It’s fine. Thank you for—’

‘Good boy. Cigarette?’

Malcolm cringed at the subtle slight. He stared at the pack she was offering as she powered down the motorway slip road. ‘No thanks, I don’t—’

‘But you used to! You used to love that smoky goodness, that taste! Bet you thought you’d never give up.’

He stared at her. She chuckled and rolled her eyes, pushing it up a gear. ‘Pfft, everyone your age smoked. Go on, have one. I won’t tell.’

Malcolm instinctively reached for the pack, but he stopped himself. ‘No thank you, I’d better not.’

She shrugged and stubbed the butt-end of her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray. ‘Your loss. You don’t need to keep up the act with me, though.’

He looked out at the empty motorway. Both carriageways, not a single vehicle. The sun was low in the sky now, so low he couldn’t see it, but the horizon was a glowing red, silhouetting the treelines and distant buildings of the town. He loosened his tie further and undid another button. The heat was stifling, the smells overpowering. Lucy smirked at him again. ‘You stripping off for me, Malcolm? What would your wife say?’

Malcolm chuckled. ‘No, Lucy, it’s just so hot in here. Could we turn the heating down a little? Do you mind if I open a window?’

Lucy laughed and shook her head, as if hearing a joke Malcolm was oblivious to. ‘I like it hot.’ She thrust the open fag packet at him, ‘I’ll tell you what, if you stop being such a square and smoke a cigarette, you can open the window.’

He wavered. He did miss cigarettes. It’d taken him an age to give up. He reached his trembling fingers towards the packet and plucked a slender cylinder from the row. Lucy smiled satisfactorily and tucked the packet into the top of her corset. He noticed the brand, Marlboro Reds. Stronger than his old Silk Cut Blues. Still, it was one cigarette. What was the harm? He slid it between his lips and as he did, Lucy pulled a weathered zippo out of the top of her corset and held it out to him. He took it and noted the faded red pentagram on the face. It looked old. It looked older than her and the car. He held it up, opened the lid clumsily with two hands and struck a flame. As he held it to the tip and sucked, flaring the embers, he saw her smile broaden. He closed the lighter and handed it back. She dropped it onto the centre console by the window controls. The taste was strong and woody. The heat felt like a cut to the back of his throat, but strangely, it felt good. He coughed a little and adjusted his glasses, then took another drag. Strangely, he started to feel a little more relaxed. They were powering down the empty motorway now. He glanced at her speedometer. She was doing ninety, but who cared? If she got pulled over, he’d have to find another lift. If she got away with it, he’d be home all the quicker.

Lucy reached over and touched his thigh. ‘Oh, sorry. I was going to wind the window down for you.’

Malcolm cringed and tried to minimize contact, but her hand lingered. ‘Hey, this material is really nice. Where’d you buy your suits?’

‘S... Slaters, sorry do you mi—’

‘Oh, sorry.’ She moved her hand back, paused, gave his thigh a little pat, and pressed the switch to lower the window until it was just a couple of inches down, letting in a welcome stream of fresh air.

The cool breeze was refreshing, a welcome reprieve from the stifling heat. He pulled on the cigarette again, noticing Lucy smile and shake her head knowingly as he did. She nodded towards his trade plates. ‘Delivering cars? Something nice?’

He sucked on the cigarette, took it right down into his lungs and let it sit. Then he breathed slowly. ‘Not bad, actually. XJR. Always quite liked them. I’d have the diesel XJ myself though.’

‘Of course you would, Malcolm, something sensible. I could see you in an XJ, or maybe a Bentley?’

Malcolm dragged on his cigarette. ‘I was quite surprised to see you driving this. I thought you were a footballer.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘Maybe I am.’

Malcolm chuckled now. ‘No, I thought you were a footballer, then I thought footballer’s wife. Now I’m thinking, you’re in the music industry. You have to be.’

Lucy grinned, and paused for a long time, then nodded slowly. ‘Something like that. I do a lot of deals, contracts, that sort of thing. So many of my clients have been musicians and singers.’

‘You work for a record label? Tell me then, do you give them a fair deal or do you just see the excitement in their eyes and rip them off before they have time to think about it?’

‘Oh, the latter. Always the latter. These kids? If they read the small print, they’d never sign. But business is business, and I’m pretty good at it. Hey, I’m thirsty. Could you pass me the flask from the glove box?’

Malcolm nodded and opened the glove box. He stopped when he saw a revolver, countless loose bullets, two pairs of steel handcuffs, a silver snuff box and a worn, brass hip flask. ‘Wake up Malcolm, pass me the flask.’

Her command snapped him into action and he reached in and grabbed the old brass flask and passed it to her. She unscrewed the cap then tilted her head back, chugging and chugging, then she offered it to him. ‘Drink?’

Malcolm wavered. He smelt strong alcohol. She was still driving and offering the flask. ‘What is it?’

‘Taste it, guess. Or I’ll make you smoke another cigarette.’

Malcolm chuckled and took the offered bottle. Her smile was disarming. It couldn’t hurt to taste. He sipped. It tasted herbal and burned his lips and tongue. Lucy chuckled and smiled, ‘Don’t be a wuss Malcolm, drink some!’

He tried again. It tasted herbal and bitter, with an almost dry, spicy, minty undertone and a smell of crushed pine needles. The front of his tongue noted a sweet liqorice flavour. The drink numbed his palate and lingered. ‘Well, it’s not scotch.’

‘Pffft, scotch is for accountants and lawyers. That’s just brown water with a pedigree. This, my friend, is pure, high-strength, max wormwood absinthe.’

Malcolm found himself taking another chug. Despite his unease, the tobacco and alcohol were making him relaxed. It’d been such a long time since he’d ridden in a car smoking and drinking. It took him back to his youth, a brief spell of decadence and excess, that crazy first year of university when there hadn’t been much work to do and there’d been a social expectation to indulge. He lowered the flask. ‘Have you been in the industry long?’

Lucy nodded sagely. ‘I’ve been signing contracts for a long, long year.’

‘You don’t look old enough.’

‘Oh, I’m older than you think. Here, pass the absinthe, Malcolm.’

Malcolm handed the flask over and watched her take it and chug. ‘Are you sure you should be drinking that while—’

‘I’m driving? Look around Malc, we have the road to ourselves. Don’t be such a nerd.’

Malcolm stared at the empty motorway and the crimson sky. Both carriageways were completely empty. It should have been rammed. He saw one of the blue motorway signs indicating the distance to the next service station. It looked ordinary, normal. A little old and weathered, perhaps. He loosened his tie more, then realised the futility and undid the knot, folding and slipping it into his inside coat pocket.

Lucy looked at him. ‘You can take your coat off, you know. It’s a long way to Manchester.’

He placed the trade plates in the footwell and wrestled with his coat. Lucy laughed, popped another cigarette in her mouth and lit it. ‘Take your seat belt off. Live dangerously.’

Malcolm stared. She’d fastened his belt for him, but she wasn’t wearing hers. He’d been so overwhelmed by the dissonance and surrealness of the entire situation that he’d not clocked it. ‘It’s illegal.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t. You need to chillax, dude. You’re so uptight.’

Malcolm reached down gingerly and clicked the seatbelt release. It felt like sticking his hand in the cookie jar. Once he’d pulled the belt clear, he suddenly felt naked and vulnerable. Lucy was still hammering along at ninety, flask of absinthe in one hand, cigarette in her other. She smiled as he wrestled his arms out of the wax jacket, folded it neatly and tucked it into the passenger footwell with his trade plates.

Lucy took a swig from the flask. ‘Take your jacket off, too. I wanna see your abs.’

Flushing, Malcolm shook his head and instinctively pulled his jacket closed. She rolled her eyes. ‘Dude, I can tell you’re hot. I’m not turning the heat down. Get it off.’

‘No, no I’d better—’

Lucy reached over, wound his window up, then flicked a switch on her side of the car. When he reached over to lower the window, the button did nothing. Lucy grinned and turned the heating control up even further. ‘Well, if you want to roast, I’m gonna roast you. Get it off Malc.’

His head was spinning. The nicotine and the alcohol were taking a real toll now. He sucked his cigarette again. It had burned down mostly now so he stubbed it out in the ashtray. He was hot. He awkwardly shuffled in his seat, pulling his arms out of the jacket with difficulty. He rolled it up neatly and shoved it in the footwell with his coat.

She nodded approvingly. ‘Good boy. Can you roll a joint, Malc?’

He froze and reached for his seatbelt. She reached across and stopped him with her hand. ‘Leave it off. Live a little. You’re too safe, man. Don’t you like a bit of danger? Something to get the adrenaline go—’

‘No.’

‘Liar, Here, cap the flask and put it in the glove box. Get the snuff box.’

‘Lucy, I don’t think—’

‘My car, my rules. Now be a good boy and get the snuff box out or I’ll pull over, put you over my knee and spank you.’

Malcolm flushed even more and squirmed in his seat. Part of him, a part he’d long thought buried, imagined, just for a split second, being spanked by this young woman. Her smile seemed to broaden as the thought invaded him. He fought the muzzy headiness and capped the flask. ‘Yes, Miss.’

She watched him place the flask back in the glove box and pull out the silver snuff box. It was old. It was ancient. The silver was blackened and tarnished; the engraving was worn smooth by decades of handling. The front of the box had the year 1833 engraved on the centre alongside some smaller, long-faded text. He opened the box. Inside were king size Rizlas, strips of card for roaches and rich green buds with brown strands and a coating of tiny white crystals covering every surface. The smell hit him as he saw the contents. A foul odour, pungent and sharp. It was heavy, dank, and had notes of damp soil or rotting wood. There was a subtle hint of sulphur, chemical and volatile, and it had an undertone of sweet fruit or citrus. Next to the weed were little bags of fine white powder, a mirror, a razor blade and a tiny pewter vacuum cleaner, that was clearly a tube with the handle shaped to fit inside a nostril.

‘Lucy—’

‘Roll me a blunted one, make it fat.’

Malcolm trembled as he stared at the drugs. His hands shook as he made to close the box.

‘My rules, Malc. Roll a joint.’

Malcolm watched Lucy plant her foot, hard. The engine roared, and the car surged forwards, faster. He watched the dial climb. Soon they were doing a hundred and twenty.

‘Lucy, can you—’

‘Slow down? Malc, if you’re going to be mister boring, I’m going to get my ass home as soon as possible. This’ll do two-hundred, want to experience that? Sit back and chill. Want me to ease up? Roll the joint.’

The needle was at 140mph now and climbing. ‘Fine, ease up. I’ll roll you a joint.’

He felt horrified as he heard himself saying it. But Lucy was easing off now. He could roll a joint. It’d been a long time, but he knew he could do it. Malcolm was the sort of person who, if he ever did anything, he did his best to get good at it. He laid out a paper and began crumbling cannabis into it while Lucy slowed down to ninety, while sucking on her cigarette.

He roached up, and began rolling the paper in his fingers, compressing and forming a tight cylinder, slightly coned so the roach end was little more than a pinhole, but the tip was at least pencil-thick. He twisted the end and held it up. She nodded approvingly. ‘Very nice, Malc. I knew you still had it.’

His expression froze, and he stared. She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, come on, everyone your age had a spliff. Fire it up, then pass it over.’

Malcolm’s fingers were shaking again. He’d had weed. But last time he’d been a teenager. His wife didn’t even know he’d tried it. It’d been that crazy first year at university. One toke wouldn’t hurt. He took her lighter, slipped the joint between his lips and struck a flame. For a split second, something inside him screamed. Everything was wrong. The girl, the car, the empty motorway. His hands trembled. ‘Jesus Malc, just light the fucker.’

He shuddered and found himself clumsily holding the tip in the flame and sucking. It tasted sharp and cutting, scorching the back of his throat. He felt an almost immediate brain-fizz that he’d completely forgotten about. He relaxed a little and held the joint out. She dropped her smouldering cigarette into the overflowing ashtray and took the spliff with a satisfied smile. She drew long, taking it deep into her lungs, then she passed it back. She actually slowed to eighty now. ‘You ever been in a Diablo before, Malc?’

He nodded. ‘Delivered one once. Hated it. They’re not the most practical or comfortable of cars, though.’

‘Hah! Comfort, schmumfort. Who wants that? I like it. Makes me feel alive.’

Malcolm’s head was swimming now. He took a drag without even thinking and handed it back. ‘Well, I like comfort, practicality, and safety.’

She dragged and passed it back. ‘You tell yourself you do. You weren’t always like that. You ever had sex in a Diablo?’

Malcolm flushed again, and instinctively squirmed away from her, suddenly feeling trapped in this literal oven of drink, drugs and perfume. ‘I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t think I’d like to try.’

Lucy laughed at this and shook her head. ‘Liar. God, you cling to this façade you built for yourself. That kid who used to hang out in student digs, knocking back the booze and burning through pot like it was going out of fashion? He’s still in there. Your nerdy squareness, though? It’s kind of cute.’

Malcolm shifted uneasily in his seat. He fought it, but he felt his eyes drifting to her ample breasts. She held a hand out. ‘You gonna smoke that or just stare at it? If it’s the latter, pass it back.’

His quivering hand slipped the joint between her fingers. Their fingers touched momentarily and lingered. Her touch was electric. It was like a connection he’d not felt for decades. A touch that promised pure, decadent lust. No mortgages, or pensions, or budgeting for a family holiday. No quiet missionary-position sex in the dark, hoping to father a child. Just pure, unbridled debauchery.

She sucked on the joint and passed it back. ‘I saw the look on your face when I said I’d spank you.’

‘Lucy—’

‘God, you’re so square, dude. You know, I don’t have to take you home. You could call Wendy, tell her the trains were cancelled and you couldn’t get a lift. I could take you back to my place and we could have some fun, some real fun.’

A sea of thoughts flooded his head now. Suddenly he wanted to touch her. He wanted her to touch him. He wanted to give himself to her and experience everything she was promising. She seemed to read his thoughts and gave a cheeky grin. ‘I knew you wouldn’t rape me Malc, but you’re so cute - I don’t know. Maybe I’ll rape you?’

For a moment, the vision invaded his head. He imagined himself in a bedroom of red satin and black lace, lying back on a sumptuous bed, her mounting him, holding his wrists and pinning him down while she thrust and thrust, moaning in ecstasy.

The smoke, the alcohol and the speeding car pulled him back, and he shivered, squirming away from her.

‘How about it, Malc? Back to my place?’

She was grinning evilly, but provocatively. For a moment, he wanted to, he wanted more than anything to agree. But he thought of Wendy. When had he told her his wife’s name? He couldn’t remember, but the tobacco, the drink and the weed were mashing his thoughts and frying his brain. She reached over and fondled his crotch, smirking. ‘You want to. I can tell.’

He felt himself getting erect. He opened his mouth to speak, feeling her hand gently, sensuously caressing his member. ‘Lucy, pull over. I want to get out.’

She suddenly looked hurt and withdrew her hand. ‘Hmph, you really are a boring asshole, Malcolm Withers.’

Malcolm realised he’d been holding his breath, and he relaxed with a long sigh. His head was still a mess. The trees on the side of the road were twisted and alien looking. The glowing sky looked almost like a sea of flames now. Was it the absinthe or the weed? It should have been dark by now. He squinted and peered at the motorway signs. Then a sudden tiredness overcame him, and he fought to stay awake.

He shook his head. He’d nodded off. The car had stopped. He looked out of the window. To his astonishment, she’d parked up outside his house. He looked at her; she was smoking a joint. She took a drag, then spoke. ‘Wakey, wakey, Malc. You’re home.’

He looked at her, then back at his welcoming porch light at the end of his gravel drive. ‘Th- Thank you, Lucy.’

She smiled and reached over to the radio, flicking it on. ‘Anytime. It’s been fun. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime? Maybe we can have some real fun then?’

Malcolm forced a smile and studied her face for what he thought might be the last time. ‘You look disappointed.’

She shrugged. ‘Have some sympathy for me. I thought we were going to have a fun night.’

He stared a second longer, seeing almost predatory hunger in her eyes. His smile faded, and he fumbled for the door catch.

As he opened the scissor door, gathering up his suit jacket, coat and trade plates, Mick Jagger’s crooning voice crackled out of the stereo. He knew the song. It was Sympathy for the Devil. He scrambled to get out of the car and slammed the scissor door shut. The engine roared, and she disappeared into the night, the number plate S666 LFR fading into the mist.

Malcolm shook his head. He felt like he’d been hit by a truck. He slowly limped down his gravel drive. As he wondered what had just happened, his memory of the encounter was already fading. It’d been odd. She’d clearly been in the music industry. Part of him was glad to finally be out of the claustrophobic oven of the cabin, but part of him lamented. He was going back to his wife, Sunday morning crossword puzzles, garden centres, and fresh coffee over the six o’clock news. He was glad to be home, but a small part of him, a part he’d thought he’d buried long ago, wished, wished he’d gone back to Lucy’s and hoped, hoped, maybe he might see her again someday.

~fin

This is the third in my recent series of short horror stories, written over two days. It’s actually a re-write of a story I wrote back in the early noughties of the same title, which I never published. That early version had the driver as a male, but I actually really enjoyed exploring the character ‘Lucy’ and felt she was much more compelling than the original. I will at some point be adding ‘The Trade Plater’ to my ‘Anatomy of’ series and writing about the creative process in putting this together.

I hope you enjoyed this story. If you did, you might enjoy the sequel:

The other stories in this series are:

#1 Nightmare Asylum: An urbexer heads into an abandoned Victorian Asylum and finds more than he’d bargained for.

#2 The Black: A dark inversion of the zombie horror trope, which deals with extreme body horror and a stark erasure of agency and identity. Not for the faint-hearted.

I also write about mental health, philosophy and the craft of writing.

Author Martyn Stanley's Substack

My personal Substack

If you’re interested in reading my self-published novels and short stories, you can click the image below:-

This is the second in my ‘Anatomy of’ series. The first was a breakdown of my process in writing ‘Nightmare Asylum’.

Jed peered through the rain-speckled windscreen of his old Honda. The wipers barely worked and needed changing; likely a consequence of being in long-term storage. A month. He’d been away for work before: a weekend in Anderstorp, one night in Frankfurt, three nights in Paris. This time it’d been a month. A month in the sprawling concrete jungle of Berlin. Dexter, his collie, was curled up in the passenger seat, avoiding eye-contact. He’d been ecstatic when he called at his parents’ place to pick him up, but now Dexter appeared to be making a stalwart attempt to let him know that, in no uncertain terms, he was cross with him. Jed pulled into the drive of his small detached house, grabbed his case from the boot and let Dexter out, who slunk through the rain alongside him as he climbed the steps to the front door.

[It’s always more engaging to open in media res. In this opening though, the tone is focused on the dreary reality of Jed’s life. The two characters are introduced here. Dexter is critical. He’s the emotional anchor of this piece. I wanted to explore a solitary individual descending into madness, but characters need interactions. Dexter fills several roles in this respect.]

There’d been news that a major meteor shower was expected tonight, but the black clouds and torrential rain meant there’d be no chance of seeing anything. Once inside, Dexter shook the rain off, then plodded into the kitchen. ‘Food, always food,’ Jed thought. He followed him and opened the fridge. The smell hit like a hammer, rancid and pungent. He’d left in a hurry, and the grim contents confirmed it. Rotting veg, opened packs of meat with a cloud of mould crystallised on in places. He’d have to rid out, and he’d have to go shopping. Tomorrow, it was late; he was tired—tomorrow.

[The meteor shower is a Chekhov’s gun. Something I’m seeding here for later. Jed’s observation of Dexter ‘Food, always food’ is another Chekhov’s gun planting a seed for the horrific reveal coming. The contents of the fridge are intentionally visceral and written in a way to evoke a strong reaction. I tried to marry a strong visual with a matching olfactory description to make the opening of the fridge as immersive as possible.]

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I wasted 2 hours of my life fighting a campy psychopathic dictator with the worst character in the game. If you want to know why, read on.

What is AuDHD?

I’ll be honest with you; AuDHD is not on the DSM-5. It’s not a recognised condition. Not really anyway, at least not clinically. There is genuine debate amongst clinicians about whether to treat ADHD and Autism as separate distinct conditions, or to treat Neurodivergence as a single entity with multiple facets. Both arguments are valid and the debate is far from closed.

I’ll get to the dictator shortly.

As I sat down to write this, I considered likening AuDHD as having the twin gods of Phobos and Deimos in your head. However, I rejected this idea. I considered Apollo and Dionysus too, but these didn’t seem to capture the nuance adequately.

Hephaestus and Hermes

I actually think Hephaestus and Hermes are the best pair. Hephaestus is the ultimate hyper-fixated autistic craftsman. He retreats to his forge, ignores social conventions and systemises his environment to create masterpieces of engineering. Hermes is the ADHD mind; he is the god of speed, crossing boundaries, carrying a hundred messages at once. He’s easily distractible but capable of lateral leaps of logic that nobody can equal. One is the master of deep, immovable focus; the other is the master of restless velocity.

How Autism and ADHD Interact

The truth is, a person with ADHD and Autism is often in a state of internal conflict. Needing novelty, interest and spontaneity, whilst also needing structure, routine and completeness.

The Autistic Mind

You might find an Autistic person takes an interest in a hobby. Let’s say chess. They may find themselves drawn to chess because it’s a perfect, closed information system. There are no hidden cards or dice rolls; you don’t have to learn 14 different factions’ army rules or spend thousands of pounds constructing decks from out-of-print cards to play competitively. Logic is absolute. It may appeal to autistic individuals as well because it values systemisation over socialisation. A competitive chess match removes the exhausting social friction of neurotypical social interaction. You aren’t expected to engage in small talk, interpret micro-expressions, or decipher tonal ambiguity. Communication is logical and mathematical. The most you are expected to say is ‘Good luck’ at the start, then at the end, either ‘checkmate’ or ‘well-played, good game’.

It’s a game of pattern recognition and autism loves patterns.

The ADHD Mind

It’s highly plausible that the ADHD mind will be equally drawn to chess. Particularly the dopamine rush of frantic 1-minute, online bullet chess games. But the ADHD Mind is less likely to succeed at chess, because to that ADHD mind the monotropic study of chess positions, tactics, openings, strategy, pawn structure etc… Is just too much of a grind. It’s interesting, but serious chess is mostly patient study, not dopamine farming. An ADHD’er who gets into chess will probably simultaneously get into 14 other things and flit between them, occasionally dropping and picking up other hobbies along the way.

The AuDHD Mind

The AuDHD Mind is drawn to the interest and diversity of the ADHD mind, but instead of being content to simply flit from interest to interest, every interest instead piles up, each one having to be studied in depth until the individual’s brain is absolutely fried and the cognitive load is causing the individual significant distress.

What it’s like when Worlds Collide

I’ll give you an example of when these conflicting states can be catastrophic. For context, I should explain the game in question to you. The game is Super Street Fighter II Turbo. The name is almost as long as the chequered and contentious history of the game. There had already been 5 iterations of Street Fighter before this title hit the Arcades. If you play it on the 30th Anniversary Xbox Collection, you get a version which is emulating the Arcade machine accurately. So accurately it even emulates the broken difficulty setting unique to the English version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo Arcade. Whatever you set the difficulty to, the computer always plays on absolute maximum difficulty. This was an error on the original circuit board and it was emulated with precision. To make matters worse the computer does not play like a person. Instead of watching the character on screen, it reads your inputs and reacts on a perfect frame timing to counter anything you throw at it. It also does not need to perform complex inputs to pull off special moves, and it doesn’t need to charge for ‘charge special moves’. So if a player had to hold ‘back’ and count to three before pressing forward and punch for a fireball, the computer can just be walking forwards and throw two of those fireballs out in quick succession. This makes for a brutal, quarter-devouring, arcade experience. You can beat it, but the way to beat it is counter-intuitive and relies on ensuring your moves are out of sync with your inputs, for example by completing special move inputs while landing or blocking so the animation is delayed.

I’d had a nice night. I’d been teaching my wife to play Cyberpunk 2077. She finished and I played a few rounds of Super Street Fighter II Turbo with my daughter. I’d been on Arcade mode and we played so many rounds the only CPU fight left was the boss fight M. Bison. I asked my daughter which ending she’d like to see thinking I’d just beat the boss. She chose the combatant from England, Cammy. Now Cammy is a particularly weak character in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. It is possible to win with her, but it requires exacting precision and consistent perfect play. I am not a Cammy player. I spent two hours. Two damned hours I will never get back trying to beat M. Bison with Cammy. There was literally no reason to. I could have turned it off and shown her the ending on YouTube. However, my ADHD brain found the challenge interesting, and it anticipated a dopamine hit. However, there comes a threshold point where after so many tries my Autistic brain becomes locked on. I’d expected completion of the task and that expectation not being met felt absolutely existential. In the end I gave up and went back to a character I’m good with - Vega (Or Claw if you’re playing the Japanese version). I spent another hour calibrating how to get attacks to land by obfuscating the animation start times from the inputs and finally managed to beat M. Bison and complete the game. The minute it was done? No dopamine hit. No huge sense of achievement, just a weary, embittered sense of relief and anger at having wasted a night. The truth? Once I was in that state, stopping was not an option.

The same happened playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II a few months ago. I was waylaid by a couple of vagabonds while travelling to a new town. I spent two hours re-playing the same 2-minute encounter over and over, determined to beat it. There was no reason to. I should have run off, levelled up, bought better gear and come back. However, once I’d decided I was going to beat it, I had to beat it, no matter how absolutely irrational that intention was.

There may be times when this ADHD hyperfocus and Autism driven tenacity can produce world-changing benefits, but in my experience when these traits collide in the worst way, it’s an unbreakable curse that leaves me feeling weary, exhausted and hollow, from the battle going on in my head.

The combination of traits can be extremely powerful, but you have to be very careful where you aim it. The very next day, I decided to take the 1,700-word vocabulary list for the 2026 AQA GCSE German examination and build a quiz app for learning the words, along with the ‘der, die or das’ for my son. Within two hours I’d made it, and it works!

If you’re taking the AQA German GCSE this year and want to learn the vocabulary, you can try my app here.

Martyn

[This opening utilizes in media res to establish immediate forward momentum. Heavy exposition at the inception of a story kills pacing and introduces unnecessary friction. The mechanical objective here is to hook the reader with the protagonist's active motion—forcing immediate engagement and character investment long before the broader context is explained.]

[Character names must offer immediate symbolic resonance without requiring exposition. The name ‘Razor’ executes two structural functions simultaneously: it subconsciously primes the reader to expect a sharp, observant protagonist, and it perfectly aligns with the established, slightly arrogant archetype of a YouTube urban explorer. The name does the heavy lifting of characterization before he even speaks.]

[The inclusion of Crawley Wood Grange functions as strategic cross-pollination. While it provides immediate, gothic world-building for the casual reader—establishing a baseline of the occult and the macabre—it specifically rewards existing readers of the ‘Book of Davoth’ series with shared-universe continuity. A skilled author should ensure every descriptive detail serves a dual purpose: establishing the immediate atmospheric tone while simultaneously engineering curiosity and driving audience retention toward their wider catalog.]

[The nomenclature here is highly intentional. 'Sad Hill Asylum' directly evokes the desolate, high-stakes isolation of Sad Hill Cemetery from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—weaponizing a cultural touchstone to subconsciously prime the reader for a tense, inescapable standoff. Furthermore, situating the asylum near Elmsford anchors this narrative firmly within the established continuity of the ‘Book of Davoth’ series. Building a shared universe is never accidental; it is the strategic construction of a cohesive literary architecture designed to deepen reader immersion and reward long-term investment.]

[The descriptive language in this sequence—‘Monolithic Victorian monstrosity’, ‘archetypal clock tower’, ‘endless corridors’—is specifically engineered to build atmosphere with established gothic tropes. Rather than wasting pacing on granular details, these phrases act as mental shortcuts, using the reader's pre-existing expectations of urban exploration and institutional horror. By doing so, the architecture itself becomes an oppressive, isolating force, immediately establishing a tone of dread without bogging down the narrative momentum.]

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Jed peered through the rain-speckled windscreen of his old Honda. The wipers barely worked and needed changing; likely a consequence of being in long-term storage. A month. He’d been away for work before: a weekend in Anderstorp, one night in Frankfurt, three nights in Paris. This time it’d been a month. A month in the sprawling concrete jungle of Berlin. Dexter, his collie, was curled up in the passenger seat, avoiding eye-contact. He’d been ecstatic when he called at his parents’ place to pick him up, but now Dexter appeared to be making a stalwart attempt to let him know that, in no uncertain terms, he was cross with him. Jed pulled into the drive of his small detached house, grabbed his case from the boot and let Dexter out, who slunk through the rain alongside him as he climbed the steps to the front door.

There’d been news that a major meteor shower was expected tonight, but the black clouds and torrential rain meant there’d be no chance of seeing anything. Once inside, Dexter shook the rain off, then plodded into the kitchen. ‘Food, always food,’ Jed thought. He followed him and opened the fridge. The smell hit like a hammer, rancid and pungent. He’d left in a hurry, and the grim contents confirmed it. Rotting veg, opened packs of meat with a cloud of mould crystallised on in places. He’d have to rid out, and he’d have to go shopping. Tomorrow, it was late; he was tired—tomorrow.

He saw a lone can of off-brand cola and thought about taking it. Caffeine before bed seemed a bad idea, though, so he left it. Dexter was sitting by his food bowl and water bowl and looking at Jed expectantly. Jed opened a tin of dog food from the pantry and emptied it into the food bowl, then filled up the water from the tap. He thought about making a coffee or tea, but again—caffeine. So he filled himself a glass of water from the tap and placed it on the table.

Sitting at the table, he watched Dexter devour his Pedigree Chum ravenously, making soft, satisfied snorting sounds as he did. It smelled disgusting, but still far better than the rank aroma of pure decay that had overpowered him when he’d opened the fridge. He shuddered at the memory. Checking the cupboard, he found an already opened bag of slightly soggy tortilla chips. He sat back at the table and ate and drank. By the time he was halfway down the bag, Dexter had finished his food and was pressing his face into Jed’s crotch, looking pleadingly at the tortilla chips. Jed finished the bag, sharing them with his dog, one for Jed, one for Dexter until there were none left.

When he finally headed up the stairs, Dexter scampered after him. He’d been on his feet, on a plane or in a car all day, so by the time he made it to his bedroom, his eyelids were heavy and he couldn’t stop yawning. He collapsed onto the bed. Dexter jumped up and curled up alongside him.

An earth-shattering crash broke the silence of the night. Jed felt the bed flick into the air, then crash back onto the wooden floorboards. He yawned and looked at the clock — 3:45am. He had to get more sleep. He buried his face in his pillow and willed himself to sleep. It didn’t take long.

When he finally awoke, his phone was chirping on the bedside table. He reached over, grabbed and stared at the screen:

Emergency Alert

A RED Warning has been issued.

An extraterrestrial body with unknown contaminants has made contact in your area. Do not leave your house until further notice. The object struck the water treatment plant, so do NOT drink any tap water or rainwater. Await further instructions.

Great. Jed got up, picked up his glass of water, and made his way down the stairs. Dexter had gotten up before him. He was drinking thirstily from his bowl, lapping and wagging his tail. When he heard Jed approach, he looked up, smiled, then went to paw at the back door. Jed shook his head. ‘Sorry, Buddy, we’re not allowed out at the moment. Hope you can hold it.’

The house was cold, and the rain pitter-pattered against the windows. The air had a strange smell to it: earthy, but chemical. Jed approached the sink; he thought about drinking the cola but decided he’d save it for later. He finished the glass of water and held it in the sink to rinse it. As he ran the tap though, the water ran grey and cloudy. It smelt like ozone and a chemical he couldn’t place. He swirled the glass and tipped the contents. The liquid stuck to the side of the glass and dripped like viscous ichor as he tried to get the dregs out. It looked disgusting. He heard a faint buzzing noise and saw a fly land in the freshly poured water in the sink. It skipped about in the water, then tried to fly again, but behaved strangely. It flew erratically, zig-zagging wildly and crashing into the tap, the cupboard and the window, before landing on the sill. Jed peered at it. It was waving its legs and wings madly, and appeared to take a bite out of its own wing, then another from its leg. He leaned closer and watched it desperately trying to devour its own limbs. Before long, it had consumed all that it could reach of its own limbs and writhed pathetically on the sill, desperately trying to reach to take another bite out of itself.

Jed walked back into the living room, deeply unsettled. He grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. There was a news reporter warning people to stay indoors and not to drink tap water or rainwater in his area. The sound of a howling, screeching cat drew his attention. He stepped up to the window and looked out. The neighbour’s cat, a ginger tom who was probably the father of half the unwanted kittens on the street, was writhing on the lawn. Its eyes were dark and cloudy, and it had its front paw in its mouth, gnawing savagely at it. It bit huge chunks out of itself, then chewed, its face a vision of ecstasy as it swallowed.

Jed watched mesmerised as the cat reduced his front left paw to a bloody, mangled stump and continued consuming itself ravenously.

He looked at Dexter, who was pawing at the back door with some urgency. He thought about the off-brand cola in the fridge. Maybe he had a beer or some soft drinks in the pantry? It was worth checking.

Double-checking the fridge, there was literally just rotten food and a solitary can of cola. A half-finished bottle of milk remained, but it smelled pungent. He’d have to clear it out. Now wasn’t the time. The image of the cat furiously consuming itself with a manic hunger that seemed to come from hell itself haunted him. If you took the food recycling out and it got on your skin, were you safe? He heard Dexter bark, and looked to see him clawing at the back door with his paw. ’Sorry boy, can’t go out now.’

He thought back to the glass for himself and the bowl he’d filled for Dexter last night. Had it been safe then? Dexter was pawing at the door and whining, his ears flat and his eyes betraying a desperation about them. He held up his hand and looked at it. He stared at his palm and fingers, unable to imagine being able to bite into them. He went to the windowsill to grab the remote and saw the cat again. It was a bloody mess now, its limbs and tail shredded and torn to pieces; it was now desperately trying to chew through its own torso. It was writhing in a dark red pool of blood now and weakening. As it slowed, he noticed something new. The cat’s eyes grew darker, until they were pitch black and soulless, then streams of black goo escaped the cat’s eyes like streaming tears of tar, The streams ran together and formed a pool, the pool seemed to move on its own volition, then the centre of the pool bubbled like a geyser and the pool sprayed into the air, tiny invisible droplets being carried by the wind. He looked back at the television; it was showing people in hazmat suits, soldiers, a bald scientist calmly spouting some jargon about how unprecedented this was and telling people to avoid leaving the house or coming into contact with tap or rainwater. In contact with? This was an escalation.

Dexter barked again, pawing at the door and looking expectant. ‘Shh, be good. Not now.’

Dexter whined. Jed went to the pantry; there was a nearly empty bottle of white wine. He couldn’t remember when it was from, but he unscrewed the cap and had a sniff. The smell was like pickled onions and made him wince, and his eyes water. He looked at Dexter’s water bowl. It was nearly empty. The sound of trickling diverted his attention, and he looked up to see Dexter with his leg cocked against the back door. Bright yellow pee was hitting the back door and spraying his black and white fur. He thought about scolding him, but quickly changed his mind and knelt down, opening his arms. Dexter finished peeing, then plodded over and licked his face. He wrapped his arms around the dog and cuddled him. He had to phone his parents. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket. He stared at the screen — no bars, not even the SOS Emergency. Thirst was building now. He’d spent most of the day travelling yesterday. The glass of water had not quenched his thirst. He looked at Dexter’s now empty water bowl. The tap was calling to him. He was feeling desperate for a glass of water; he gritted his teeth and thought about the cola. A little, he could drink a little and save some for later? Caffeine wasn’t ideal for dogs, but he’d have to share it. After releasing Dexter from his embrace, Jed went to get the cola. It was a cheap brand and would taste powdery and of chemicals, but it was better than nothing. He sat cross-legged on the floor and opened the can, taking a big swig. Dexter seemed to notice and nudged his water bowl towards Jed with his nose. Jed took the hint and started pouring, but Dexter, impatient as ever, rushed in and knocked the can from his hand. Some went in the bowl, some went on the floor. When Jed picked up the can, there was barely any left in it. Dexter seemed unfazed; he was lapping at the water bowl, now half filled with water, half with cola.

The rain was relentless and the air smelt of sulphur and brimstone. He heard a scream from outside, followed by maddening laughter. It sounded as if it was coming from further up the street. He crawled to the settee and slumped onto it. Dexter leapt up and snuggled against him. He was tired; he was thirsty; the best thing to do would be to sleep and hope whatever this was would be over when he woke.

When he woke, he noticed Dexter was gone. He looked around in panic and saw him lapping up the last of the cola from the kitchen floor. That was good. He was so thirsty, though. He climbed to his feet and entered the kitchen. He filled the kettle with the grey, cloudy water from the tap and put a tea bag in a mug. Boiling it. Boiling it would sort it out. He put the kettle on and waited. When steam appeared from the spout of the kettle, Jed held the button down a bit longer to keep it boiling. Soon the button was getting hot and difficult to hold, so Jed let go, watched it spring off, then used a tea towel to pour the water. It ran crystal clear as he started to pour, but as the bag floated to the top, the water seemed to turn just a tiny bit grey, barely perceptible. He took a teaspoon from the drawer and stirred, paying close attention. He didn’t like tea without milk, but whatever was in the milk bottle in the fridge had lived its life as milk and was now in the glorious afterlife of being something green which smelled fermented. He swirled the cup and peered at the liquid. As he did, he jumped. Dexter had slunk over and rubbed his head against his knee. The mug slipped through his fingers and shattered on the tiled floor, sending tea spraying everywhere. Dexter leapt clear and looked at Jed accusingly, then bowed his head and started lapping at the floor. Jed’s heart raced; he dived to the floor, pulling Dexter’s head up. ‘No! Bad dog! Not good!’

Dexter looked at him confused, struggled a little, then seemed to calm down. Had he drunk any? Had he drunk enough? Was there a safe amount to drink? Jed carefully pulled Dexter into the living room and shut him in. The mop was in the cupboard under the stairs. He got it out and started soaking up the spilled tea, muttering, cursing under his breath. Afterwards he poured neat bleach onto the floor and scrubbed it with the mop. He went over it twice. The smell was overpowering and stung his eyes and nostrils, but he couldn’t rinse. He was sweating. He chugged the last of the Coke and wiped his brow without thinking. Instead of wiping off sweat, his sweater sleeve doused his head with tea, soaked up from when he’d rushed to grab Dexter. He snapped his arm away in horror. He could feel the liquid on his face. It felt different, alive, almost. He grabbed the tea towel and began desperately wiping his head and face, trying to dry them perfectly. He held his lips together tightly. Even wiped dry, his skin felt like it was crawling on his face. He scrubbed harder, whimpering. Then he heard a yelp from the living room.

Jed opened the door and stared in horror. Dexter’s eyes had turned dark and cloudy; he’d bitten his front left paw off and was chewing and swallowing blissfully while blood drained from the torn stump onto the carpet.

Jed grimaced and whimpered, “No” under his breath, diving to the floor and hugging Dexter, trying to get the severed paw out of his mouth. Dexter turned to him, a visage a mask of rage, snarling and snapping. The paw finally came free, and Jed threw it into the corner in disgust. As he did, Dexter wriggled free and locked his jaw on the other paw. He ripped and tore at his own limb, biting hard and severing it while Jed desperately tried, but failed to stop him. His eyes were flooded with tears, and his heart was racing. He struggled and fought with Dexter, but to no avail. Just as he thought he was saving Dexter’s other front paw, Dexter clamped his jaw onto Jed’s hand and bit his little finger and part of the hand off. Jed screamed in agony and clutched the gaping wound, while Dexter returned to chewing off his other paw, his face a picture of bliss.

Blood was oozing from Jed’s wound now, and he was feeling faint. He tried to sit up, but he felt weak. Weak and hungry. He looked in horror at Dexter, devouring himself limb by limb, but suddenly it made sense. He felt ravenous; he thought about what was in the fridge, but knew it was all rotten. He had some tins in the pantry, but then he looked at his wounded hand. Dexter had ripped his little finger off and swallowed it along with the adjoining metacarpal. It’d left a gaping ragged wound, oozing blood in pulses as his heart beat, pumping the blood out of his body one gush at a time. It was strange. It looked so appetizing. Part of him knew it shouldn’t. This was wrong. It was wrong on so many levels. But then he was so hungry; his stomach growled and he felt a pang of hunger. He saw his hand oozing blood, and his mouth watered. It was irresistible. He looked up at Dexter; he’d chewed his front legs off completely and was working on one of his back legs. He looked so content and satisfied. He looked back at his mutilated hand. His vision was getting cloudy for some reason. It didn’t matter; he was hungry. Maybe just a taste? He could taste it. There’d be no harm in that.

~fin

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Razor piloted his ancient, rusty Ford Focus along the narrow, tree-lined lanes of Elmsford. He passed the crumbling gothic manor, Crawley Wood Grange, casting it a cursory glance. The occupant had recently passed away. According to the papers, it was a robbery gone wrong, but the journalist had hinted at occult involvement. It was definitely on the list of places to explore, but for now the dust had to settle. Today’s destination was the classic urbex staple. He was headed to Sad Hill Asylum. A monolithic Victorian monstrosity with an archetypal clock tower and barred windows. Inside, it would be endless corridors full of abandoned medical equipment, furniture, and old records. It’d been on the urbex community’s hit list for some time, but a recent poster had suggested security at the site finally seemed to have lapsed somewhat, making entry possible.

The stone palace of insanity loomed closer as he drove along the wooded lane. The temporary fencing barring access to the site was surprisingly open, allowing him to drive onto the actual staff car park. The car park was empty. He parked the car and looked at his phone. No signal. He’d arranged to meet Lloyd here so they could explore together, but just as a single bar of phone signal flashed for a second, an SMS landed. ‘Sorry Razor. Can’t make it today. Got to go my gran’s.’

Razor groaned, then flicked his phone off and stared at the ominous double doors into the main building. The right-hand door was ajar. The general rule was not to explore alone. A soggy floor collapsing or a missed footing, stepping onto an upturned nail could put an end to any expedition, and having help was critical; however, the building looked to be in remarkable condition. He thought about the long drive home and the door hanging ajar, beckoning him in. He could do a quick tour. Get some footage and come back properly another time. If he didn’t, the security could be stepped back up and the opportunity would be missed. As it was, he thought he’d be the first person to share actual footage of the coveted exploration.

He got out of the car, picked up his torch and phone charging battery. He locked the car and headed for the main door, looking around for signs of dogs or burly security guards in high-vis vests. There were neither.

He entered the foyer and looked around. The vinyl tiles were stained and cracked. The yellowed paint was peeling in places, and the room smelt musty with a hint of disinfectant and dried-on urine. He began filming, panning the camera around. ‘Guys, you are not going to believe it. I am now in Sad Hill Asylum. I’m in the foyer now and I can’t believe how good condition this place is. Trying the light-switch, I wouldn’t normally, but with it like this? You never know.’

He filmed himself flicking the light switch on, and the corridor lit up with flickering, buzzing fluorescent lights. Some did not start, and one near the end of the corridor annoyingly refused to decide if it would work, switching off to on constantly and humming violently. He gasped and turned his camera to the corridor. There was none of the typical debris that stemmed from vandalism or a hurried staff departure. He walked forward to the end of the corridor, filming in several rooms as he passed. The beds were still bearing the classic institutional rubber mattress and were positioned neatly against the walls. He saw commodes, wheelchairs, massive cast-iron radiators, and what looked like patient records. He filmed all of it. As he turned the corner at the end of the corridor, the stairs led down to the basement under a sign which read, ‘Acute Ward’. He headed down, shining his torch and filming. The air smelt damper here, and as he stepped off the bottom step, he saw flickering blue light and heard the crackle of an old-fashioned television. This was surprising. He stepped carefully, treading lightly and shallowing his breathing. When he got to the room, he peered in. There, sitting on a chair watching a crackly television, was a nurse. She was wearing a white nurse’s dress and stared at him as he entered. ‘Shit! Sorry.’

He turned and began walking back towards the entrance, quickening his pace. As he approached the stairs, her voice echoed down the corridor. ‘Wait, it’s okay.’

He stopped and turned to face her; she offered him a warm smile. ‘Hey, sorry, I thought this place was closed and I just —’

‘It’s okay; the patients have all been transferred. I’m just collating and checking records. Would you like a cup of tea? You don’t have to leave. If you’re filming for your channel, I don’t mind talking about the history of the place.’

Razor’s eyes widened. This was unheard of. Normally, a mistakenly closed institution would be chasing them out and threatening charges. ‘Wow, that’s really kind of you.’

‘Come in. Have a seat. I’ll put the kettle on.’

He followed her into the room and sat while she boiled the kettle and put two mugs out. ‘Hey, when did this place actually close?’

‘Well, we stopped receiving patients over two years ago. Some patients were hard to place, so we stayed open, but with reduced capacity. Since then, some passed away, and some have been moved into community care. Sugar?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Oh, I’ve already put one in? Is it okay?’

Razor shrugged, ‘Yeah that’s fine. Are you really the only member of staff still working here?’

She stood obscuring the mugs and poured the tea, then he heard the clink of stirring. ‘Oh no, there’s a few of us. But two are on annual leave and two are off sick, so I’m on my own today.’

‘I was sure this place had closed properly ages ago.’

‘The Trust wanted people to think that. They were still getting referrals we couldn’t accept, so it was decided to declare ourselves closed.’

She handed him his mug of tea. He took it and had a sip. The taste was strange; it tasted overpoweringly sweet but had a chemical, bitter after-taste. ‘Urgh, this tea’s not the best.’

She shrugged. ‘Sorry, NHS bulk-buy and it might be a bit out of date. It was hard enough getting the budget for that sort of thing when we were accepting referrals; now it’s like pulling teeth. Would you like another sugar?’

He shook his head and took a bigger gulp. The taste was definitely off; he decided to drink it to be polite, but thought he’d have to decline a refill. She sat opposite him. ‘First time in a psychiatric hospital?’

‘Yeah, I’ve always thought the places were fascinating though. I wanted to do Cane Hill or Denby, but to be honest, I’m new to this. I don’t think they’re in a good state anymore. This place is amazing.’

‘I can give you a bit of a tour if you like. Can you imagine what it must have been like being a patient in these places?’

‘No, I saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but that was in America and I’m not sure it was realistic.’

‘Oh, I think it was realistic for the time. We did things a little differently here. The way we care for mental patients has changed too. That’s why these places closed down. We were quite old-fashioned here, actually. Even towards the end.’

Razor swigged his tea again. He felt a warm flush in his stomach and a tingling sensation in his fingers. He tried to raise the mug again, but his arms began to feel heavy. She stood. ‘Come on, drink up. I’ll give you a tour. Do you want to see the padded cells? Most of the urbex films find them dismantled. They’re all intact and fully functional here.’

Razor forced the last dregs of the drink down and hauled himself to his feet. His legs felt heavy as well, but a wave of relaxation washed over him. He followed her into the corridor. They passed the first padded cell, identifiable by the heavy steel door with the tiny peephole. It was locked. When they came to the next one, she pulled the heavy iron door open and gestured for him to step inside. He stepped in; the walls were padded and dirty; there was no furniture. The only light came from a glass block window, high in the far wall, beyond his reach. The only item in the room was a neatly folded institutional canvas straightjacket on the floor. ‘Can you imagine what it must have been like? Locked in here for hours on end, sedated, completely at the mercy of the staff. These had fallen out of use when I started here, but I always thought about that.’

Razor nodded, ‘Yeah, it must have been terrifying. I can’t imag—’

‘You could experience it, you know. Might be good for your channel.’

Razor snapped his neck around to face her, frowning. ‘What?’

‘You want something special for your channel? I can put you in the jacket, then lock you in here for a few minutes, then film you while you talk about how it felt?’

Razor looked at her, stunned. She was shorter than him, quite slim, and had reddish-brown hair. She was pretty and smiled warmly. He glanced at the jacket. It was surprisingly clean and was a genuine Posey straightjacket. He shook his head, ‘Nah, I’m not that curious.’

She picked up the jacket and held it out to him. ‘Go on, just a few minutes. It’ll be great footage. Pop your hands in.’

Razor raised his palms and shook his head. ‘No way.’

She tilted her head to one side and pulled the jacket more open, invitingly. ‘Oh, go on. You know you want to. If you don’t, you’ll go away and know you missed your one chance to feel what it’s like to be put in a straitjacket and locked in a padded cell. Come on, arms in.’

His vision blurred slightly, and for a moment he felt like he was swimming, or bathing in a warm pool. He staggered slightly, struggling to keep upright, then shook his head. She was still smiling, offering the jacket expectantly and raising an eyebrow. ‘In you go. Just for a minute.’

Razor found himself obeying without even thinking. He swayed a little on his feet as she pulled the jacket up onto his shoulders. She wrapped the straps around and fastened them tightly. So tightly he hugged the breath out of himself. She fastened the buckles at the back, tightening the jacket further with each buckle. Then she tightened the arm and shoulder straps and pulled the crotch strap up hard, buckling it in place. Soon he was completely helpless, and feeling lightheaded, wondering why exactly he’d volunteered for this. She smiled at him. ‘How does it feel?’

He struggled, trying to free his arms, but they could barely move a millimetre. ‘It’s a bit tight, can you loosen the straps? The crotch strap is crushing my balls!’

She chuckled softly, ‘That’s how it’s supposed to feel! We can’t have loose straps; that might allow you to escape, and we can’t have that.’

He stared at her blankly. She stepped back and slammed the door shut. He heard the handle grinding. He looked around the dim cell. Suddenly he felt claustrophobic. He still felt light-headed and confused; every step was a labour. He approached the door. There was no handle, only the tiny peephole. He pushed it with his shoulder. Nothing happened. He looked at the glass blocks, high and out of reach. Tiredness was overcoming him now. He tried to stay upright, but felt himself nodding off, so lay and curled up in the corner.

When he woke, it was dark. He felt groggy and disoriented. He struggled with the straps, trying to loosen them, but the effort seemed to only make them tighten. He had a splitting headache and his mouth was drier than the Sahara. He fought his way to his feet and tried to scream for help. He charged the door and threw his shoulder against it, but bounced off and stumbled onto the padded floor. He tried to get up, but he’d landed awkwardly. As he struggled, he heard the brass cover on the speaking hole slide back. ‘Ah, you’re awake. You’ve had quite a sleep. It’s nearly midnight.’

Razor forced himself into a sitting position. ‘Let me out!’

She chuckled softly. ‘Let you out? Oh no, dear, that won’t do. You’re my patient now, and I won’t be discharging you until you’ve been treated.’

Razor laughed. ‘Ha, yeah. Good one. Seriously though, I need to get home and I’ve got a splitting headache.’

‘That’ll be the effect of your medication. Barbiturates in tea is a very good way of medicating non-compliant patients.’

‘You drugged me?!’

‘I administered your medication. Would you like me to go over your treatment plan?’

Razor fought his way to his feet and staggered to the door. ‘Alright, the joke’s over. Very funny. Now get me out of this!’

‘But you’ve not been discharged and I can’t discharge you until you’ve been treated.’

Razor felt a darkness now, a sudden realisation that this might not be the good-humoured joke he’d hoped. ‘You don’t really work here?’

‘No, I was a patient here. I was a child at the time, but that didn’t mean any less harsh treatment. I’m going to go over your treatment plan. You’re going to remain in the seclusion room between treatments. I don’t have other staff to call on for assistance with rapid restraint and tranquillisation, so you’ll have to stay in the jacket. I’m going to be prescribing you all kinds of drugs from the dispensary. Who knows what they all do? We’ll find out together. I’m going to be giving you a course of ECT too. Several doses a day for several weeks. I’m afraid we’ll be doing it the old-fashioned way, though. I don’t have an anaesthetist.’

Razor laughed again. ‘Yeah, alright. You really got me. Now can you open up and let me out?’

She laughed now. ‘Oh dear, you really are delusional. I’m so glad I’ve got a patient again. The security guard was quite entertaining, but I think I overdid it on the ECT. He’s in the cell next door. Last time I checked on him, he was still alive, but I’m pretty sure I completely fried his brain. He just stares blankly and drools now. Don’t worry though, I’ll be more careful with you. We’ll start with a light dose and work our way up. Oh, and I found an ice pick in the operating theatre. I never had a lobotomy, but I’m looking forward to giving you one. Make all the noise you want. These cells are heavily sound-proofed. I’ll leave you with your thoughts for now. When you’re asleep, I’ll be back with a trolley to take you down to the ECT suite. I used to love playing doctors and patients. I’m going to have so much fun with you.’

Razor heard the brass speaking-hole slide shut. He threw himself against the padded door but bounced off. He tried again and again. Failing each time. He screamed, demanding to be let out. Eventually he collapsed onto the padded floor of the dark cell and sobbed.

~Fin

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought.

If you’re interested in the creative process of creating this piece, my paid tier features an ‘anatomy of’ series where I dissect my choices and techniques in the creative process. Nightmare Asylum is ‘Anatomy of’ #1.

Author Martyn Stanley's Substack

Anatomy of ‘Nighmare Asylum’

Razor piloted his ancient, rusty Ford Focus along the narrow, tree-lined lanes of Elmsford. He passed the crumbling gothic manor, Crawley Wood Grange, casting it a cursory glance. The occupant had recently passed away. According to the papers, it was a robbery gone wrong, but the journalist had hinted at occult involvement. It was definitely on the list of places to explore, but for now the dust had to settle. Today’s destination was the classic urbex staple. He was headed to Sad Hill Asylum. A monolithic Victorian monstrosity with an archetypal clock tower and barred windows. Inside, it would be endless corridors full of abandoned medical equipment, furniture, and old records. It’d been on the urbex community’s hit list for some time, but a recent poster had suggested security at the site finally seemed to have lapsed somewhat, making entry possible…

Read more

2 months ago · Martyn Stanley

If ‘Nightmare Asylum’ was a bit tame for you and you want to read something altogether darker, you might enjoy my horror short ‘The Black’

If Crawley Wood Grange has piqued your interest, that story is major plot point in upcoming novel ‘The Book of Davoth 2’, the sequel to vampire urban fantasy, Ofelia.

Buy Ofelia (Amazon UK)

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I TRACKED DOWN JAMES MAY’S ROLLS ROYCE FROM THE TOP GEAR INDIA SPECIAL!

And boy, does it have a story to tell!

Martyn Stanley posted in Irreverant Car Talk

2y ago

98.5K

I’ve never met James May in person. We’ve had a bit of back and forth banter on DriveTribe in comments and private messages, but we’ve never actually met. I keep telling myself when he’s stopped filming and his ‘fame’ has died down a bit - I ought to pop down to his local in Hammersmith. I really think I owe him a pint for choosing my article for the 2017 DriveTribe Awards (Though I suspect Mr. May would prefer a Chateau Neuf du Pape from a ‘good year’ if I’m any judge).

The Clarkson ‘Excellent’ - In Depth Road Test Report | DriveTribe

A sports SUV for sadomasochists, who’ve recently had a lobotomy.

On Sunday (19th of May 2019), I DID meet one of Mr.May’s old cars. I was at the Rease Heath College - Family Fun Open Day. It’s an agricultural college with specialisms in building trades, farming and animal husbandry. The day is a yearly event with various displays and stages and events on.

Among the events, they had a line up of classic and American cars. At the very end of the line, nestled between a very nicely presented ‘General Lee’ Dodge Charger from the Dukes of Hazard and an immaculate ‘BA Baracus’ van from the A-Team, I saw this:-

James May’s India Special Rolls Royce

My first impression was that it was a fairly ordinary, slightly crusty, old classic Roller; what on earth was it doing here? Why isn’t it painted white and knocking out bargain basement, £100 a day wedding hires for the local chavs?

Then I took a closer look at the ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ because it didn’t look quite like the standard one for this model:-

James May’s ‘Culturally sensitive’ alternative to the winged lady.

Now I’m not an expert on Hindu mythology, but to my untrained eye this looked rather like the god Ganesh, son of Shiva and Parvati. Ganesh is a popular god in Hindu culture, because he’s the god of luck, wisdom and success. Quite appropriate really. It was lucky I’d decided to go to Rease Heath on this particular day and this is THE Rolls Royce that successfully drove into the Himalayas a few Christmas Specials ago.... Not sure about the wisdom. Maybe that’s something to do with James May?

The car is remarkably untouched aesthetically. It looks like it’s in more or less the same state as it was when it was dumped on a plinth back in 2011, along with Hammond’s mini and Clarkson’s Jag.

Much of the ‘show damage’ has been left untouched so as to retain the authenticity of the car’s story.

Eventually I got talking to the owner. A friendly bloke called Keith Bagnall. He took me around the car and showed me some of the highlights. Such as the door which Clarkson hit with a digger:-

‘Oh Cock!’

Then there’s the incredibly heavy boot lid, due to the massive off-road tyre bolted to it. You see Clarkson flick this thing open with one hand while swigging a beer in the show. Say what you like about Clarkson, he IS strong! I could barely open this boot with one hand! I had a go and did it, but it was NOT easy!

The boot lid is SERIOUSLY heavy!

If you look underneath the car you can see the remnants of when Mr. Hammond and Mr. Clarkson decided to wire James’s air horn to his brake lights. Apparently running the wires through the car is actually a pig of a job and would have taken ages, so they just hung the wires off the spare wheel carrier and dangled them underneath.

The remnants of Hammond and Clarkson’s ‘wiring’ if you could call it that.

Keith then revealed a prank you don’t see in the show. At some point during filming someone seems to have left Mr. May a message. Don’t quote me on this, but this little note on the driver’s door card looks like it’s in Mr. Richard Hammond’s handwriting:-

Is this Richard Hammond’s handwriting?

There’s nothing worse than buying a car, only to find a previous owner hasn’t cleaned it out properly. This is the case with this Roller. For posterity’s sake, Keith collected all the rubbish from around the car, bagged it up and takes it with the car to shows:-

Keith with a bag of James May’s assorted ‘crap’.

There’s all sorts of junk in the bag. Leftovers from James’s original attempt to decorate the car during the show, empty beer cans, fag packets, crisp wrappers...

James May - if there’s anything here you’d like to claim; please contact Keith Bagnall.

I was even offered a sit in the driver’s seat! Though, if I’m honest, parking myself in a pool of James May’s congealed sweat has NEVER featured on my bucket list... So I declined.

James May sat here once upon a time...

The car isn’t actually great to drive according to Keith. A certain previous *cough* James May *cough* owner decided to fit ridiculously large off-road wheels. The rear ones catch every time you accelerate and the front wheels catch every time you steer.

Who repainted James’s speedometer? Looks like the same paint as the note on the door card....

The car didn’t come complete with the tools attached to the roof. The kidnapping tape is there to cover up the holes where the roof was drilled so the pick axe could be cable-tied down.

The pick axe is missing!

Keith has done a lot of work on the car to get it roadworthy again. It’s MOT exempt, but he’s replaced the brakes, steering, water pump and more. He’s spent quite a bit on parts, but done all the work himself. The biggest barrier to it being suitable for use on the road is actually the insane wheels.

Under the hood.

The car actually withstood the harsh environment of India incredibly well. The most damage to the car was done when it was craned off the plinth. At this point the wings were slightly crushed. Keith hasn’t fixed them yet, but he’s thinking about repairing them as he wants the car to be exactly as it was at the end of the episode and this damage happened after that. Personally I’d leave them, because I think the damage is part of the car’s incredible story.

Keith was lucky enough to go to the ‘Grand Tour’ tent once and if memory serves, that’s when he took the roller and got James to sign it for him!

If you want backstage access to the Grand Tour, this is one signature you could forge...

So how did James’s Rolls Royce get from the Himalayas to Cheshire?

Well, the original plan had been to leave them on the plinths, for all to see. However, there were complaints. It turns out the Indian Government wasn’t entirely happy with Top Gear. They thought Top Gear hadn’t been 100% honest about the sort of show they were making. They didn’t like the end result.

Therefore the cars were craned off the plinths (this was how the wings got crushed) and taken to the National Motor Musem in Beaulieu:-

Beaulieu

National Motor Museum

See over 250 vehicles at the world-famous National Motor Museum. From F1 cars and land speed record breakers to incredible examples of pioneering motoring.

Where they resided for some time.

The stand at the National Motor Museum | Image Source: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bentley-Rolls-royces-Choping-up-TOP-GEAR-INDIA-CHRISTMAS-TRIP-JAMES-MAY-CAR-/152577833715

The stand at the National Motor Museum | Image Source: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bentley-Rolls-royces-Choping-up-TOP-GEAR-INDIA-CHRISTMAS-TRIP-JAMES-MAY-CAR-/152577833715

Eventually the exhibit was considered due for refreshment and Beaulieu asked the BBC - who still owned all the cars at that point, to get rid of them. I believe a fan had spent months, or even years pestering the BBC for Hammond’s Mini. They gave it to him to shut him up or so I’m told.

The Rolls Royce however was sold to ‘Steve the maniac swapper’ to break. He placed an advert on Ebay offering the car as parts. The advert is still actually visible:-

eBay

Bentley/Rolls royces Choping up ( TOP GEAR ) INDIA CHRISTMAS TRIP JAMES MAY CAR | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Bentley/Rolls royces Choping up ( TOP GEAR ) INDIA CHRISTMAS TRIP JAMES MAY CAR at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products!

The advert was last updated in June 2017, which tallies up because Keith told me he’d owned the car for 11 months.

When Keith saw the advert, he contacted the seller immediately and negotiated a price to buy the whole car - complete. He couldn’t tell me how much he paid for it, because at the time of writing he still hadn’t told his wife! The bottom line is - he did the deal and collected the car on a low loader.

When he got it back to the workshop to take look at it, the car was a mess. It hadn’t run in years, the keys were missing, brakes split, rear calipers broken. He’s fitted new brakes all around, new steering components and a fuel pump. He’s more or less rebuilt most of the mechanicals of the car.

Nice private plate for Neil Yusef Finlay?

SO HOW ABOUT THE OTHER CARS FROM THIS CHALLENGE?

The fan who managed to beg the Mini still owns it. But he’s promised Keith first offer if he ever comes to sell it. Which leaves us with the Jag.

We don’t really know where Clarkson’s Jag is now. It is probably scrapped though. According to Keith, he rang up the BBC to inquire about also purchasing the Jaguar XJS. He was basically told a flat ‘NO!’. Apparently the BBC had decided that all buyers had to be carefully vetted and neither ‘Steve’ nor any of his associates would EVER be allowed to purchase ANY Top Gear cars from the BBC ever again. Even after Keith assured them he’d only met Steve when he bought the car, they refused to even discuss a sale and ended the conversation.

There could be many reasons why the BBC don’t want old Top Gear ‘Challenge Cars’ on the road. They maybe don’t want the bad press if someone crashes one. Or they’re worried about people using them to feign association with the BBC? I think it’s a real shame though. In the case of May’s Roller, a real enthusiast has dipped into his own pocket and saved this icon from destruction for the community. He doesn’t earn any money from the car, he just likes showing it and talking to fellow fans about the car and the epic journey it’s been on. Not just during the show, but after it too.

I suspect the BBC sold it to the breaker with the unspoken understanding that it WOULD be broken, but that they’d forgotten to stipulate that this was a requirement. They were probably as cross with themselves as they were with Steve. Luckily, it was saved from destruction at the 11th hour and if you run into Keith at a car show, you can see it in all its glory for yourself. If you’re nice to him, he might even let you try and open the utterly stupid 8 tonne boot lid, or park yourself in the calcified pool of 2011 vintage ‘James May sweat’ on the driver’s seat... (Don’t hold me to that though. That might have been an exclusive offer for the guy who was going to write a DriveTribe article about it!)

Martyn Stanley

It was a real privilege to meet Keith and have a good look around this car.

Special thanks to Keith Bagnall

For saving the car! And for showing me around and telling me all about it!

Keith and his own ex-Top Gear Challenge car!

Keith and his own ex-Top Gear Challenge car!

Anyone who has ever been on a creative writing course, or even a creative writing internet forum, will have heard the phrase ‘Show, don’t tell’.

What does this mean? It sounds straightforward in principle, but at first glance it can read as though you should only write illustrated or comic books. If you’re not artistically inclined, then this is something of a non-starter.

So what does it mean? I mean, really mean?

Trust your readers

That is connected to another creative writing trope that’s often bandied about. ‘Trust your readers.’

Readers tend to find writing much more engaging if the prose leaves room for inference; if we give information to the reader through more subtle means than being explicit. Reading a good book is like solving an intellectual puzzle. You read the text, you visualise the characters, the setting and the action as it unfolds, but your understanding of who the characters are, what their motivations are and what the deeper meaning of the story is? These are things best learned than being told.

Cinematic Writing

The concept of cinematic writing is fluid and broad. At one level, you can write as if you’re directing a movie, controlling the camera angles, the focus, and the pacing through the visual information you’re conveying through your prose. That’s not the full scope of it, though.

The main things which hurt a story in terms of telling are:

• Emotion tells

• Info-dumping (even in dialogue)

You can have a character monologue about something, divulging detailed world-building and lore, but you should have a damn good reason for them to deliver a monologue, and ‘because I want the reader to know stuff’ doesn’t cut it.

Better to have your reader learn about the world through your characters and piece-meal, like a trail of breadcrumbs, slowly building a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the setting over time.

Emotion Tells

Emotion tells are obvious. You want to avoid telling the reader your character is feeling sad, happy, excited, or afraid. So, what do you do when you want the reader to know your character is feeling an emotion?

The lazy but effective option is to write their inner thoughts, the voice in their head evaluating a situation. Not in a simplistic, ‘He felt sad’ way, but perhaps in a more nuanced way:

‘He watched her board the train, hauling her battered leather suitcase behind her. She didn’t look back, not even a glance. He watched the door slide shut and sighed, realising, this was the last time he’d ever see her. He knew there and then he’d never see her again.’

This is a simplistic example, but I think that’s a better example to explain the method. When we link this to the concept of cinematic writing, we can see this as a camera shot. It’s a train platform, with passengers boarding and disembarking from the train. Our character is watching someone leave. I didn’t say how he actually feels about their departure, but I hope from the tone I’ve conveyed that he’s sad about this person leaving.

A more powerful camera shot to use in this way is the close-up. You’ll have seen this in cinema when a director wants a skilled actor to convey an emotion solely through their facial expression. A trembling lip, eyes narrowing, a grimace, a smirk. These all tell you something about what a character is feeling without explicitly telling you what they’re feeling.

The cinematic writing concept works well with all camera angles and in all scenes. A fight scene, a car chase, a screaming, raging argument between a wife and her husband, whom she suspects of having an affair.

The concept in principle

The easiest way I can describe this, and the way in which you can apply the technique to any camera angle in your novel, is this:

Imagine your novel has already been made into a Netflix movie. Imagine you’re watching the movie. Now describe what you’re watching.

This captures the frantic brawl spilling out from a crowded bar onto the street, the motorcycle chase through winding cobbled streets, and the protagonist holding their dying lover in their arms, watching the life fade from their eyes and weeping.

One secret of good writing is variety. Vary your sentence lengths and your chapter lengths, and use lots of camera angles. Use your writing to direct the movie you want people to see in their heads when they read your work.

Don’t tell them how a character feels or that a car is driving dangerously fast; show them.

The Exception

There is an exception to this rule, of course. True mastery of the written word is categorically not knowing all the rules; it’s knowing when to break them.

Sometimes you just need to advance the plot. If you try to show with every single sentence to the full, you risk bogging down the pace. Sometimes you just need to finish a chapter with, ‘They rode to the next town’, or ‘Furious, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him’.

I hope you found this useful, or at least interesting. I’ll be writing more on writing, my own works, and on mental health.

I tend to Follow and Subscribe back.

Martyn Stanley

I’m going to tell you something about myself. It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s not something I can easily explain why it came into being. My instinct is it’s a consequence of my ADHD, ASD, CPTSD, TRD and GAD.

What it amounts to, though, is that I have an issue with threats to autonomy. Nobody likes being told what to do. But this goes beyond that. This is something that has haunted me for my entire life. At least in my adult life. The reality is I don’t see such threats to my autonomy as inconvenient or unfortunate. To me, they are an absolute, existential threat.

I can give you some examples. Once upon a time I worked in IT infrastructure. I was an engineer. My line manager had a promotion, and because of company politics, one developer in the company had been made a team leader, and it was felt another developer was due a promotion for the sake of fairness. They didn’t have another team leader role. So they made this developer (who knew nothing about infrastructure) my line manager. Now, I didn’t dislike this person. However, I didn’t respect them. Nobody discussed this decision with me. It felt as if it was imposed on me. I didn’t resign immediately, but I made the decision to then, and I never looked back. Nothing would have changed my mind.

Here’s another example. I have always done martial arts, ever since the age of 13. It’s probably why my fight scenes are often praised by readers.

I earned my 1st Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo with the TAGB. I went on to gain my 2nd Degree ITF Taekwondo Black Belt with PUMA.

I trained Lau Gar Kung Fu briefly with Brian Nelson. I did a number of sessions in Systema. I spent months doing kickboxing and had the opportunity to train with Master Sken.

Most recently, I gained Ikkyu in Kendo - the sport form of Japanese sword fighting.

The tall gentleman standing next to me was a regular training partner. He started after me, and he trained much harder, attending other dojos for extra sessions, and when I gained Ikkyu, he gained his Shodan. He’s an excellent fighter and a skilled swordsman. He’s also somebody I would have described as a friend for most of the time I knew him.

One day, after he’d gained Nidan (2nd Dan) he was running a training session as part of the instructor course preparation, I understand. I was feeling particularly tired that day, and regretted going to training. In Kendo, we do an exercise called Kiri Kaeshi, or cutting exercise. I had to do it in the middle of the room with my tall friend, in front of everyone. I was playing the role of the blocker; he attacked. Afterwards he told me, ‘You’re not moving fast enough; do it again.’

So we went again. I was already hanging by a thread, but I made stronger blocks, doubled my pace and on the part where I’d stepped back and started moving forwards I continued the strong blocks and tried to move at a pace that felt like I was applying pressure. Bear in mind this is just me and my tall friend in front of the whole dojo. Afterwards, he starts waving his Shinai around mockingly, saying, ‘What’s all this about?’

I’d been training for over two years at least by then. Nearly three. I’d been training every week when I could; I’d fought in Taikei and done my first Shinza. Kendo was part of my life. I looked at him. I threw my shinai down and announced, ‘That’s it, I’m done.’ Then I walked out and never trained again, despite spending £800 or so on a bespoke fitted armour set, plus bokuto and several shinai of different types.

I’ll give you another example. I had been the Financial Director of a large manufacturing company for twenty years. I wasn’t particularly good at the job. The company needed a senior person to be the point of contact for the accountants, so that was me, even though I had staff to handle most of the daily financial tasks. I actually spent a lot of my time managing staff, regulatory compliance, and writing company policy. During the last few months of my tenure in the role, I was responsible for creating a virtual data room and creating a complete portfolio of due diligence documents for a merger/acquisition.

The plan had been that I would stay on as a Director for two years post the sale, and work with the UK Operations Director for the group and the other Director at our company. This would have given me a significant remuneration package. It would have been a salary that honestly most of you would envy. However, the week before the final signing of documents, the gentleman who would be my line manager, after I’d raised a very reasonable capital expenditure question, attended our office. He proceeded to throw his authoratitive weight around and try to assert dominance. I’m not sure if he was intentionally trying to get me to quit or if it was intended as a litmus test to see if I’d be the sort of person who asks ‘how high?’ when asked to jump. It doesn’t matter. I resigned the next day, giving up the salary, the employment, and the chance to continue to be involved. I did agree to stay on a zero-hours consultancy role. However, after only a couple of tasks in, the gentleman in question subtly accused me of incompetence and of wasting company money by logging a certain number of hours on a certain task. The hours were real, but I won’t be spoken to like that by anybody. I refused any remuneration for the work I’d done and quit again, resigning from my consultancy role and foregoing any additional wages.

I think I’m painting a picture here. I hope I’m not sounding like a horrible person. This isn’t a trait I think is noble or useful. It’s just something deeply ingrained in me. It makes me worried about looking for another job and working for someone else. It concerns me that if I did produce a quality manuscript and secure representation from an agent, I would find having someone pushing editorial decisions I didn’t agree with intolerable.

This is also a trait which I think is potentially fatal.

Whilst receiving support from the CMHT for my mental health struggles last year, it was suggested to me to use a mood tracking app. I looked at the ones available and decided I didn’t like any of them, so I made my own. It scored 7 subjective metrics, and it had a ‘Triggers’ box for me to write my thoughts at the time of logging. It was probably more complex than necessary, but I’m drawn to complexity. All my novels are more complex than necessary, but putting them together feels so cathartic and satisfying. I imagine it’s how a jigsaw puzzler feels when they finally place the 10,000th piece to complete a monster puzzle.

On the 27th of December 2025, I was back in the psychiatric ward, after having had Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day as ‘Ward Leave’. Going back into the ward was jarring that day. I’d been enjoying spending time at home, relaxing and painting models. The atmosphere had changed, too. A very disturbed young man whom I nicknamed ‘PICU Pete’ was on the ward and requiring a lot of attention. Here’s what I logged that day, verbatim, written contemporaneously at the time, of the time in my mood tracking app I made:

“FB sleep = 77. 5h32m Total, Awake = 50m REM = 1h16m, Light 3h21m, Deep = 54m. So my incarceration has resumed. I went home on Xmas Eve and have enjoyed a couple of days of normality; now I’m back on Ward 2 and forced to endure countless days of fairly irrelevant and pointless incarceration. I say that - I am informal. But the line between informal and detained can seem ethereal and elusive. Not wanting to sound conceited, but feel I understand the MHA at least as well as most staff and probably better than some. Today my resolve was tested. Last time I spoke to C, she agreed I could bring some models and paints in. I agreed not to bring any tools or glues in or anything like that. I took Ward leave on Christmas Eve, feeling some trepidation about returning. I was acutely aware I may not want to return on the day after Boxing Day as agreed. I spent hours, HOURS sorting out some simple models to paint and a box of brushes and paints. I enjoyed seeing CG this afternoon. We talked, we casually watched bits of ‘The Worst Movie’ documentary then we played two games of FIFA. He ran me back to the Ward.

Upon arriving, the Ward Manager immediately made it clear I could not have my models, paints and brushes in my room. He said I could leave them in storage to bring out and use supervised in communal areas, but this is not an activity I am interested in or willing to share. I noticed his subtle discomfort at having to enforce this and assured him it really wasn’t a big deal, just that I’d rather have known and not brought them in and not spent time preparing them. Luckily, I have a collection of novels to work through, and despite leaving the box in storage, I was allowed to keep my chess set, so I will read and study chess. I watched Stranger Things, so I’m caught up now. But the atmosphere on the Ward has changed.

A highly agitated patient was banging and screaming, and I got to hear the thunder of pounding feet as staff rushed to follow rapid restraint & tranquillisation protocol. The patient was sedated, and all was quiet. But I am now, more assuredly than ever, aware that I do not belong here. The thought occurs that the ‘here’ extends beyond these bare, disinfected walls but to the metaphysical walls of this miserable reality we inhabit. I can’t blame the staff. They’re doing an incredibly difficult job in challenging circumstances, and I suspect they don’t get thanked enough. The thought occurs that my brief hope that there is a feasible ‘Plan B’ - a plan where I can find a life that has meaning, purpose, and I don’t continue to curse every day I continue breathing - is entirely unfounded. Having seen the cogs of the machine turning and listened to the grimy, warts and all stories of my fellow inmates… Yes, life is bullshit and pointless. Oh, there we go, another fucking alarm! Good luck sleeping tonight! Nobody has been around with meds, but I can’t be bothered to remind them. I can’t blame the staff, but the situation sucks. I kind of feel like I might be better off trying to return to that dissociative state. At least I had some peace and quiet.

Currently, I’m not being observed closely. I’m probably seen as warm and engaged, and I suspect staff are wondering whether I should even be here. The thought occurs to me to utilise sub-optimal means to complete ‘Plan A’. I have books, chess and solitude, but I feel life cannot go back to how it was. I find it hard to imagine a version of life which is acceptable and tolerable long term. The thought occurs to me that a real artistry of annihilation would be to end myself on ward, whilst under the grinding cogs of the duty of care the [Redacted] Hospital has over me.

I’m not closely supervised. The thought occurs to self-terminate here, in this environment where the ‘system’ believes it can rob me of my personal choice and steal my autonomous right over my own mortality. There would be a poetry to it, a poignant, meaningful final expression of artistic vision - a parting shot across the bow.

Options? I can think of [Redacted], [Redacted], [Redacted]. There are probably various other viable options. I should give it some thought. I am feeling rather done with the ‘trying to engage warmly’ game. I’m more inclined to be warm and engaged with staff when they interact with me, but otherwise, I avoid contact. I’m inclined to avoid contact with patients too. I’ve tried to offer some peer support here and there, but what’s the point?

We’re all dead anyway, insignificant specks of dust in a desert of flat, infinite, equally meaningless specks. The screaming new inmate, being repeatedly tranquillised, the father of 5 who hears voices, and casually downs 2 bottles of vodka and does a bag of coke while on ward leave. The neurodivergent who accuses me of being intelligent and ‘interesting’, but who also has had altercations with staff and patients after paranoid delusions. Then there’s the [Redacted], [Redacted] to be precise. I have sympathy for all these chaps. They’re not bad people. They’re nice guys to whom life dealt a shitty hand .

Part of me would like to help them, support them. Be there to listen. But what’s the point? What’s the point in anything? Ultimately, the countless layers of the onion skin that is the illusion of ‘the human condition’ are all bullshit built on the ruins of old, abandoned bullshit.

We’re all just stupid apes fumbling around in the dark pretending we have importance or meaning. I need to think about whether I can actually be arsed to continue living and if not, what the most optimal means of achieving self-annihilation I have at my disposal.’

Reading that back now, months later, is a strange experience. I recognise every thought in it as mine, and I recognise none of them as absolute truth.

The philosophy hasn’t moved. I still think the universe is indifferent, that meaning is something we manufacture rather than discover, that most of what we call purpose is scaffolding we build over a hole. I haven’t talked myself out of any of that, and I’m not going to pretend I have for the sake of a tidier ending.

But somewhere in that log, cosmic nihilism stopped being a position I held and became a weapon I was pointing at myself, and I can see the seam where that happened even if I can’t explain it. “A parting shot across the bow” is a beautiful sentence. It is also exactly the kind of sentence a person constructs when the part of their brain responsible for self-preservation has been quietly overridden by the part responsible for narrative — and I have spent a lot of my life letting the narrative part run the show. That’s probably why I write novels. It is a considerably worse operating principle for staying alive.

I don’t say this to reassure anyone that I’m fine, or that the nihilism was a symptom in some way that’s now resolved and filed away. It wasn’t a symptom of nihilism. It was a symptom of the illness recruiting the nihilism, because the nihilism was already there, sharp and ready to hand. The despicable thing, in hindsight, isn’t the thought — it’s how good it felt to think it, and how little that feeling had to do with whether it was true.

I was told later that my key worker called the doctor attending the Mental Health Act Assessment the day I was admitted. She told me she instructed him to avoid detaining me if at all possible. She understood how existential threats to autonomy are for me, and how nihilistic I was, and still am. A potentially dangerous combination.

It’s not a noble trait; I don’t know why threats to autonomy and impositions on me became so existential, but they did.

Now all I can do is try to avoid situations where my autonomy is threatened. Sadly that may mean never actually exploring the possibility of a warm relationship with an agent or professional editor and it’s potentially why I’m doomed to remain self-published until I’ve written my last novel, breathed my last breath, and been boxed up for my final descent into the grave.

Martyn Stanley

The actual event leading to it was a 14 hour long state of complete paralysis with full awareness. Call it catatonia, call it a functional neurological disorder, call it autistic shutdown. The nomenclature doesn’t matter. The fact is, it was 14 hours of akinetic mutism. Paralysed, aware, but unable to communicate to anybody that I was aware.

When the Mental Health Act assessment happened, I’d already recovered. They interviewed me, about many things related to mental health, then they asked me if I’d agree to ‘go into hospital’. For the uninformed this is codeword for ‘we are offering you an informal admission’. Given the MHA 1983 principle of ‘least restrictive first’, I calculated that they didn’t think I was safe to treat in the community if they’d offered me this. Therefore, if I refuse I am taking a less restrictive option off the table and probably giving them grounds to apply a section 2 - which I didn’t want.

Luckily there was a bed locally and I travelled 2 minutes by car to the hospital, instead of spending hours travelling 200 miles in a secure ambulance. That scenario is all too often a reality patients face. For an autistic patient with ADHD, CPTSD and an extreme sensitivity to loss of autonomy, like me - this would be horrific.

The date was 21st December 2025. The words of Sandal Bergman in the film ‘Conan the Barbarian’ sprang to mind — Do you know what horrors lie beyond these walls?

The truth was I did not know what horrors lay beyond those walls.

It was a surreal, liminal space. A place out of space and out of time, like being in an alternate reality. When I arrived, they weighed me, took bloods, did an ECG, blood pressure and pulse, and mapped out extant self-harm scars.

I was shown to my room, and left alone for a bit.

The ward in question has 16 beds, each private, single rooms. Two were not ensuite and I had one of these, but in honesty? I didn’t mind. The other guys on the ward definitely needed the ensuite more than me. I actually found my presence there quite absurd and I felt the staff felt the same way.

Eventually a nurse, I think a deputy ward manager, came asked if she could speak to me. I told her to have a seat and we talked.

After that I spent my time reading, studying chess, going for the group walks around the grounds and being fed mountains of what I could only describe as comfort food.

The food was surprisingly good to be honest. It wasn’t The Ivy, it was good, but it was ‘good school dinners’. There was definitely lots of it though, and I ate more custard during my short tenure as a resident than I’d eaten during the previous decade of my life.

It was over the Christmas period. The ward had no junior doctor due to a strike and no consultant due to annual leave. Staff spoke to me, but generally left me alone. I befriended a couple of fellow inmates. But actually mostly tried to keep myself to myself. I read a lot, studied chess and discussed literature, science, technology, philosophy and more.

The chess study was some of the most intensive chess study I’ve ever done and my online rating climbed to an all time new high.

The reason I was there as I understood was twofold. Partly containment, over fears that I was a genuine suicide risk. Partly for monitoring to ensure I didn’t suffer another lengthy period of paralysis with awareness.

The whole experience was extremely surreal and somewhat absurd. Despite my status as an informal patient, the grinding gears of the Mental Health Act loomed over me like a dark shadow. Every poster, explaining the different sections and your rights. Every time I stepped near the exit door and realised I would have to ask permission to leave. Of course I had a right to leave, but if staff thought I was unsafe they could use a section to hold me. Every time someone handed me meds and instead of simply walking away, they wait, they watch, they record. Every night, after lights out, the blind on the door opening momentarily and a torch shone through to check I’m where I’m supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

Being admitted to a psychiatric ward feels paternalistic. It feels infantilising. On one occasion a nurse from the PICU (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) was drafted in to interview me for risk assessment. She started explaining my rights as a detained person and my heart raced, felt genuine panic. I corrected her, it was an honest mistake. But for a moment, my cross-wired brain assumed I was being moved to PICU and sectioned.

The fact is, I was not suffering from psychosis. By the time I was admitted the paralysis had long faded. I had capacity. I had insight. I was wholly reliant on the good will and professionalism of mostly twenty-somethings with training in mental health. Me, at the time a Director of a multimillion pound manufacturing business, a First Class Honours Graduate, an author and publisher of 7 novels, a novella and three short stories. An award-winning freelance motoring journalist and novelist.

A gentleman I nicknamed ‘PICU Pete’ spent time on the ward, I saw him one day shadow boxing in the corridor whilst proclaiming himself a Grand Master of all Fighting styles. I have 1st Dan Taekwondo black belt with the TAGB and 2nd Dan with PUMA. I’ve trained Muay Thai with Master Sken and trained in Systema and Lau Gar Kung Fu. I have Ikkyu in Kendo. I don’t think I actually mentioned any of this to anybody, but it further highlighted the absurdity. I thought the staff felt it was quite absurd too. Given the depth and complexity of conversation I engaged in.

I think we ended up with an uneasy truce and mutual understanding. I talked, I engaged, I never mentioned the absurdity of the situation and they reciprocated. I appreciated that. I was well looked after. They were kind. But the whole experience was surreal and absurd and not one I intend to repeat.

Here’s the text of the article, reproduced in full:-

The Clarkson ‘Excellent’ - In Depth Road Test Report

- Introduction

Getting hold of a Clarkson ‘Excellent’ to review was not easy. In fact it was impossible. Only one prototype of this forthcoming model exists and the manufacturer jealously guards it, allowing few motoring journalists access to the vehicle. The ‘Excellent’ was conceived as a solution to the age of old problem of creating a ‘Sporty’ SUV with great off-road capability, but also spirited performance, good track manners and pin-point handing. This is something the motoring industry at large has tried and failed to do in the past. So does Clarkson’s ‘Excellent’ succeed where Porsche, BMW and Jaguar failed? Thankfully, I’ve been able to watch footage of respected, serious motoring journalists reviewing the car. Well, erm, one respected, serious motoring journalist and his colleagues... Maybe... Anyway I’ve reviewed the footage and compiled their thoughts into a thorough, detailed road test report.

- Design & Styling 2/5

In a statement from the manufacturer, the Excellent was reported to have been designed around the clean lines and understated elegance of the Mercedes SL. To that aspiration, the ‘Excellent’ succeeds. The only short-coming is the fact that the manufacturer so obviously failed to seamlessly marry the Mercedes shell to its Land Rover Discovery under-pinnings, giving you the impression somebody just dumped a car onto a chassis, then knocked it into place with a hammer. In defence of the Excellent, the chassis and body are reasonably well proportioned and the giant, off-road wheels don’t look entirely out of place beneath the arches of the SL. The end product is certainly a unique vehicle, which is sure to turn heads wherever you drive it.

- Interior 0/5

Uniquely the manufacturer has gone for a distressed, retro look inside the car, reminiscent of the recent trend for expensive furniture makers to sell their wares ‘distressed’ at a premium price. The designers of the Excellent have gone a step further though and boldly decided to ensure most, no, nearly all of the equipment doesn’t work. The dials and switches are well placed, however that’s kind of irrelevant because none of them work. The speedometer which DOES work, is poorly placed, beside your left knee, meaning you have to take your eyes off the road to ascertain what speed you’re doing.

Following in the footsteps of car makers like Lotus, Noble, Ultima and Ariel, Clarkson has avoided concealing the functional. (Or in this case non-functional) elements of the car. The interior of the Excellent is accented with bare wires, cable ties and bits of roughly cut, rusty metal. The overall feel is a somewhat post-apocalypse theme, giving you a sense of driving across a desert Tina Turner style, pursuing the Road Warrior.

Finished in faux wood, blue plastic and slightly mouldy carpet the interior is more spartan than King Leonidas's 300 and less comfortable than having your scrotum stapled to a table. UK buyers will have to wear a coat and thick gloves as there is no heating whatsoever, unless you happen to have a small electrical fire in the car while driving.

Pop open the glove box and you'll find loose electrical parts and bare wires, continuing the theme of general 'knocked together in a shed' crapness.

In defence of the Excellent, the doors DID actually open and the seat adjustment worked.

- Performance 1/5

The 3.9 L V8 ‘Excellent’

Unlike most modern SUVs, which tend to feature a small, economical, punchy diesel engine - the Excellent features an ancient, creaky, 3.9 L V8 Petrol. Performance, though difficult to describe as ‘brisk’ is genuinely fast enough for thrills, given that the car has hardly any brakes and utterly atrocious handling. In a drag race, the Excellent was barely able to outstrip a 1.5 L diesel Dacia, without the body falling off.

- Ride & Handling 1/5

The tester found some play in the steering wheel. Driving the Excellent allows you to imagine you’re in one of those old American, black and white films, where the actor is sitting behind the wheel turning it furiously left to right, while going in a straight line. You would HAVE to avoid making constant eye-contact with the passenger however, as the pitiful brakes mean slowing down requires a significant amount of forward planning. The ride is one strong point of the Excellent. It’s supple and irons out the bumps VERY effectively. The car corners surprisingly flat for such a high-riding vehicle, perhaps due to the lightweight body shell and the dampers.

The Excellent

- MPG & Running Costs 0/5

Most modern SUVs clock around 45 mpg for diesel. The official figures for the Excellent aren’t in yet, but experts estimate instead of the typical 45 miles per gallon, it should return 4 to 5 gallons per mile. The ‘on its last legs’ V8 in the test vehicle is probably about as fuel efficient as setting fire to an oil field. Maintenance wise, the Excellent is expected to fare poorly. The production method of hacking apart two ancient cars and welding them together means warranty is likely to be non-existent and you will be driving around in constant fear of your entire car falling apart or the body shell where you’re sitting just falling off the chassis. Buyers should put thousands a month aside for repairs and probably have a mechanic who’s good at welding on standby.

- Verdict 1/5 “A bad idea poorly executed, overall crap, only to be driven as a joke.”

All hand built cars live or die on the skill of the engineer crafting them. The Excellent is no exception. With the Excellent, an imaginative solution to a problem that didn’t exist was realised. In bringing the idea of the Excellent to fruition, Clarkson butchered not one, but two classic cars and created a fairly awful, barely drivable, rolling joke. Off road capabilities of the Excellent proved impressive, but its lack of an interior and working elements such as heaters, dials and gauges proved detrimental to its desirability. Even Lada offer a working heater with their Niva, even the Suzuki Jimny has a working rev counter and glove box. All in all the Excellent is a car for people who like to be publicly humiliated. If you’re the sort of person who enjoyed being stripped naked and handcuffed to a lamp post on your stag night, then driving the Excellent might be for you! Or if you have a genuine death wish and want to set out to go to work every morning, with your wife wondering whether you’ll make it home in one piece or not... Then the Excellent might be a car to consider.

- Prices & Specs

Clarkson hasn’t released an official price list or options list for the Excellent. However early suggestions are that the Excellent will retail for £120,000. Options rumored to be be available include a heater that doesn’t involve having an electrical fire in the car and a speedometer that’s placed somewhere you can actually see it, though neither of these have been confirmed yet. The Excellent is expected to be released with one level of trim, called ‘Crap’. However high performance or more luxury levels of trim may be introduced later. The Excellent is said to be available in kit form for £14,000, though only one customer has successfully completed the build at the time of writing.

“During early Spring 2016, I attended a Field School as part of the Open University module S295 - The Biology of Survival. I kept a diary of the few days I was there, and shared it with fellow students. Those who hadn't attended particularly enjoyed it, as it gave them an idea of what they missed. They also commented on enjoying the style and the humor. For that reason I've decided to publish it here and share it. However I have changed the names of all the other students, so as to preserve their anonymity!

Yes, I know most people see me as a fiction man, but I do like a bit of 'Life Writing' and I got great marks for my 'Life Writing' pieces during my University creative writing course!

Day 1

I made it - just. The lovely lady who appears to reside in my Jaguar’s Sat Nav system decided, that seeing as I’ve never been to Shrewsbury, I should see it. Unfortunately it was at around 4:30pm that I erroneously started driving through the myriad of traffic lights and one way streets which IS Shrewsbury.

Luckily, I got here for 4:55pm JUST. Dropped my things off in my rather cosy, single room with en-suite shower and toilet. It’s not that I’m anti-social of course. it’s just that my ageing body has too many miles on the clock and I have a tendency to make funny noises when I sleep. Seriously - single berth accommodation is really for the benefit of the others.

The folks on the course seem a lovely bunch. I appear to be around the middle of the age demographic at 38. The short talk on flower parts and identification and Robin’s slideshow were enjoyable. As were the copious amounts of cheese and biscuits and numerous beers afterwards. The chicken dinner followed by trifle was lovely too!

There appear to be around twenty of us or so on this school - I haven’t counted properly yet. I’ve tried to identify other members of this tutor group but so far I haven’t seen anyone I know. I met a girl from Bristol, a girl from Latvia and spent several hours talking about diving, politics, religion, education, the NHS and more with an as yet unnamed Scot and a 43 year old guy who appears keen for a Brexit ‘Leave’ vote.... Still, I enjoyed both of their company very much and look forward to seeing them tomorrow. I know more about diving than I ever knew and I’m even more keen to dive than I was previous to this!

If anyone IS in my tutor group, please identify yourself to me! I’m the slightly haggard looking, perma-tired, heroically bald and painfully shy guy that seems to have something of a drink problem. The best time to speak to me is between two and three pints when my social awkwardness is somewhat faded, but I’m still coherent and able to communicate without launching into mildly offensive rants about one thing or another...

Looking forward to getting stuck in tomorrow!

(This piece was posted and shared contemporously within my tutor group hence the call for members to identify themselves.)

Day 2 - Friday

Last night I eventually went to bed at around 4:30am and got up at 7:30 for a full english....

I’ll update day 2 and 3 later. I think writing these when I just got back from a long drinking session was a bad idea. I don’t even normally drink!

After eventually drifting off to a slightly alcohol induced slumber last night, I woke up early - 6 am. My room at this point seemed to be emulating the environmental conditions of the freezer compartment of a refrigerator. Seriously, it was so cold, I didn’t even want to pull my arms out from under the duvet to check the time. When I did, I was kind of pleased I could go back to sleep for an hour.

Unfortunately, despite succeeding in falling asleep again, when I awoke again at around 7am, I still felt like I was sleeping in arctic conditions. I considered taking a hot shower to warm up, but logic told me getting dressed quickly was a more sensible option. I was glad I’d gotten up early. It took me some time to go through all my things and organize all my stuff. I was also glad I’d booked a single berth accommodation - it’s much easier to organize yourself, at the cost of appearing a bit anti-social.

I made it down to breakfast at around 8am and there was a VERY nice full English breakfast on offer. It had sausages, bacon, hash browns, mushrooms, fried eggs and even vegetarian sausages. Plus fruit juice and all the tea and coffee you could drink. Interestingly, the centre are very keen to have gluten free cakes and soya milk available, so I suspect they cater well to people with strange dietary requirements.

After breakfast, I finally managed to identify a member of my tutor group - Claire, who I spoke to on an number of occasions from that point onward and sat next to for the first classroom session.

Thankfully I decided to wear my waterproof trousers and take my wellies to the first session, which started at around 9am.

Interestingly, you’d think a field study residential, would involve a lot of ‘study in the field’ however, it can’t. The problem is, the sort of flowers and pollinating insects we were interested in, simply don’t tend to come out if the weather is inclement. This particular morning was VERY cold and overcast. However, after a brief classroom session, establishing what the objectives of the course are - we set out for a stroll. It was a tour really, a tour of the site and the grounds. Despite the temperature and darkness, we DID find some very interesting specimens. Two insect experts were on site to help spot and identify species, a Nigel and another chap who despite being a very serious and studious seeming chap, insisted on being called ‘Cheese’. This was quite odd and I never got to the bottom of why he went by the moniker of a dairy product. Apparently there is a reason for this, but nobody knows it except for Cheese and it really didn’t seem polite to ask - though I did consider asking on more than one occasion.

Towards the start of the tour we spotted a Queen Buff Tailed Bumble Bee and Tree Bumble Bee. Cheese caught some in a big net and managed to deposit them in separate specimen jars for us to pass around. I think he also caught a Bombus Pastorum. Then we found some mining bee nests in the lawn area under a tree. Apparently there’s a species of hover fly which kicks its eggs into mining bee nests and you can actually watch them do this if you’re lucky - though I didn’t see that.

The next stop was a quince plant, right up against the wall of the house. It’s got a tubular flower head, and we quickly noticed every flower had been robbed. This basically means, the flower is adapted for a species with a long probiscus to pollinate it. They are supposed to land at the top of the corolla and shove their faces into the pollen, so they can reach down and suck the nectar out like a straw. Perhaps because the nectar in this plant is particularly attractive, numerous other species went for the nectar too though. What they do is land below the sepals and bite a hole in, bypassing the pollen area and stealing the nectar without providing the pollination service for the plant. Once a hole is made, the flowers still seem to produce nectar, but other smaller insects without teeth capable of breaking in will go to an already made hole and also steal nectar.

Moving on, we rounded the corner to a tree which looked suspiciously like a cherry, but was actually a tree with tiny apples on it. Cheese, nonchalantly picked one and popped it into his mouth before commenting on the flavour, chewing it up and eating it. Melanie (A lovely lady, not from our tutor group) also picked one and started munching away, eventually eating it. After a brief discussion on flavour and texture, the debate turned to whether they are edible or poisonous. To which Melanie remarked to Cheese. ‘Well you know it’s edible.” because he’d started it! However his reply was a shrug and an ‘I don’t actually...’ This was mildly amusing. Thankfully nobody died so they must have been at least more or less edible.

Ooh, I forgot another interesting plant Robin showed us near to the Archangel and the Forget Me Nots. It’s a rare plant that I think is pollinated by solitary bees. It has many names, my notes are at home so I can’t list them here. I think one was “Priest in the Hole” or “Priest in the Well”... Lord and Ladies? It’s an odd plant with a fascinating method of achieving pollination, which involves sterile male stamens trapping an insect, then withering to allow the insect to leave once it’s picked up the pollen. It’s easy to look at this plants biology and hypothesize that with further evolution it could lead to a carnivorous plant. The mechanism for trapping insects is very similar in this and some carnivorous plants.

The walk then went down through the fields to the area where the centre sewage works are. There are some great trees and interesting species around there, along with a very cleverly made bee hotel. What Cheese had done was drill holes in wood, then cut the wood through the hole and screwed a piece of perspex to it. This meant you could take one of the pieces out and look inside ariel nesting bee nests. Basically they go to the back of a hole, gather pollen and nectar and deposit a food source before laying an egg into it. Then they seal it in with soil and repeat, so the tube fills up with little chambers. When it’s time for them to emerge, if the ones at the front haven’t cleared the nesting tube in time, the one at the back bites the back of the one in front to encourage it. I like the idea, I might try building one for my daughter. If you choose to make a bee hotel, you should replace logs and clean it out every two years, otherwise an abundance of parasites can build up and the bees may be less successful.

Squelching around the grounds for over an hour was interesting, but also quite torturous at times. It was VERY cold on this day and by the time we got back I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. An extra pair of socks, some gloves and a thicker top layer might have helped. If you go on this course, don’t underestimate the weather. What feels pleasantly cool, when you’ve been sitting in a warm classroom and just walked outside; can start to feel bitter cold when you’ve been standing still listening to someone talk for ten minutes!

Yes, I was quite pleased to eventually head back to the classroom for a coffee and a sandwich. The sandwiches were also provided by the centre. Basically in the breakfast room, there is a table with butter, fillings, loaves of bread and baps. You finish your breakfast, then spend a few minutes knocking up some sandwiches. I did a tuna and cucumber bap and a ham and cheese on this particular day and also took a couple of rather tasty chocolate cookies.

I think it was around this time that I identified more tutor group members: Sally Nube - from the Netherlands, who embarrassingly I always assumed pronounced her name ‘Nube’, to rhyme with ‘Tube’ however it’s actually pronounced ‘New Bay’. Again - nice to put a name to a face. I definitely have respect for Sally, she’d actually driven to Preston Montford FROM the Netherlands! This is a seriously epic drive and I hope she had an enjoyable and uneventful journey back.

The afternoon was a little slower, but still useful. We covered plant identification further and did some statistics work with Robin. The statistics was a great session, it really helped. During this session, I seem to recall meeting another Tutor Grouper - Alfred, a bearded fellow who rather than discarding his Primrose flower samples after dissection, chose to eat them! I’ll be honest I did consider trying one, apparently they’re both a tasty and healthy snack - however I just can’t get my head around it. I have to say, knowing which commonly growing garden plants ARE edible and nice to eat plants would be a VERY useful, post-zombie apocalypse skill, so I haven’t ruled out trying to learn more about this sort of thing and trying it at some point.

After the day’s lessons, Mike (Who won this particular evening’s ‘Last man standing’ AND the Saturday ‘Most Hungover Student’ awards), Denise, who was lovely and Lisa, who was also lovely; all came out for a run in the Jag. I needed some petrol and they wanted to buy snacks and booze from the local petrol station. It was a nice little social thing to do, even though I had to deposit the child seats in the boot to allow everyone a comfortable ride. Also, as an added bonus the local garage is a Shell garage, which sells V-Power Nitro Plus Super Unleaded - which is the only super unleaded actually proven to improve performance. I’m pretty sure my crotchety old, ancient Jag has lost a few of it’s 231 BHP so V-Power maybe goes a little way to make up for it?

When we got back I gave my wife a quick call to sympathize with her over having to look after the kids alone and say hello, then headed down to the bar again. After securing a nice pint of Old Speckled Hen and sitting down to relax I overheard a conversation about the low numbers in the common room. Upon investigation, I managed to establish that the ‘studious ones’ were next door in the classroom having a tutorial using someone’s laptop. Now, despite enjoying the common room and a good old fashioned drinking session, I actually aspire to be able to consider myself ‘a studious one’. So I nipped next door, pint in hand, only to find Claire, Sally and the tutor David enjoying Yosef’s tutorial on Claire’s laptop! Now I’d missed most, but there was a great atmosphere in there and the slideshow being shown was about TMA 3 so I politely asked if they minded me joining the session, with my pint and made notes on my iPhone. I have to say it was a great atmosphere and being in the room together, as Yosef went through his material was enjoyable. I almost wonder if this is a model the OU could look at to get some human interaction between its students - even if the tutor wasn’t able to attend. I don’t know, it was just somehow more satisfying than staring at a screen alone. I wish I’d been in from the start, though I can’t complain about being able to sup a pint while making notes!

After that it was back to the bar where I spent most of the rest of the night chatting to Denise. Who was really nice. There was a mildly amusing moment when she explained that she’d been banned from flying for three years and my cross-wired, malfunctioning brain assumed she had a pilot’s licence and said something to this effect! It turns out it was due to a severe ear infection or something and no she doesn’t have a pilots licence! I spent more time talking to Pete, Lisa, Mike, Stan - the Scottish guy and Elise - a girl from Jersey. We bought a few rounds, and I eventually ambled up to the house at around midnight I think? Might have been a bit later. I certainly headed to bed while the common room was still quite full. The next day, I woke somewhat later than intended, and I needed a couple of paracetamol!

Oh, I almost forgot - the dinner on this day also had a vegetarian option - vegetable kiev, but I opted for the Pork and apple, which was rather nice. In the evening session I also forgot to mention that we talked about our first attempt at a study, where the 24 of us would be split into two groups of 12 and we would study pollination of Willow Trees.

I will report back on day 3 soon!

Day 3 - Saturday

I’m not sure if anyone is reading or enjoying the rest of these posts, but I started so I’ll finish. First of all I forgot, on Friday afternoon we spent some time in small groups familiarizing ourselves with environmental conditions measuring tools. Two different kinds of wind speed meters, a light photometer and a tool for measuring relative humidity with two thermometers, one with a wet bulb and one with a dry bulb.

Ultimately we’re not going to have access to these for the actual study, but I am told there is a light meter app you can get for smartphones so you might be able to include some photometer readings with that on your investigation.

We also had a poll in the evening session and something of a negotiation as to what we were going to study. The Willow tree won the vote and one group measured visits of bees and non-bees (which I believe were exclusively hover-flies) while the other measured time spent per visit on the same trees. The other comparative factor was male vs female Willow trees.

After breakfast and a couple of recuperative paracetamol on the Saturday, we headed to the classroom. Now we’d already split into groups so the first task was to organize exactly what we were going to study and how we were going to study it. In the end, after exploring various clumps of Willow trees we settled on a group where we could study three males and three females and extrapolate them into one large data set. When the time was right, the sun was shining and we expected there to be pollinators visiting the trees - we headed out to do the investigation.

Now Saturday had much better weather, it was warm, sunny and not too windy. It was actually quite pleasant standing quietly and observing the trees. Well, I say quite pleasant, but trying to perform this investigation actually taught me something else about environmental science, and that is the unpredictability of whether you get results. I teamed up with Stan to observe a male tree which seemed to have anthers in a good state, producing pollen. We counted in five minute blocks I think? Or was it 15? Either way, it became both rather boring and incredibly disheartening, when you can hear others in the group, standing by their trees counting, ‘Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen...’ while we were standing, staring alternately from the tree to the long line of zeros which were our counts for both kinds of pollinators for the preceding blocks. Still, we did get a couple eventually and thanks to the other pairs’ good fortunes we ended up with some very crunchable data.

Back at the classroom, Vanessa I think? No, I can’t remember her name. She was the girl who accidentally cut her eyeball with a piece of paper once - don’t worry it didn’t happen on the course, but it sounded extremely painful... Though I’m not sure if it would have been as painful as the occasion when another student was chopping chili’s and dropped a contact lens and popped it back in without thinking! Yes, we occasionally had these sort of conversations. Who’s had the worst eye injury was one of the better ones, though there was a general consensus that the contact lens in the chili sounded like a potential student prank! Though I hope nobody actually takes that away with them, that sort of pain in your eyes CAN’T be good for you!

Robin came and had a look at our data and gave us a few suggestions for shuffling it around and getting the best out of it. He also managed to show me specifically how to add the inter-quartile as error bars, which you should do, if your data does not have a normal distribution. You can only use the mean for your results and the standard deviation if you HAVE normal distribution, otherwise you must use the median for the average and draw errors bars based on the inter-quartile.

After both groups presenting their results there was a brief discussion and it was time to move on. However, something big did come to light over the weekend about hypothesis. There was a consensus that the course material had presented the null hypothesis as more important than the hypothesis and that the null should be focused on. David and Robin however were adamant this wasn’t true. It seems the way the course materials have been written infer you should focus on the Null Hypothesis rather than the actual hypothesis. The reality is that the Null Hypothesis is really only important for the statistical test. Otherwise we should generally be talking about whether the results support our hypothesis or not.

There was also a lot of talk over the weekend about the language we use in the report and advice on scientific writing. There are certain terms we use in science which have a specific meaning. There are certain things we should avoid using, if we intend to sound scientific. ‘Significant’ is a specific mathematical term when talking about statistics. We should therefore reserve this term for that use in our reports in order to avoid confusion. There are plenty of other options for this so it shouldn’t be too difficult. We really need to aim to use precise, factual statements too. Claiming things were ‘interesting’ for example should probably only be done very cautiously, if at all. We can’t talk about ‘proving’ or ‘disproving’ a hypothesis. Science doesn’t tend to work in absolutes, so we should aim to use language more like. ‘The statistical test showed that the results were significant. These results therefore support the hypothesis.’

The end of this day was spent forming smaller groups for a second study we’d be doing the next day. For this study I teamed up with Katrina, the Latvian girl and Jared from Belgium. I’d had dinner with them both just before, because we’d spotted each other out as fellow martial artists and had a lengthy discussion about martial arts. Jared does Wing Chun Kung Fu, Katrina does White Crane Style Kung Fu and I’m a 2nd Degree Black Belt in ITF style Taekwondo, but I haven’t done it for years. My choice of team-mates, despite them both being charming and a joy to work with turned out to be a mistake. The problem was they both had to catch an early train meaning I would be left flying solo, having to present our data, results and hypothesis alone. I didn’t learn this until the next day though.

It was chicken again for dinner, with a stuffed aubergine for the veggie option. Dessert was fruit salad, but I simply couldn’t face it. I normally have one round of toast for breakfast and skip lunch, so for the entire weekend I found myself constantly feeling full up to the brim! I think I’ve put on a stone! It doesn’t help that every afternoon a large supply of cake is provided for the afternoon coffee break and after the evening session a 3’ long cheese board is presented along with crackers. Yes, I ate quite a lot of cheese over the residential school!

Before I went down to the bar after lessons, I went back to my room for some quiet time. I took the opportunity to ring my wife and see how the kids were. They’d gone out for dinner with my in-laws to Pizza Express so were quite happy, though I think the food at the FSC was generally nicer than a Pizza Express Pizza!

During the conversation with my wife, I conceded that I’d drank a little more than I really ought to the previous night and stayed up a little later than I’d intended. To which end, I suggested I was just going to pop down to the bar for an hour, one pint, quick chat, then an early night.

That was the plan.

The evening didn’t entirely go to plan, as I ended up eventually drinking around three pints, a double gin and tonic, a double single malt and about half a pint of white wine and staying up until 4:30am chatting to Stan, the scottish guy, Lisa from Wakefield, near Leeds and Katrina, the Latvian girl! None of us were actually drunk, we were just having a great time getting to know one another and nattering. We eventually left the bar as a group at around 4:15am and it took me fifteen minutes to get back and get to sleep. I’ll be honest, I did find going to sleep at 4:30am, when breakfast would be served at 8:00am, a little disconcerting. Especially given the fact I really wanted a shower and a shave to freshen up. An added complication was that the next day I would be told the rooms need to be emptied by 9:00am! I’m not sure if this was entirely true, but as you can imagine the mention of it the next day did slightly increase my stress levels!

I’ll wrap this up with the last day soon. Is anyone enjoying these? Finding them interesting?

Day 4 - Sunday

Miraculously, despite going to bed at 4:30am after wiling away the early hours drinking and chatting with Stan, Katrina and Lisa; I actually woke up at 7am feeling pretty good. I had a shower and a shave in my en-suite shower room and headed out to breakfast. On the stairs I overheard someone say they’d asked for their rooms to be emptied by 9am, so I turned back, packed up and loaded the stuff I wouldn’t need for the day in the car. I also overheard someone complaining about cleaning up their room mates drink-induced sick - another reason to consider booking single berth accommodation!

After enjoying another, hotel-grade full English breakfast, and making a packed lunch, I headed to the classroom. The morning session was delivered by David and it was an in depth explanation on how to write the report for the TMA 3 Investigation. It was a really solid session, I made a lot of notes and I came out of it with a far clearer idea of how to structure and write the report. As he discussed it, he went into every section and what to, and what NOT to include in each section. A good piece of advice I thought, which stuck with me; was to read the report backwards once it was written and ensure every section was tied together with nothing irrelevant and nothing not linked forwards and backwards through the report.

Again, actually getting out there early and spending a day outside wouldn’t have been possible because the insects are not active all day. However I don’t think it matters because the classroom sessions on the Residential School were so good. I would argue; if someone couldn’t make the field school, an alternative one day tutorial where Robin and David’s lessons on report writing, statistical analysis and plant and insect identification would be a reasonable substitute. Yes, you would be missing out on the valuable experience, but it could be delivered in any University Classroom.

I did find myself having trouble hydrating myself this morning. I didn’t have a headache or feel hungover, but I did feel dehydrated and a little tired. I found myself drinking copious amounts of squash, tea and coffee, desperately trying to get some fluids in! Stan, also looked a bit tired. Katrina over slept and I think may have had to skip breakfast! She then had a minor panic as she hadn’t packed her things. It was okay though, after the session she nipped back to sort her room out while Jared and I did another scout around for our pilot study site. I didn’t speak to Lisa much this morning - she was in another group, but she looked none the worse for wear!

By the time Katrina returned to us, we’d established what we thought would be a good site for the study and planned our pilot. We then decided we had to skip the pilot part because Jared and Katrina had an early train to catch. This meant I would be flying solo on discussing our findings! It also meant we had to move fairly quickly, if we were going to do any statistical analysis, discuss our results and test our hypothesis effectively.

Because of these obvious time constraints we chose to investigate the difference between pollinator kinds visiting two different coloured flowers. Simple seemed the best idea in the circumstances. For the flowers we looked at purple, Lung Wort in the raised bed and yellow, Primrose in the same area. The aim was to produce a 2 x 2 contingency square, so we could do a Chi squared test. (We did Mann U Whitney the previous day on the Willows). It was a very pleasant day, the sun was shining, the temperature was up and we observed a number of pollination opportunities... On the Lung Wort...

For some reason, the Primrose wasn’t attracting a thing. After a while this was quite apparent and we had a brief discussion on how to save the study. There’s nothing wrong with zeros in your results, but I think it’s always nice to have a solid set of figures in your data. Low numbers mean something is infrequent, but if your tally is filled with zeros, from a scientific point of view it opens the question of whether the event happens at all!

We actually made the fatal error of extending the study, hoping to obtain larger counts - which we did for the Lung Wort. Unfortunately our Primrose count remained almost non-existent. We observed hover flies and bees and saw at least three distinct species of bumble bee visit the Lung Wort, but hardly a thing on the Primrose. I think the factors affecting this were the Primrose not being fully open, perhaps a light breeze that was blowing, maybe the position of the sun, or alternatively the fact that we’d selected a busy spot and for short periods of time the bed had four to six people crowding around it. I can’t be sure but I’d be inclined to hypothesize that large groups of environmental scientists observing a plant, dissuades pollinators from visiting! Obviously to test this hypothesis I’d have to do some counts on the same plant, during similar environmental conditions with a control condition of only one individual discreetly counting from a short distance away and a test condition of eight students huddled around the plant, notebooks in hand shouting out counts and species names!

If anyone DOES this field school again, perhaps you could try this as a study? It’s an interesting one, because most studies people suggest appear to hinge on testing different plants and different pollinators in similar environments. In this instance you would be controlling the environment, so you could either limit the plants or alternate the others too and build a larger than 2 x 2 contingecy square for your Chi Squared test. You’d be testing for a relationship between pollinator kinds and number of environmental scientists present of course, but the extra dimensions of different plants might be a bridge too far in terms of complexity, at least for TMA 3.

Anyway, a time came when a large chunk of the group, including my co-conspirators vanished. The curse of the early train home I’m afraid! I was very, very tempted to offer to run Jared and Katrina to the station in the Jag and then to quietly potter home. In the end someone else had to go and they offered them a lift, so I decided to hang around and see if I could draw any inspiration from the other groups investigations. I’m glad I did, quite a few interesting points were raised in the afternoon session and I managed to clear up a question I had about means and medians and inter-quartile bars with Robin and David. If you’re interested the answer was that you can only take a mean if the data is normally distributed, if you have a lot of zeros for example, you need to look at the median figure or the zeros would skew the results if you used mean.

After the final session, it was time to leave. We’d covered an awful lot in these three days, they were all long days - and by that I don’t just mean the staying up until 4:30am bit! Every day, we returned to the classroom after dinner (6pm - 7pm) for at least another hour. However it was all interesting, it was all engaging, I learned a lot and I met some awesome people. I’d really have liked to have gotten around and met more if I could! It’d be great to keep in touch.

It also renewed my enthusiasm for this course. I think this is a tricky course to do if you’re in my situation where your time is generally limited to ‘late at night’. Dropping everything to experience the course as it should be experienced for a couple of days, gives you a much better insight as to what working in environmental science might be like.

Hope you enjoyed the diary!

Martyn

I’ve written and published seven novels, a novella, and three short stories. I get good reviews. I sell books, but mostly ebooks. Why don’t I sell more paperbacks? As a self-published author, getting bookshops to stock my titles is nigh on impossible. Print-on-demand costs make broad distribution highly impractical. I may try to move to traditional publishing at some point—when I have the right manuscript and find an agent who feels like a good fit for my highly subversive fiction.

What I can’t do I can’t tell you how to write a novel. I can’t even tell you how I wrote my novels, because writing one is such a complex and nuanced endeavor that no two people approach it in exactly the same way. I’m sure, like me, most authors don’t even approach it the same way twice.

What I can do I can give you some advice that will help you get started and, hopefully, put together something you can be proud of. This is based on my own experience; other authors will have differing opinions. Feel free to discard any of this advice that doesn’t sit well with you.

The Idea The first thing you need is an idea. It doesn’t have to be “big,” but you need a reason to start. It might be a zombie apocalypse, an alien invasion, or a recently divorced woman inheriting her aunt’s cottage in Cork, struggling to fit in with the local culture while trying to find love.

The Idea does not matter The only truly important thing is that you have one. You can have the best idea in the world and still produce a terrible novel. I used to see posts on writing forums from people offering to share their “amazing idea” for someone else to write as a 50/50 split. This is a terrible deal. A good writer can make an awesome story out of a mediocre idea, but a story written by a poor writer will be poor, regardless of the premise.

Inverse the scale Big ideas—the zombie apocalypse, the alien invasion, the cult seizing parliament—have to be kept small. In good writing, you make the big story small, and the small story big. What engages readers isn’t the world-changing event; it’s the characters and their relationships.

Take Harry Potter. The idea of a wizarding school and mundane characters whisked away to a magical place wasn’t new. Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea was a much earlier iteration of the wizarding school, and C.S. Lewis wrote about ordinary teenagers vanishing to mystical lands long before Rowling started. What made people love Harry Potter was the relationships and the friendships between the main characters. Keep the big story small, and make the small story big.

Choose a perspective You need to decide early on what perspective you want to write from. The common ones are: First person, Third person limited, and Third person omniscient.

• First person is intimate, sometimes claustrophobic, but it allows you to put your reader right in the headspace of the main character. You must ensure your protagonist has a distinct and consistent voice. Within this, you can use the “unreliable narrator”—where the lens through which we experience the story is delusional. Think Fight Club or Joker.

• Third person limited (or “close”) focuses heavily on one character’s thoughts and emotions.

• Third person omniscient has access to all characters’ feelings and thoughts. It is the easiest to write because it requires the least discipline, but you can fall into the trap of “telling” rather than “showing.”

Plotter or Pantser? Decide whether you are a plotter, a pantser, or something in between. George R.R. Martin describes himself as a “gardener”—tending to the story and allowing it to grow naturally. J.R.R. Tolkien famously spent an aeon writing new languages, then mythology and lore, before writing a single book in that world.

I do a combination. I take an idea, write the first couple of chapters, then figure out the ending and write toward it. As you define your characters’ traits and personalities, you will reach a point where you know exactly how they respond to situations; writing merely becomes a matter of placing obstacles in their path. A caveat: to be engaging, characters need growth, and growth comes from adversity. Your hero needs to lose more times than they win. The victories must feel earned.

How to start Start in media res. Start in the action. Don’t start with a lengthy monologue about the world, its cultures, factions, and history. At this point, your reader does not need to know anything. That very first sentence is your chance to grip them. Give them a question, a moment of peril, an uncertain outcome.

I’ll provide two examples for a theoretical novel. Judge for yourself.

Example 1: Darsinia is a world of industry, dirt, and grime. The planet’s surface is dominated by towering spires, each pumping out plumes of thick black smoke as the surface is mined ever more aggressively. The inhabitants are slaves, their every moment dictated by the Administratum—a class of elite overseers who live in glass palaces far above the choking atmosphere. The citizens of the spire, those mining for starship fuel and exotic materials, never see those palaces. They live and die in the smoke and the grime of the undercity.

Example 2: Rath wiped his brow with his sleeve. He swung his pick and shuddered as it bit into the surface, spraying toxic dust with every strike. Ella was pushing the cart closer now. When their eyes met, she offered a tired smile. Four hours. Four hours more and they were done for the day. He’d go to Graz’s Bar, spend a few of the credits he’d earned drinking, trying to ease the pain of his miserable existence. He wondered where Ella went. They seldom had time to talk, and she vanished into the night every time the final bell rang. Today, he would ask her. Maybe invite her for a drink. She braked the cart and waited. Rath smiled. ‘Hey, Ella.’

He began shoveling the material into her cart. He steeled himself and opened his mouth… Then the bell rang. A deafening announcement echoed through the smoke chamber: ‘Sector 7 is being closed for maintenance. All crew are to report to the Service Station immediately.’

He watched her turn her back on him and walk away. Next time. Next time he’d say something.

What do you think? I wrote those openings off the top of my head. Everything I know about writing screams that the personal, granular, eye-to-eye story is more gripping. But what do I know? Read the two, and tell me what you think.

I hope I’ve given you some food for thought. I’ll be back with more soon.

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This is a serious question. Everyone asks themselves if they are depressed from time to time, but the answer is perhaps more nuanced and complex than it might first seem. Being sad, grumpy, or grieving a death are not the same as clinical depression—though the latter can certainly lead to it.

According to the DSM-5-TR, the criteria are as follows:

• Depressed mood: Feeling sad, empty, hopeless, or appearing tearful most of the day, nearly every day. (In children and adolescents, this can present as irritability.)

• Loss of interest or pleasure: Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day.

One of the above must be present. Of the additional symptoms, five or more in total must be present:

• Weight or appetite changes

• Sleep disturbances

• Psychomotor changes

• Fatigue

• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt

• Impaired concentration

• Suicidal ideation

My problem with the DSM-5 is that it fails to address an uncomfortable truth. What if, objectively, you have rational, sensible reasons to feel sad, empty, and hopeless for most of the day? What if your feelings of worthlessness and guilt are justified?

From my perspective, I have always seen depression as a disorder characterized by a low mood for no tangible, objective reason. I have been diagnosed with depression, but I ask myself: is it a mood disorder, or am I simply seeing and understanding the nature of reality with unusual clarity?

I am not the first person to consider this. A philosopher named Hegesius of Cyrene was nicknamed ‘The Death Persuader’ and was banned from teaching by King Ptolemy because so many of his students were ending their lives. Cicero claimed that Hegasius wrote a book called Death by Starvation, which led to so many suicides that he was prohibited from lecturing in Alexandria. His core theme was that happiness is impossible to achieve and the goal of life is the avoidance of pain and sorrow. His conclusion was that, on balance, the most effective way to avoid pain and sorrow was to end one’s life. In the 3rd century BC, you could argue he had a point. Life was infinitely harder then.

The Stoics were pragmatic about self-annihilation. Epictetus was against suicide, but he rationally and pragmatically accepted that in certain circumstances, a logical justification existed. He used the metaphor of being in a smoky room: you can remain inside and endure, but if it becomes too overwhelming, you are free to leave.

Seneca said the best thing about life was that you are free to end it. Cato the Younger, aligned with Seneca’s view that suicide was a valid means of escaping tyranny, ended his life to escape the subjugation of Rome. David Hume was equally, if not more, pragmatic about the ending of one’s life; he challenged the theological taboos surrounding self-termination.

The most committed philosopher in this field was the German poet and philosopher Philipp Mainländer. He wrote his magnum opus, Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The Philosophy of Redemption), and then hanged himself from a platform made of the first print run of copies. He was a student of Schopenhauer and saw the nothingness of death as the noblest aspiration. His view was essentially that the universe is the decaying corpse of a long-dead god, and the only moral imperative with any integrity is to escape the illusion of sought happiness by pursuing death.

These are dark philosophies that sit at the fringe of academic philosophical study. Yet, however uncomfortable we may find it, the truth is that sometimes death is preferable. Life can become so uncomfortable that we accept it is our autonomic right to end it.

This is reflected in the current ‘Right to Die’ movement gaining traction in the UK. If a person is terminally ill and suffering, it is argued they should have a right to assisted suicide without fear of their helpers being prosecuted.

As an extreme pragmatist and a person of logic, I find this idea comforting but also unfair. I do not believe in any of the millions of gods written about in human theological texts. I do not believe that life is a divine gift, nor that it is sacred. I do not believe in writing rules that give special rights to persons of a particular religion, based on their religion. I can understand calls to ban face-coverings in certain public places, but if you ban them as a general rule, you cannot then make an exception for religious headwear that obscures the face. If you allow religious face-obscuring garments, you have to allow balaclavas and masks. Every religion is, ultimately, a cult that transcended its humble origins and gained mainstream respectability.

By this same standard, I feel it is unfair to restrict assisted suicide to persons suffering from a terminal illness. If, for whatever reason, you feel your life is intolerable, you should have a moral right to end it. If you have terminal cancer and are dying painfully, people generally accept that it is legitimate for you to desire death. However, if your life has fallen apart—losing your family, your home, your sight, your mobility—these are seen as things you have a moral obligation to overcome, and clinicians will seek to treat your depression and rehabilitate you.

If I lost my sight or the use of my legs, I would probably choose to end my life. This isn’t to take away from the courage and resilience of others who go through these life-changing injuries and build a meaningful and purposeful life afterward. I admire them, but I do not think I could emulate them.

The last year has been tough. I have been through a lot of changes. My mood has been up and down like the Big Dipper at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. At times I can feel positive and hopeful, but riding the roller coaster of life is tiring. Irrespective of how controversial it is for me to say this, I reserve the right to end my life at the time of my choosing. We are all dying of terminal age from the moment we are born. To choose your time and place isn’t going to alter your fate; it is simply a decision to leave the party early.

For now, I am enduring; I am writing, and I am trying to stay positive. There are moments that make life worth living. When you experience them, cherish them. Appreciate them, and try to find more of them.

Am I depressed? I take an antidepressant. I think it helps to make life more tolerable. As long as I am taking it, I accept I am, at some level, depressed. But I also think I see reality with unusual clarity and pragmatic assessment. They say depression is treatable, but seeing with clarity is not.

I will be writing about writing, mental health and topics such as philosophy, history and science.

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Around that time, the idea for Ofelia came to me while I was in Avignon, France. That initial inspiration led to the scenes where Ofelia is with Amicia in that region. Ofelia was primarily inspired by the films Interview with the Vampire and Let the Right One In.

My take offers a grounded view of how vampirism functions. I really enjoyed exploring the gritty social realism of the story—I find these fringe thought experiments fascinating. If a 600-year-old vampire child entered the British care system, how would she fare? What would living for six centuries as a child truly be like? While the central theme of this second book differs, the story is again told through the lens of detailed, granular social realism. I am not writing about a fantastical world; I am writing about something fantastical happening within our own.

Eagle-eyed readers of Book of Davoth 2 might spot a brief cameo from a dimension-jumping character from Deathsworn Arc 6: Emergence. There is a scene in that book which mirrors a scene in Book of Davoth 2—the same event, viewed from different perspectives. An interdimensional crossover, if you will.

A key theme of Book of Davoth 2 is Tarot. I will not reveal the plot, but I have included the cards as they appear in the book below. The interaction between the readings and the narrative is tight and nuanced. A good friend, whom I am sadly no longer acquainted with, helped me with the initial spread, and tying the readings to the narrative was a rewarding process.

Here is the sequence:

Reading one:

Reading two:

The mysterious card that invades reality:

The final reading:

If you have an interest in the occult, I would be fascinated by your interpretation of these spreads. Naturally, I do not expect anyone to fully grasp the ramifications of the enigmatic ‘Davoth’ card yet—you will have to read the novel to gain that insight.

Martyn Stanley