Part 1
Preface:
I have long considered myself a protector. A writer-templar of the truth, with the pen as my sword, and page as steed. And, like those stoic knights of old, I have lived by my sword. Now, in the twilight of my foray into this dream, this illusionary ballet of shadows on the wall, this fiction that we may call life, I will die by my sword. However, as every good fiction requires beginning, middle and end, I raise my sword high for one final tale. O ye noble reader: bear witness to my beginning. Page one:
Chapter the first:
I was spluttered into this world. A feverish, Dionysian, bestial ecstasy, whose unfortunate rejection in the name of Apollo would only cease in moments of writing, and ultimately in death. O Apollo! O wretched soul who dost pluck man’s spirit from primordial unity! Why must ye conquer, spurned only by the pen and page! After all, between womb and tomb, there is only a letter.
I emerged from catacombs-all-slippy on the stroke of midnight. As the hands of time aligned, so did the cold gnarled hands of death. As the day slipped into night, so did my mother. I was parentless. By all accounts, no sound fell from my face-hole; I did not cry. I was too sad.
Chapter the second:
I was abandoned. All legs and skin, I lay alone. The Thames provided for me. The river my mother, and her banks my crib. From the age of two I sought employment. Physical labour is food for the mind. I feasted. Coal mines, stables, factories – O how I dined! Toil’s succulent juices, all moist in the tooth-box. Labour’s sweet wine in word-hole. And, after I was full to sack-burst all on floor, I would sleep. With a Shakespearian manuscript as my roofing, in mud and sordid sludge I would await the dawn.
Chapter the third:
My years of late adolescence. Ah! That tumultuous span whose tempest dost rage and wear the wales of youth. Concerning myself, such rapid waves were at once metaphor and material. I began labour aboard a sea-vessel, the harsh exertion of which, in addition to the affections of my captain, both tender and despicable, quickly made a peculiarly aged man out of me, despite the fact that only twelve winters had chilled my bodily frame. When the necessity arose for me to attend a letter to an outpost in some far-off tropic, I was unawares of the crossroads on which I stood. Oh Mephistopheles! What sweet sacrilege! What cruel irony! What languid providence that in my boyish grip I would clutch my life’s Ursatz. I contracted malaria in that hellish jungle. Nigh on thirteen moons I thrashed from back-of-face to word-hole in feverish hallucination. Macabre spectres haunted my bedpost while the disease ravished my gaunt frame, and I lay in sleep-hole all vomit and insides, while ghoulish apparitions defiled my modesty, leaving me feeling at once empty and full-to-burst-body-blood. As I neared my final cadence, my hellish culmination, I craved for death, longed for expiration, even loved it, my Liebestod. In an act which would become the leitmotif of my life, I garnered the strength to reach across my nightstand. I picked up a quill. Faust! Why did ye welcome sweet damnation! Mephisto! How could you shackle such innocence! By the flickering light of my final candle, I etched into parchment my fantastical hallucinations. Thrusting the document towards a nearby crow, the night triumphed. The candle extinguished. As did I.
Chapter the fourth:
With eyeholes dry, and tongue-cave cracked, I awoke. With the bitter taste of salt in my mouth, I rose to unpleasant memories. What I initially took to be some form of purgatory, materialised in my hazy vision; I was ocean-born; destined for London; rescued. When I arrived back to the capital I was in my twenty-first year. Fate is a cruel jester, and mine was carried not on the wings of angels, but on the wings of a crow; that solitary bastion of night, who did fly my manuscript to London and into the hands of a publisher. I returned a famous writer, my scrawls of insanity published and having found favour country-wide, bringing me no small fortune. That winged beast would remain deep in my affections throughout the rest of my life. A lifelong companionship. I would spend the rest of my wretched existence in the clutches of Mephisto, that soul-reaping harbinger of hell who latched me in his icy clutches that fateful night amidst my malaria-induced delirium. My future was to be marked by slavery; shackled to pen and paper. But that, O noble reader, is a tale for another night.
To be continued….
Alan Holswick, 2010
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