The Vanishing’s (Part three)

Part one:

Part two:

36 hours later and Eleanor was huddled with the seven 4 AM wonderers who’d responded to Alfred’s advert. She was feeding a fire that spluttered like her physics teaches when confronted with students whilst her companions shared a special brew. Following his advertisement’s publication, Alfred had relocated his missing bus stop operations to a cave in a forest. Unfortunately, now he had an audience, nerves meant his pre-prepared prep talk had to be interrupted for an emergency mediation session. Consequently, his supporters were crouched in a cave, bemused about why a man was humming in the corner. They’d begun scanning the terrain for pubs when, like a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon, Alfred arose.

‘Truth owners. Let’s get these stops back.’

The 4AM wonderers cheered and sat down again in the damp.

‘I believe,’ Alfred said, licking a bead of sweat from his lip, ‘that due to extended human exposure, once inanimate bus stops and Christmas trees have developed feelings. Left whilst we jolly through the country, like neglected partners, they’ve become sullen.’

A communal head shaking and gasp of understanding echoed. Alfred paused for an effect (and nodding break).

Getting into his stride, he continued ‘And so, taking the only route available, instead of displaying endpoints, they use destination boards to swear and grumble.’

Disbelief trickled off the moist walls.

‘And the Christmas trees, I’m sure after consideration you’ll appreciate, are equally misused. Not hard to appreciate why.’

Alfred pitched his voice higher and let the words flow faster as he continued.

‘For 24 days we fill their branches with decorations, love, presents. Come January though, and it’s not just turkey thrown onto the street. Driven by hurt, the trees want revenge. The bus stops want revenge. And teamed up, they will get it.’

Had Alfred applied the same passion to his pursuits of love, he would have been a satisfied man: the 4 AM wanderers left as stirred by their leader’s speech as they had been watching Braveheart.

The psychiatrists in search of Arnold had been perturbed by his un-characteristic escape. Fortunately, the wanderer’s cries for solidarity were so hearty that they reverberated throughout the forest, thus alerting the ambling professionals to his location.

After the impassioned but directionless marchers passed the same potato shaped hedge a third time, Eleanor suggested they follow a pine needle and used ticket trail. It could lead she suggested, ‘to the rebel’s inner sanctum’. Having considered the skills he’d gleamed from watching Bear Grylls, Arnold decreed it ‘a first rate plan’. Consequently, as the wanders drained hydration bladders filled with special brew, they reached a peculiar grotto in the heart of the forest.

By following discarded cans (and Arnold’s, Hansel and Gretel inspired exit trail), the concerned psychiatrists arrived in time to see the bedraggled missionaries being fir marched into a bus stop shaped prison. Arnold’s screeching protest fell upon deaf ears. (Largely because neither trees nor stops possess them and the process of interpreting humans is a laborious one).

‘I understand your frustrated. I’m want to help. Stop, please,’

The wanderer’s accidental adornment of the Christmas trees however, succeeded where Arnold failed in making an impact. Unfortunately for all concerned, it wasn’t the sort best suited to demonstrating good intentions.

‘How dare you,’ the bus stops read in unison, ‘never again shall we be decorated.’

‘Garnish the prisoners and dot them along Moon Lane.’ The command scrolled along a stop that had spent 83 years at London Victoria bus station. After nearly a century watching luggage laden people embark on voyages, LVBS was particularly bitter. The firs beside it loaded their needles with used gum and bobbed towards the retching wanderers.

The Austerity Decade

When self-preservation is branded austerity,

The deficit I see is in humanity.

When banks for the working class trade in food,

The cuts I see are physical.

When referendums exist to further greed,

The unity I see is in ignorance.

 

When 38% is a majority,

I don’t see democracy.

Terror and Wonder at the British Library: The Gothic mind

(The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli on display in Terror and Wonder. Print made by Thomas Burke. London 1783)

I’ve contemplated the question and I’ve considered the contenders; (fantasy for its opportunities of escapism or maybe satire, for its ability to evoke social thought through humour), but still I’m adamant, a more effective display of words power doesn’t exist beyond the Gothic.

Since 1764 and Horace Walpole’s publication of The Castle of Otranto, writers have manipulated sequences of words into spectres that stalk our culture and haunt our nights. By tapping into our imagination and suckling on the yellowing puss of our supressed fears, the genre has thrived. Arguably, the Gothic’s success is inevitable, because, for all the fears we suppress, humanity just can’t resist fingering that yellow head: our desire to explore the darkened depths of humanity is as inescapable as our interest in the inexplicable and the unknown. In consequence, there’s now a bloodsucking vampire under your child’s bed and a mysterious woman in a nightdresses hovering on the horizon.

From October the 4th to January 20th, the British Library reaped the advantages of winter’s shadows by hosting ‘Terror and Wonder’. Subject to morbid curiosity in, I dragged 4 overgrown boys to Kings Cross library, promising vampires and zombies. Having never visited a BL exhibition before, I was unsure what to expect from the ambiguous claim, especially after viewing an advert which wouldn’t be out of place at The London Dungeons.

In the libraries own words however, the exhibition presented ‘two hundred rare objects that trace’ humanities obsession with spine-tingling fancies. From Frankenstein to Jekyll, Hamlet to The Shining, the exhibition trailed the veins and arteries of the gothic, displaying in its wake, the extent to which the genre has infiltrated out culture. (Visitors exited through a room featuring Martin Parr’s photos of the annual ‘Whitby Goth Weekend’.) Spread across a labyrinth of darkened rooms, the display succeeding in being thorough without ever wilting into tediousness. It was an event in which, even if gawping at old manuscripts and illustrated editions failed to maintain your attention, the video clippings, film props and macabre pictures would. By presenting the genre in all its mediums, the library provided ample opportunity to indulge the imagination.

Vampire hunting kit on display at the British Library

Near the ‘Vampire slaying kit’ in the midst of the abundant ‘Victorian gothic’ section, I noticed a 19^th century newspaper clipping highlighting the rational Victorians fascination with The Ripper slaughters. I realised that the events success was as much do with it being thoughtful and well put together, as because like the genre itself, it feed on our enduring fascination with humanities inner Jekyll.

If you door wafts tonight and you’re content that it’s just a draft, you need to check out some of these creepy classics;

The Castle of Otranto, 1764, Horace Walpole– An adventure as much into the beginning of the Gothic as into Otranto. Look out for Walpole’s attempts to combine ‘old’ and ‘new’ romance. Do you reckon he succeeds?

The Monk, 1796, Matthew Lewis- Scandalous and gripping, Lewis’s novel includes a murderous raping monk on the rampage. What more do you need to know?

Dracula, 1897, Bram Stocker- Stocker’s father of all vampires plots relocation to England in order to gain fresh blood. Long and short, this Transylvanian vamp would munch any shiny wannabes for lunch. A must read for vampire fans.

The Gormenghast Trilogy, 1946, Mervyn Peake- Although most commonly assigned to the fantasy genre, I’m including Peake’s trilogy for the gothic strands it draws upon- the towering presence of Gormenghast castle itself representing a central gothic feature. (Additionally included in my list because any opportunity to continue promote Peak is not to be missed.)

The Women in Black, 1983, Susan Hill – A modern classic written in traditional gothic style that, thanks to Hill’s talents, lives up to its predecessors. (I challenge you to watch the two man west end stage adaption without jumping).

Although not a book, I’m including The Babadook (2014,) because in addition to being the scariest film I’ve ever seen, the films exploration and representation of the ‘grief monster’ perfectly demonstrates the argument that the gothic works by feeding on what we supress.