I’m coming up to publishing Zorn, and again I’m trying my hand at cover design. This is just a first attempt, but what do you think?
Zorn was published in January of 2010. Link.
In June of the same year I published Xangans,
a collection of short stories by members of the Xangan blogging community.
….and before either of these two, I published my first work
Berenice is a short story of brooding obsession. There is little point in attempting to not ”spoil” a Poe story by avoiding telling the final outcome, for in this story, as in much of Poe’s work, the fascination lies not in a teasing or elaborate plot leading to a surprise revelation, but in morbid, gristly dwelling on the awful texture of misery, melancholia and near madness. One can read them repeatedly, and they still taste satisfyingly rank and vile.
In short, Egaeus looses his wife, Berenice, to illness, and in a fit of obsession opens her grave and tears out the part of her that his mind has fixated upon: her teeth.
There is little joy in Poe’s world. Love, hope and happiness are only shown as a prelude to loss, to provide a fading dusk against which the blackness of the tragic end stands out more clearly.
It’s interesting that some of Poe’s readers complained to the editor when the story was published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1935. This was early in Poe’s career, and he reports the subscription list of this periodical as 700. In December of that year he was made editor, and by the time he left the subscription list numbered 5,500. Obviously then, as now, there was quite an appetite for horror amongst readers.
As I’ve remarked before, a little Poe goes a long way. I too like horror sometimes, but feel it lacks depth, and I prefer my stories with a bit more balance.
With this third blog on Poe, I think I’ve given him enough attention. I selected Berenice not only because it is a classic example of Poe, but because it deals with a subject on which I’ve more to say: obsession.
A lot of our confusions come from the fact that we’re required to behave as though we’re rational creatures, and in reality we are creatures of passion and desire.
Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809, died October 7, 1849
What is it that makes an author famous? I don’t mean famous in the sense a news article reports that ”Jack Greylea’s novels sold 15 million copies last year,” but in the sense that he is thought of as being profound, and seminal. That he is quoted, and scholars analyse his works, and he is looked upon as being the original voice of his style, or the font from which many imitators have drawn inspiration.
Edgar Allan Poe is one such. The very hint of his name calls up images of midnight graveyards, of crumbling mansions lit by wax candles, the home of strange and tormented aristocrats, till the description “Poe-like” can draw as vivid a picture in our minds as “elephant-like.”
Yet his output was not great. Basically a short story writer and poet, he produced only one one full length novel, which received more censure than praise, and which very few people today can name. Without wishing to run him down as an author (what he did, he did well, but what he did well, was to be Poe) he was a limited writer, and all of his works over twenty-two years can be contained in one thickish book.
So what is the secret of Poe, whereby a scanty writer becomes the cult-centre of a world of horror that carries his own stamp? It lies I think in two things.
Not to place these two in any order of importance as regards his continuing fame - I leave this to you – but I would say….
Firstly, that it was his choice of subject and execution of it. The mournful, weird and macabre, in which man becomes little more than an instrument of darkness, and that usually the worst darkness, that which wells up from within, whose black light shows us as being not the pawns of evil, but the source of evil itself. But to seize on this idea – or any other idea – as inspiration is nothing, merely the starting point from which the quill hits the paper. It is in the execution of his vision that Poe’s genius emerges. Not with a great deal of subtlety, nor a much complexity, but with great and disciplined fixity on the horror of his intentions, Poe moves relentless to the nasty culmination of his stories, and they come to us with all the rawness of unconsoled misery. His art was that of the short story writer, and as such he wrote little, but when reading Poe a little is more than enough.
Secondly, that Poe more than any other author is identified as a man with his works. An orphan and an outcast from his adopted family, overly sensitive and reckless, he lived wildly, lied readily, lived in poverty, married strangely to his thirteen-year old cousin, was widowed miserably,and finally died mysteriously at age forty, from uncertain causes that speculation has named as anything from drug addiction to murder. As if this were not enough, his works were controlled after his death by his executor, who attempted to blacken his name. More than any other author that I can readily think of, Poe was his own tormented, tragic hero, and his oppressed characters were him.
In the nineteen-sixties, several of Poe’s stories and poems – The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, The Raven, The Tomb of Legeia and others – were made into popular, low budget films, cementing Poe’s reputation firmly into the mythology of modern horror movies. It’s common of course for movies to be nothing like the original written work, but all of these are based on not on fully worked out novels, but ideas that Poe dealt with in comparatively few pages.
Incidentally, the principal actor in many of these was Vincent Price, whose tall, mournful frame instantly springs to mind as well-nigh inseparable from Poe’s weird gems.
A few years ago I wanted to name my novel after an omen of ill-fate, and without having to think about it an instant I chose that bird made notorious by the American poet Edgar Allen Poe. This goes to show how deep Poe’s influence has been on Western culture as a master of the morbid and macabre. As he’s long dead and his copyright well expired, I thought I’d reproduce here his sombre masterpiece, and – time allowing – follow up with a blog on him.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
“‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door —
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; —
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer;
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”— here I opened wide the door; —
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” —
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore —
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; —
’Tis the wind and nothing more.”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door —
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door —
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore —
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning— little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door —
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered— not a feather then he fluttered —
Till I scarcely more than muttered, “other friends have flown before —
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore —
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never — nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee – by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite — respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil! —
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted —
On this home by horror haunted— tell me truly, I implore —
Is there – is there balm in Gilead? — tell me — tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil – prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,” I shrieked, upstarting —
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!— quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!
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Congratulations, you are alive. Here you are. Once, you weren’t here. And one day, you won’t be. All your drama and trauma, all your ideas, all the things you like and don’t like, all the things that happen that you judge your life by are but a dream. Just a dream. Dreams are not to be taken lightly, but they are dreams.
In the middle of all these dreams, there is a place within you where you can truly be awake. In that awakening, there is no judgment. There aren’t issues of good and bad, right and wrong. You are not judged. There are no yardsticks and no races. Nobody is standing there saying, “You won” or “You lost.” Just a beautiful reality that you are alive.
You have the ability to understand, to know, to admire. These are your qualities. You have the ability to get angry and the ability to be calm. You have the ability to be in turmoil and the ability to be in peace. Which do you use the most? Frustration. Anger. Disappointment.
Once in awhile, you actually find yourself happy. When you are, it is such a big deal that you think about it for years to come. And when you get older and your short‑term memory goes, you will say, “I remember when I was there. Oh, that was so beautiful.”
You have some other qualities: You can appreciate this existence. You can truly be happy in a timeless way—no camera needed, no special circumstances required. You can be in the joy that springs from your heart every single day.
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Most people are trying to understand their mind. People have been trying to do that for an extremely long time. And they never will. They write books and say beautiful things, but it is like having a garden that looks spectacular though every flower is made out of paper and every tree is plastic. The grass is fake, so you don’t ever have to cut it.
The disadvantage is that flowers don’t bloom there and spring never comes. Bees never fly, no flower has a beautiful aroma, and the trees do not sway in the wind. Even though it all looks pretty, it is static—as in dead.
That is why it is so important to have a living experience. Living. Breathing. Existing. Feeling. Thinking. Understanding. Knowing. That’s what is real.
What does your garden look like? Have you smelled the flowers? Have you ever seen a bee? Are there birds in the trees? Is there a season when it looks fine and you are content?
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People get used to being frustrated. They get used to being mad, upset. They say, “That’s life. Good times, bad times—it’s all okay.” What is okay? Me being lost? Me ignoring my own nature? Me being away from myself? Me not recognizing myself?
That’s why every one of us needs so desperately to understand that there can be no compromises, that an effort needs to be made every single day to see, to feel what we have been given—from the heart, from our very basic being.
Know that a time will come when all that you rely on will slowly fade away. What will remain? You. You will still be able to experience, but erosion is afoot. It happens so slowly you don’t notice it, but it’s afoot. Every day, every second, it marches on, but above it floats a beautiful reality that is timeless. You are alive. And till the day you are alive no more, you can go inside and feel happiness; you can feel joy.
There is hope. Your heart is knocking on the door. Open up. Feel, see, understand, realize, know. Be in that joy, be in that feeling every moment. Understand the beauty of the possibility to feel clarity, to feel gratitude, to be thankful to be alive. I’m here to remind you: don’t wait. Wake up. See, feel, admire, be a part of your existence.
Prem Rawat
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http://www.voiceofmaharaji.info/
Chapter One. Roknor Bay
At the western end of the beach there was a cliff, one steep face of a high enduring tower of stone that stood like a guardian blocking the further progress of the sand, extending one forbidding arm out to sea, and another more gently inland. This latter ridge sloped down into the little town of Roknor, and bore a short, narrow road to the town’s promenade. On the tower’s summit, in lofty seclusion, stood The Anders Heights Hotel, looking down on town and beach alike. Between the hotel and the sheer drop to the beach lay a broad flagstoned patio, home to a flotilla of circular tables, each shaded from the hot Mediterranean sun by its own broad, red and white striped parasol. Most of the guests who were present for lunch ate there, gazing from that eyrie to the little town that the summer had again filled with holidaymakers, and beyond the town to the low, green hills.
Today Pelham preferred the shade of the dining room. He was in the second week of his holiday, and had had his fill of blazing summer sunshine. A methodical man, no longer young, he had admired the view from the patio many times on this and previous holidays, and nowadays he preferred his croissants without the butter trickling melted from them onto his fingers, and his wine without the reflected sunlight thrusting its red glare into his eyes. And so he clinked his cutlery in the cooler, darker comfort of the dining room, and made polite conversation across the table.
But after his meal he took his iced orange to the low wall of stone pillars that fenced the eastern edge of the patio, saving unwary guests from plunging with a shriek to join the holidaymakers below. Within the dining room he had heard faintly the muffled noise of surf and shouts from the beach, but as he crossed the patio it rose in intensity to meet him. Resting his drink on the broad top of the wall Pelham looked down to the crannied reef below, where youngsters with pails sought tiny prey in the rock bound pools, and looking farther out from that, saw the whole length of a beach crowded with this summer’s holidaymakers.
The beach was busy. Roknor Bay was neither large nor famous, but it was a beautiful bay, nearly half a mile of busy sand washed by the warm Mediterranean surf. This stretch of hemmed in sea was gentle and friendly, except before the main beach’s centre, where the waters surged and leapt in spray against several small islands, between which a maze of cross currents quarrelled. Swimmers there were in plenty in the shallow water close to the sands, and many struck out to make the short swim to Flat Island, but for most that was enough. Only the stronger ventured farther, striking out boldly through the surging turmoil of water to reach farther High Island, there to climb the rocky sides and stand in triumph a dizzy sixty feet above the pounding waves. Yet even there they were still below the level of Pelham’s high castle. To The Twins – the two steep island rocks beyond High Island – few dared to swim, and the town council had considered banning the attempt. But who would police such a regulation, and how? So they had dropped the idea, and relied instead on natural common sense.
On the sands the smaller children honoured the ancient tradition of building sandcastles, or paddled in the shallows under their parent’s watchful gaze, whilst the older played beach games or swam out to the deeper water, tanning themselves and entwining in those brief holiday romances that may be remembered a lifetime.
They were of all ages. Toddlers, sanding their bare feet in wonder, puckering their eyes at the sun’s assault. The older children that they will become, running far from parental sides, returning like tiny tempests with eager demands for ice-cream money. Energetic groups of teenagers, holidaying noisily parent-free, and – a little older and quieter – the young couples as yet childless, or themselves now furrowing their brows as they guard and chivvy their new offspring. Older people are there too, with stiffer, heavier strides, perhaps striving to keep order amongst their own brood of rebellious near-adults, or perhaps glad to be rid of them for a while. And tired seniors, slumping drowsily in deckchairs or creakily walking the promenade that divides the old town from its main industry, the beach.
Old, young, boys and girls, men and women. Or so Pelham thought of them, for in his mind he stuck by the old way of naming people according to their sex, though had he described the crowd below to a stranger he would have politely called the boisterous youngsters birls, and the more sedate adults wans.
Pelham frowned, for only that morning Sharon had corrected him sharply. “He needs a decent girl to smarten him up and get his life in order,” Pelham had said, furious at the news that his son, currently unemployed, had bought yet another new car. “Lauren’s a mother now, she hasn’t time to play big sister to him anymore.”
“Pelham! Will you try to be a little more correct! You know how Harold hates sexist language,” Sharon had said.
Not the best way to begin a day. “Does he also know,” Pelham had begun in heat, but Sharon’s face was thunderous, and he had complied. “Does aer also know how much I hate seeing money wasted recklessly?” Pelham said in crushingly deliberate tones. “Does aer perhaps know that I won’t bail aym out if aer gets in over ayms head? Do you think that Harold perhaps might possibly know this somewhere in the back of ayms mind? Might aer, do you think? Or maybe aer thinks aer can borrow from Lauren again. If so, aer’s mistaken. Lauren’s got a child to support now, so aer’s no money to spare, and neither have I.”
And Sharon had not been able to answer. But Pelham was easy going and disliked quarrels, and in the end had apologised for using such bad language.
Strange, Pelham thought. Money’s important in life. It’s not everything of course, but wouldn’t you think that pointing out that your son was constantly a waster was more important than getting your pronouns nice and politically correct? Whether Harold and Lauren were ‘he’ and ‘she’ or ‘aer’ and ‘aer,’ didn’t alter the fact that Harold was a fool, but Lauren – thank God – had her head screwed on straight. Or ayms head, as people would have it nowadays. Foolishness, that ideas should so mess up language. But Sharon was very concerned to be correct in other’s eyes, so…. it was best to make an effort to be a little more core.
Pelham sighed. Forget about Harold and his silly ways, or ayms silly ways, as Sharon would doubtless correct him. They were on holiday, and there should be no quarrels, neither about money nor language. And…. I sometimes wonder. Am I too cautious perhaps? It’s all a matter of opinion. But – Pelham squinted against the sun’s brilliance – isn’t that young Zorn down there, the Mayhew’s eldest child? Yes it is. Nice couple the Mayhews.
Pelham had seen Zorn on the beach before lunch, and now he easily picked out the young birl again. Red, grey, yellow: those seemed to be the popular colours with the young folk this year, whether it was long, baggy surfer shorts or skimpy bikini briefs, but Zorn favoured black, and there aer was, eighty feet below and two-hundred away, kicking a beach ball about with a bunch of other teenagers.
But even as distant Pelham’s eyes fell on aym, Zorn left the game, waving a hand in casual farewell to the other birls. The game had loosened aym up, and now aer felt hot and charged with energy. Now’s the time to do it, aer thought, now, do it now, before I get too tired.
Emma ran after aym, protesting. “Zorn. Zorrrr-nee. Where’re you going? Don’t go.” Emma was only fourteen, two years Zorn’s junior, but Zorn liked aym more than some of the birls of ayms own age, even though it irritated aym that Emma often slipped into the so-yesterday fashion of naming people according to their sex. Still, Emma’s parents had given aym this crappy, totally ancient she-birl name, so it wasn’t really Emma’s fault that aer was so un-core.
“Got to go catch crabs,” Zorn answered, breaking into a run. “Need to do stuff on my own.”
“Can’t I come with you?”
“No. You stay her. Look after the others. You play fudder.”
“Zorn,” Emma wailed, but Zorn’s tanned legs were flashing in the sun, and aer was gone.
“Pig!” Emma cried after aym, disappointed. At sixteen Zorn was several inches taller than her, and she fantasised that aer was her amore, though she would not have admitted this to aym for the world. For a moment she stood oblivious to the shouts of the other birls, her yearning gaze following her should-be birlfriend.
“If I play anything it’ll be mother,” she yelled finally in defiance. An adult playing with ayms children looked up from a nest of sandcastles to give Emma a disapproving stare, and she turned hastily away and ran back to her friends. She hadn’t exactly used a swear word, but what she’d said was very impolite, very un-core. Some people said it was so rude to identify people by their sex that it ought to be illegal, and they got really worked up about it. I thought that wan was going to shout at me, Emma thought, plunging into the game. But she had no real interest now that Zorn was gone, and gave the ball only a single kick before staring at the distant figure now wandering amongst the rock pools by Anders Rock.
I’ll go and see what Zorn’s really doing, Emma thought. Perhaps if I were more core, aer might like me better and take me places with aym. But… she daren’t go past that man and his kids again. Oh what was she thinking! She was doing it again! That wan… aer must think I’m really un-core, shouting sexist words like that. Could you be reported to the police for shouting un-core names? No of course not silly, but it was so hard to know what to do with lots of things. It’s tough being fourteen, aer thought, and I’m silly, not like Zorn. Zorn’s so cool. I wish I were sixteen like aym. But I don’t have to go past that wan and ayms kids again though. I’ll run up the beach to the promenade and go round them!
Has anyone used one of the new Kindle wireless readers yet? If you have, solve a mystery for me. When you “open” a book on one, does it start with a pic of the book cover?
Obviously if the book is already published in paper it will have a cover, but – as the Kindle displays in black and white – this might not look too good, and might be best ommitted.
Zorn is set in a week of the some summer month, perhaps July. The year might be 2035, or a little later, and Roknor might be on the Mediterranean coast of France or Spain. These little details of time and place it isn’t essential to know, as this isn’t that kind of story. The sea is salt, the sun blazes, the sand of the beach is hot to the naked foot, and Zorn is young and on holiday. What more could you need to know? What more could you need than a cool drink to sip?.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot. Due to the social pressure of political correctness, the English language has…. changed a little.
Chapter One. Roknor Bay
At the western end of the beach there was a cliff, one steep face of a high enduring tower of stone that stood like a guardian blocking the further progress of the sand, extending one forbidding arm out to sea, and another more gently inland. This latter ridge sloped down into the little town of Roknor, and bore a short, narrow road to the town’s promenade. On the tower’s summit, in lofty seclusion, stood The Anders Heights Hotel, looking down on town and beach alike. Between the hotel and the sheer drop to the beach lay a broad flagstoned patio, home to a flotilla of circular tables, each shaded from the hot Mediterranean sun by its own broad, red and white striped parasol. Most of the guests who were present for lunch ate there, gazing from that eyrie to the little town that the summer had again filled with holidaymakers, and beyond the town to the low, green hills.
Today Pelham preferred the shade of the dining room. He was in the second week of his holiday, and had had his fill of blazing June sunshine. A methodical man, and no longer young, he had admired the view from the patio many times on this and previous holidays, and nowadays he preferred his croissants without the butter trickling melted from them onto his fingers, and his wine without the reflected sunlight thrusting its red glare into his eyes. And so he clinked his cutlery in the cooler, darker comfort of the dining room, and made polite conversation across the table.
But after his meal he took his iced orange to the low wall of stone pillars that fenced the eastern edge of the patio, to save unwary guests from plunging with a shriek to join the holidaymakers below. Within the dining room he had heard faintly the muffled noise of surf and shouts from the beach, but as he crossed the patio it rose in intensity to meet him, and as he rested his drink on the broad top of the wall he looked down to the crannied reef below, where youngsters with pails sought tiny prey in the rock bound pools, and looking farther out from that, see the whole length of a beach crowded with this summer’s holidaymakers.
The beach was busy. Roknor Bay was neither large nor famous, but it was a beautiful bay, nearly half a mile of busy sand washed by the warm Mediterranean surf. This stretch of hemmed in sea was gentle and friendly, except before the main beach’s centre, where the waters surged and leapt in spray against several small islands, between which a maze of cross currents quarrelled. Weaker swimmers constantly struck out from the sand to make the little swim to close Low Island, but for most that was enough. Only the stronger ventured farther, striking out boldly through the surging turmoil of water to reach farther High Island, there to climb the rocky sides and stand in triumph a dizzy sixty feet above the pounding waves. Yet even there they were still below the level of Pelham’s high castle.
On the sands the smaller children honoured the ancient tradition of building sandcastles, or paddled in the shallows under their parent’s watchful gaze, whilst the older played beach games, or swam out to the deeper water, tanning themselves and entwining in those brief holiday romances that may be remembered a lifetime.
They were of all ages. Toddlers, sanding their bare feet in wonder, puckering their eyes at the sun’s assault. The older children that they will become, running far from parental sides, returning like tiny tempests with eager demands for ice-cream money. Energetic groups of teenagers, holidaying noisily parent-free, and a little older and quieter, the young couples as yet childless, or themselves now furrowing their brows as they guard and chivvy their new offspring, The older people are there too, with stiffer, heavier strides, perhaps striving to keep order amongst their own brood of near-adults, or perhaps glad to be rid of them for a while. And tired old people, slumping drowsily in deckchairs or creakily walking the promenade that divides the old town from its main industry, the beach.
Old, young, boys and girls, men and women. Or so Pelham thought of them, for in his mind he stuck by the old way of naming people according to their sex, though had he described the crowd below to a stranger he would have politely called the laughing youngsters birls, and the more sedate adults wans.
Pelham had seen Zorn on the beach before lunch, and now he easily picked out the young birl again. Red, grey, yellow: those seemed to be the popular colours with the young folk this year, whether it was long, baggy surfer shorts or skimpy bikini briefs, but Zorn favoured black, and there aer was, eighty feet below and two-hundred away, kicking a beach ball about with a bunch of other teenagers.
Zorn left the game abruptly, waving a hand in casual farewell to the other birls. Aer had been swimming before the game, and now aer felt hot and charged with energy. Now’s the time to do it, aer thought, now, do it now, before I feel too tired.
Emma ran after aym, protesting. “Zorn. Zorr-nee. Where’re you going? Don’t go.” Emma was only fourteen, two years Zorn’s junior, but Zorn liked aym more than some of the birls of ayms own age, even though it irritated aym that Emma often slipped into the ancient fashion of naming people according to their sex. Still, Emma’s parents had given aym this crappy, totally ancient shebirl name, so it wasn’t really Emma’s fault that aer was so uncore.
“Got to go catch crabs,” Zorn answered, breaking into a run. “Need to….
Poised midway between the celebration of Christmas and that of the New Year, I’ll put a question that’s often occured to me over the past year: how much of our experience of life is determined by fear rather than joy?
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