In a quiet Romanian village, nestled among rolling hills and fertile fields, lived a young couple named Ilie and Lorena. They were simple, hardworking people who spent their days tending the land, caring for animals, and cooking fresh food from their own harvest. Their life was humble but full of love — the kind of love that grows stronger with every shared sunrise.
Yet one dream remained painfully out of reach: a child of their own.
Years passed. They prayed, hoped, and waited. They refused modern medical procedures, believing they would bring bad luck. Instead, they trusted destiny.
And destiny finally answered.
One winter night, just before Christmas, as the village glowed with candlelight and the church bells echoed across the snow, Lorena felt a warmth she had longed for. Months later, she gave birth to a golden‑haired, green‑eyed girl.
“Maria,” Ilie whispered, holding the tiny bundle. “Our miracle.”
Maria grew up energetic and bright, helping her parents in the fields and playing among the haystacks. But as she grew older, her mind wandered beyond the village. She devoured books, dreamed of the city, and longed for a different life.
One day she told her parents:
“I want to see how life is outside the village.”
Lorena’s hands trembled as she folded Maria’s clothes. “Just promise you won’t forget where you come from,” she said softly.
“I could never,” Maria replied, hugging her tightly.
Ilie placed a small bag of money in her hands. “Go, fata tatei. But come back when your heart tells you to.”
Maria moved to Bucharest, where she quickly found success. She had everything she once dreamed of — except the warmth of home. Her parents were aging, and she felt the distance growing heavier each year.
Then she met Robert, a kind man who fell deeply in love with her. They became engaged, and after several years, Maria told him she wanted to return to her village.
“I miss them,” she admitted. “And I miss who I was there.”
Robert smiled. “Then let’s go. I want to see the place that made you.”
He soon fell in love with the peace of the countryside.
Maria spent precious time with her parents, who were now very ill. Robert divided his time between the city and the village, supporting them all.
Then came another miracle: Maria became pregnant.
They married, and soon after, their son Petrica was born — healthy, strong, and adored by everyone. His hair shone with the same soft golden hue that had once made the villagers whisper that Maria was touched by destiny.
But life is fragile. Ilie passed away, leaving Lorena to live out her days comforted by her daughter, son‑in‑law, and the little boy who brought light into her old age.
The Golden Thread
Long before Petrica became a man, the villagers spoke of the Popescu family as one touched by a quiet, enduring light. It wasn’t magic — not in the fairy‑tale sense — but something gentler and more human.
Each generation carried a glow that seemed to brighten in winter, as if the family’s spirit was woven into the season itself.
Every Christmas, Lorena would take out a small golden ornament Ilie had carved by hand decades earlier. She would place it in Petrica’s palms and say:
“It’s not the wood that matters. It’s the light it reminds us of.”
Petrica listened. He always listened.
He grew up in a house where love was quiet but constant. After Ilie’s death, he became Lorena’s shadow — helping her walk, preparing her tea, learning to read her pain before she spoke. These were the first lessons that shaped the doctor he would become.
When Lorena passed away at ninety, Petrica carried the golden ornament to her funeral, tucked inside his coat, close to his heart.
He didn’t cry loudly. He didn’t collapse. He simply stood there — strong, dignified, unshaken — the living continuation of the family’s golden thread.
The Making of a Strong Man
Petrica grew into a disciplined, intelligent young man. He studied medicine, became a doctor, and earned the respect of everyone around him. He didn’t chase attention; attention came to him. He carried himself with the quiet dignity of someone who knew who he was and what he stood for.
He was calm, respected, quietly charismatic. A man who didn’t need to speak loudly to be heard.
And that’s when Miruna noticed him.
Miruna was beautiful, lively, and full of fire. She worked as a secretary in Bucharest, loved going out, loved being admired, and loved the thrill of the city. Men followed her everywhere — and she liked it that way.
But Petrica was different.
He liked her, yes. He found her charm amusing, her confidence refreshing. But he didn’t run after her. He didn’t text her constantly. He didn’t try to impress her.
He simply lived his life — focused, steady, unbothered.
And that drove Miruna wild with curiosity.
“Why doesn’t he look at me like the others?” she muttered to her friend one evening.
“Maybe he’s not interested,” her friend teased.
Miruna frowned. “No. He’s interested. I can feel it. He’s just… not chasing.”
The more Petrica kept his distance, the more Miruna wanted to understand him.
The Night That Changed Everything
One evening, Miruna decided to surprise him at the hospital where he worked.
“He’ll be happy to see me,” she told herself, adjusting her hair in the reflection of the glass door.
Instead, she walked into chaos.
A major accident had filled the hospital with injured people. Nurses ran through the halls, doctors shouted orders, and the waiting room overflowed.
And there, in the middle of it all, was Petrica — sleeves rolled up, covered in blood that wasn’t his, moving from patient to patient with the focus of a warrior.
“Scalpel.” “Hold pressure here.” “Stay with me, sir. You’re going to make it.”
His voice was steady, his hands precise, his presence commanding.
He didn’t see her. He didn’t see anyone. He was saving lives.
Miruna watched him for nearly an hour, unnoticed. And for the first time, she understood:
Petrica wasn’t just strong. He was purposeful.
She left the hospital shaken — and changed.
The Truth Miruna Hid
The next morning, Miruna waited outside his apartment. When Petrica arrived, she stepped forward.
“We need to talk,” she said quietly.
He studied her face. “What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t been honest with you.”
They sat on a bench beneath a linden tree. Miruna took a deep breath.
“I used to be with someone,” she began. “Someone who… controlled me. Someone who made me feel small. Someone who didn’t let me breathe.”
Petrica said nothing. He simply listened.
“I left him,” she continued. “But he didn’t leave me. He still calls. He still watches. I thought I could handle it alone, but I can’t. I’m tired of being afraid.”
Petrica’s jaw tightened.
“Is he still in your life?” he asked.
Miruna nodded.
Petrica’s expression hardened — not with jealousy, but with resolve.
“Then this isn’t just your past anymore. It’s a problem we solve now.”
Miruna felt something she hadn’t felt in years: safety.
But destiny wasn’t done with them yet.
Because the man from her past — the one she feared, the one she thought she had escaped — was already on his way to the village.
And he wasn’t coming to apologise. He was coming for her.
Malorie Blackman’s Thief! is a gripping and imaginative young‑adult novel that blends realism, science fiction, and moral questioning into a fast‑paced story about justice, responsibility, and the frightening consequences of being misunderstood. First published in 1995, the book remains one of Blackman’s most underrated works, overshadowed by the later success of Noughts & Crosses, yet it contains many of the same qualities that define her writing: a strong sense of empathy, a willingness to explore difficult themes, and a deep understanding of how young people experience fear, hope, and moral pressure. Thief! follows the story of Lydia, a twelve‑year‑old girl who is wrongly accused of theft and then swept into a terrifying future where her town has become a dystopian nightmare. Through Lydia’s journey, Blackman explores how a single moment of injustice can spiral into something far bigger, and how courage often emerges in the most unexpected circumstances.
The novel begins in the present day, with Lydia on a school trip. She is an ordinary girl, shy and thoughtful, who often feels invisible among her peers. Her life is not dramatic or rebellious; she is simply trying to get through school, navigate friendships, and make her mother proud. This ordinariness is important because it makes the sudden accusation of theft feel all the more shocking. Lydia is accused of stealing a classmate’s electronic organiser, and the accusation hits her with the force of a physical blow. She knows she is innocent, but the adults around her are quick to assume the worst. Blackman captures the emotional intensity of this moment with sensitivity: Lydia feels humiliated, frightened, and betrayed. She is overwhelmed by the realisation that people she trusted are willing to believe she is a thief without giving her a chance to defend herself. This injustice becomes the emotional foundation of the novel, shaping Lydia’s decisions and her understanding of the world.
The accusation also sets up one of the novel’s central themes: how quickly a person’s reputation can be destroyed. Lydia is not a troublemaker, but she lacks the confidence and social power to defend herself effectively. She is a child in a world where adults hold authority, and Blackman uses this dynamic to show how vulnerable young people can be when they are misunderstood. Lydia’s sense of fairness is deeply shaken, and she begins to question whether the world is as just as she once believed. This emotional turmoil is still fresh when the novel takes a dramatic turn. On the journey home from the school trip, a violent storm erupts. Lydia is caught in the chaos, and the storm becomes a symbolic and literal force that tears her out of her familiar world. In a moment that blends realism with science fiction, the storm transports her into the future — a future where everything she knows has changed.
When Lydia wakes up, she finds herself in a version of her hometown that is unrecognisable. The streets are deserted, the atmosphere is tense, and the sense of danger is immediate. She soon discovers that the town is under the control of a tyrannical leader, a boy named Dominic, who rules through fear, surveillance, and strict curfews. Lydia is shot at for being outside after curfew, and this moment marks the beginning of her terrifying journey through a dystopian world. Blackman’s portrayal of the future is chilling not because it is filled with monsters or supernatural threats, but because it is a distorted version of reality — a world where ordinary people have been pushed into submission by a system that punishes disobedience and rewards cruelty. The future Lydia encounters is bleak, oppressive, and deeply unfair, mirroring the injustice she experienced in her own time but magnified to an extreme degree.
As Lydia navigates this dangerous world, she learns that the future she has entered is not random. It is connected to her own life in ways she could never have imagined. The tyrant who rules the town is a boy from her own time, someone she knows — and someone whose future has been shaped by events that Lydia herself may influence. This revelation introduces one of the novel’s most important themes: the idea that small actions can have enormous consequences. Lydia realises that the future has become a nightmare because of choices made in the present, and she begins to understand that she has a role to play in changing what is to come. This theme is particularly powerful for young readers, who often feel that their actions do not matter. Blackman challenges this belief by showing how Lydia’s courage, honesty, and determination can alter the course of history.
Throughout the novel, Lydia is forced to confront difficult moral dilemmas. She must decide whom to trust, how to survive, and whether she is willing to take risks to help others. These dilemmas deepen the story and make Lydia’s journey more than just a physical adventure; it becomes a psychological and ethical struggle. Lydia’s character grows as she faces danger, betrayal, and fear. She becomes more assertive, more strategic, and more aware of her own strength. Yet she never loses her moral compass. Even when she is frightened or uncertain, she refuses to become cruel or selfish. This integrity is one of her defining traits, and it is what ultimately allows her to change the future.
Blackman’s portrayal of the dystopian future is both imaginative and grounded in social commentary. The future town is a place where inequality has deepened, where power is concentrated in the hands of a few, and where ordinary people live in fear. The curfews, surveillance, and punishments reflect real‑world concerns about authoritarianism and the erosion of civil liberties. By placing a young girl at the centre of this world, Blackman highlights how political systems affect individuals, especially those who are vulnerable. Lydia’s struggle becomes a metaphor for the fight against injustice in all its forms, whether it appears in the classroom, the home, or society at large.
The novel’s pacing is fast and tense, keeping readers engaged as Lydia moves from one danger to another. Yet Blackman also takes time to explore Lydia’s emotions, giving the story depth and resonance. Lydia’s fear, confusion, anger, and determination are portrayed with nuance, making her a relatable and sympathetic protagonist. Her emotional journey is as important as the physical one, and it is this combination of action and introspection that makes the novel so compelling for young readers.
As Lydia uncovers the truth about the future and her role in it, the novel builds toward a dramatic climax. She must confront Dominic, the tyrant, and expose the truth about how the future came to be. This confrontation is intense and emotionally charged, forcing Lydia to draw on all the courage she has developed throughout her journey. The climax is not just a battle between characters; it is a battle between values — between fear and hope, cruelty and compassion, despair and possibility. Lydia’s victory is not easy, and it comes with the realisation that changing the future requires both bravery and responsibility.
When Lydia finally returns to her own time, she is forever changed. She carries with her the knowledge of what the future could become, and she understands that her actions matter. The resolution of the novel is hopeful but realistic. Lydia has grown, but she is still a young girl who must navigate the challenges of her everyday life. Blackman does not offer a neat, sentimental ending; instead, she acknowledges that trauma leaves scars and that growth is a gradual process. Yet Lydia emerges stronger, more confident, and more aware of her own capabilities.
The themes of Thief! are rich and relevant for GCSE students. The novel explores justice and injustice, showing how easily a person can be misunderstood and how devastating the consequences can be. It examines identity and self‑discovery, as Lydia learns who she is when everything familiar is stripped away. It addresses power and manipulation, revealing how authority can be abused and how fear can be used as a tool of control. It also critiques social inequality, showing how systems can fail young people and how those failures can shape the future. These themes make the novel not only exciting to read but also meaningful to study, offering opportunities for discussion, analysis, and reflection.
Blackman’s writing style is clear, direct, and accessible, making the novel suitable for young readers while still offering depth and complexity. She balances fast‑paced action with emotional insight, creating a story that is both thrilling and thought‑provoking. Her ability to capture the inner life of a young protagonist is one of her greatest strengths, and it is what makes Thief! such a powerful and memorable novel.
In conclusion, Thief! is a compelling exploration of injustice, courage, and the power of individual action. Through Lydia’s journey into a dystopian future, Malorie Blackman shows how ordinary people can rise to extraordinary challenges and how the choices we make today can shape the world of tomorrow. The novel’s blend of thriller, science fiction, and social commentary makes it an ideal text for GCSE students, offering both an engaging story and rich thematic material. Nearly three decades after its publication, Thief! remains a relevant and resonant novel, reminding readers that even in the face of fear and misunderstanding, it is possible to fight for the truth and change the future.
In a quiet cottage at the edge of a whispering forest lived a little girl named Eliza. She had bright blue eyes, a curious heart, and a love for animals so big it seemed to shine out of her like sunlight.
Eliza lived with her grandmother, who told stories that smelled like warm tea and sounded like soft lullabies. Even though Eliza’s parents were gone, her grandmother made sure her days were filled with love, comfort, and wonder.
But Eliza had one very special friend —
a beautiful snow owl who perched on the old oak tree outside her window every evening.
Eliza named her Lumi.
Lumi had feathers as white as winter snow and eyes that glowed like tiny moons. Every night, Eliza would wave to Lumi, and Lumi would blink slowly back, as if saying, “Good evening, little one.”
—
🌟 A Wish in the Moonlight
One night, as the moon shone round and bright, Eliza lay in bed thinking about the world above the treetops.
“Oh, how wonderful it must be to fly,” she whispered.
“To feel the wind, to touch the stars, to see the whole world sleeping.”
And then she made a wish — a soft, secret wish that floated into the night:
“I wish I could become an owl and fly up into the sky.”
Suddenly, the wind began to swirl around her room.
It whooshed through the curtains and tickled her toes.
It spun and sparkled like magic.
And then —
Eliza felt herself changing.
Her arms stretched into wings.
Her hair turned into soft white feathers.
Her eyes grew big and blue like shining marbles.
Eliza had become a snow owl, just like Lumi.
—
🦉 A New Life in the Sky
Lumi hooted happily and swooped around her.
Eliza flapped her new wings and lifted off the floor.
Up, up, up she flew — out the window, into the cool night air, and over the treetops. The stars twinkled like they were cheering for her.
She felt free.
She felt brave.
She felt right where she belonged.
Every night, she flew across the forest with Lumi.
Every morning, she perched at the foot of her grandmother’s bed, watching over her with love.
—
🌲 New Friends in the Forest
As the nights passed, Eliza made new friends in her magical owl life.
🐿️ Gogo the Squirrel
Gogo was tiny, fluffy, and full of energy.
He chattered nonstop and loved to race up trees faster than anyone else.
“Try to catch me!” he squeaked as he zipped up a pine tree.
Eliza swooped after him, laughing in her owl way — a soft, happy hoot.
🦌 Simi the Deer
Simi was gentle and graceful, with big brown eyes and a calm voice.
“You fly so beautifully,” Simi said one night as she nibbled on sweet clover.
“And you are always welcome in our forest.”
Eliza felt warm inside.
She had never had forest friends before.
Together, the four of them — Lumi, Gogo, Simi, and Eliza — explored the woods, played games, and shared stories under the moon.
—
🌧️ A Sad Morning
One morning, Eliza returned from a long night of flying. She perched on her grandmother’s bed as she always did.
But her grandmother didn’t wake up.
She lay peacefully, with a soft smile on her face, as if she were dreaming of something beautiful.
Eliza understood.
Her grandmother had drifted into a gentle forever-sleep.
The cottage felt quiet.
The world felt different.
But Lumi, Gogo, and Simi gathered around her.
“We’re here,” Lumi hooted softly.
“You’re not alone,” whispered Simi.
“Let’s stay together,” chirped Gogo.
And Eliza knew she still had a family — a forest family.
—
🌈 A Forever Adventure
From that day on, Eliza lived among the trees.
She flew with Lumi through silver moonbeams.
She played hide-and-seek with Gogo in the branches.
She walked beside Simi through sunlit meadows.
She grew strong.
She grew brave.
She grew happy again.
And every night, if you listen closely near the old oak tree, you might hear a soft hoot drifting through the leaves —
This story was originally part of my latest novel The Experience [to be published 2025]. It is one of five ‘outtakes’ that were originally threaded through the novel’s opening chapters. The job of these stories was to reflect or counter the nature of the narrative’s ‘reality’. Their style and viewpoint being contrary to that of the novel’s. It was eventually decided to remove them, simply to keep the continuity of The Experience’s particular style. Please feel free to comment.
Tim Bragg
My dad would tell me stories. We’d have fun sitting around the kitchen table when I was very young – him making up stories or all three of us playing board games or a card game. Before Ellie was born but even after she was born and sleeping upstairs, we’d have on a low light or lit candles with the fire crackling in its hearth. That part of my life when everything was normal. Well, perhaps that’s the way everyone views their childhood growing up. My mom would make great food and the children that lived around us knew which house to go to to get well fed.
Stories enchanted me. With the other children we’d act out stories I had in my head. Nearby there were fields and barns to play in; hedges to hide behind; woods to disappear within. One simmering summer evening we decided to stay out late. It was safe. We were free. It was my idea that I would act the part of a wild stag and the other children had to hunt me down. My dad had told me a story about a stag that had been cornered by wild dogs, but the stag dropped his head and antlers and held them off. Tossing a dog into the air as they snarled, barked and attacked. The stag was courageous. In the end the dogs retreated. And behind the stag, in a thicket, was revealed a hind with a new born deer – a calf. How I cheered. My dad said that the young of big deer were called a calf not a fawn and that the stag itself would be called a hart. I really liked that. Now I was going to be that stag, that hart – though I had no hind or calf to protect.
We decided to meet up outside the old pub near the centre of the sprawling village. When I got there, Root was waiting, the first as usual. I had no idea why he was called Root and no-one had ever asked him as far as I knew. I sauntered down the lane that led from the high street. It was only then that the name of the pub The White Hart made any sense. I looked up at the sign as if for the first time. But I’d never connected the painting of the stag with the name. I said hello to Root and we waited for the others to join us. Old Farmer Joe seemed to appear out of nowhere and went into the pub, giving a nod as he passed us.
Root said, ‘Here’s Josh and Abby.’ Abby was the only girl we let play with us, she was fun. Eventually, Colin, Doug and Rob arrived.
‘Where are we off to Jim?’
‘Down to Gallows Wood, I’ve got an idea.’ I’d wanted to make a headdress that looked like antlers but every attempt had failed. Imagination would do the trick like it always did. We ran down the hill whooping and hollering, pretending we were riding horses. Old Ma Aldington saw us from her garden and waved. She probably thought us quite mad.
Once over the squat stone bridge, the water constantly gurgling beneath, we climbed the style and went single file down the path. There were lots of blackberry bushes here and in the late summer and early autumn local folk would collect bowls full.
‘Right,’ I said finally. ‘We’re going to play “hunt the stag”.’
‘Dad hates stag hunting,’ Doug said.
‘It’s horrible,’ Abby added.
‘Yes, I know,’ I said, ‘but it’s a game. I’m going to be the stag, or the hart,’ I added knowingly, ‘and you have to hunt me down.’
‘Why?’ said Root.
‘Why what?’
‘Why do we have to hunt you down?’ Colin answered for him.
Thinking fast I said, ‘Because I’m not really a stag. I’m a bad wizard that’s been turned into one. And if you don’t kill me, I’ll kill all the crops, and cows,’ I said defiantly.
‘And sheep?’ Abby asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Not my sheep,’ Rob said. ‘They’ve won prizes.’ Everyone laughed.
‘I’ll hunt you,’ Josh said. ‘I’ll be the prince…’
‘Abby the princess,’ Root teased.
‘Right. Good,’ I said. ‘Give me ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Has anyone got a watch?’ No-one had. Josh said to Abby, ‘Did you bring your phone?’
She shook her head, ‘Mum wouldn’t let me.’
The other boys jeered.
‘Okay. Okay,’ I said, trying to calm them down. ‘Each of you count to a minute but in turns. Then come after me. You’ve got bows and arrows and swords and that’s it.’
‘And spears?’ Colin asked.
‘Maybe,’ I said. I didn’t know if they would or wouldn’t have had spears. Lances perhaps.
I tore off down the path and the wood began to swallow me up. I could hear Doug counting out loud and deliberately missing numbers out but being told to start again by Abby. Before long there was only the strange quiet of the wood. Not wholly quiet, there was tapping on bark from the distance and insects buzzing close by. But it felt like an entirely different world. Stopping briefly, I decided which way to go. The wood was familiar to me – but you could easily get lost. There were a few well-worn paths but I turned off on a barely recognisable one. The sun was gliding through the branches as I rushed headlong into denser tree trunks. Resting, I could hear shouts from Abby and the boys. Seemed like they were off in another direction.
After some moments hesitation I carried on and eventually came to the old hut. I’d discovered this a few weeks back but no-one else knew about it. It was the perfect place to hide. Glancing in through a window, with a piece of its glass missing, I saw dark shadows. I could smell the mustiness of the interior. I’d been in before and was thinking of clearing it out and making it a proper den. Pushing on its wooden door, I opened it enough so that I could get in if necessary. I didn’t want to spend my time in the mushroom-smelling dark, so I found a bush nearby and lay behind it under a patch of sky where the sun hovered for a while. I was so comfortable. I hadn’t slept enough the previous night and so I closed my eyes and I was, as my mum would say, ‘out for the count’.
Waking with a start I looked up to see a man staring down at me. The man had tousled hair, a beard and a look of wildness in his eyes. I attempted to get up but he held me down. As I was about to shout out, he put a dirty hand across my mouth. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘we need help. I’m not going to harm you.’ Releasing his grip on me and removing his hand I had an instance to decide what to do – shout out and try and escape or remain where I was and listen to him. As I looked up at his face I felt an odd sensation, as if I knew him from somewhere.
‘Are you a tramp?’ I asked getting up on my knees. He shook his head. ‘Are you running from the police?’ I asked.
Looking around he said, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing. I just want to…’ He broke off as screams were heard in the distance. His face contorted in fear.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘They’re my friends. They’re hunting me down.’
‘You too?’
I nodded. I was curious. ‘Are you being hunted?’
He looked around like an animal sniffing the air. ‘Who’s hunting you?’
‘Just some friends. We’re playing a game. I’m a stag.’
He smiled, ‘I see.’ There was some silence between us then he said, ‘I’m like a stag being hunted too. Do you think you could help me?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘What do you want?’
‘We need some food.’
‘Is there more of you? Have you broken out of prison?’ I asked.
Shaking his head he said, ‘Can I trust you?’ I nodded. He’d been crouching down next to me. As one we got to our feet. ‘We’ve been hiding in that old shed,’ he said. ‘Probably a hide,’ he added.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Not far away,’ he said, ‘and very far away.’ Again he looked about, listening intently. Insects still buzzed and whined their way through the trees. ‘Follow me,’ he said. I held back and I knew he could sense that. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘you can trust me. I just need some help. We need some help. Please.’ His face softened. There was something curious about him. I could hear my parents’ voices in my head – don’t go near strangers, never go with any stranger. On cue a voice shouted out in the wood not far away and another answered but more distant. ‘Please,’ he said again. He walked to the old door and pushed it open, motioning to me to come over. I did. With light coming through the doorway I saw a woman and a child. A toddler. They both looked dirty. The woman was younger than the man.
‘Hello,’ she said. She was sitting in the corner with the child in her arms.
‘Hello.’
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Jim.’
Looking over at the man she smiled. ‘Can we trust you Jim?’
I nodded. They waited. I said, ‘Yes.’
The man looked out the door. The woman said, ‘I’m Jen. This is our little girl Elizabeth. Beth.’
I looked around the interior of the hut, the shed, and as I got used to the light I could see they’d cleaned it up a bit. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘A few days,’ the man said. ‘We haven’t eaten for a few days. Only drunk water from the stream.’
I thought about the old stone bridge and the water gurgling beneath it. ‘I can get you food,’ I said.
‘That would be great,’ Jen said, ‘Beth is so very hungry.’ She looked over at the man.
‘We ate some berries,’ he said. ‘I need to hunt…or…’
‘I can get you food.’ Then, ‘Why are you running away?’
‘It’s my time,’ the man said.
‘Your time?’
The man looked at Jen. Jen said, ‘He’s too old.’
‘For what?’ I asked.
‘For this world.’
‘Our world,’ the man said. ‘Tell me Jim,’ he said, ‘have you got grandparents?’ I nodded. ‘Are they alive?’
‘Of course,’ I laughed.
‘And are they very old?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Yes.’
The man looked at Jen. ‘I told you,’ he said to her. ‘We have a chance. We have a chance here.’
I was confused. ‘A chance?’
‘Can you get us some food, please,’ Jen asked.
I’d never known someone ask anything in that way before. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Good boy,’ the man said, exchanging a smile with Jen. Beth continuing to sleep.
Then we heard, ‘What’s that?’ The voice was startlingly close.
‘Don’t let them find us,’ Jen said.
‘They’re my friends,’ I explained.
‘They mustn’t know about us,’ the man said. ‘We can trust you Jim. But no-one else must know we’re here.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let me go out and I can lead them away.’
‘Go,’ Jen said. The man moved from the door.
‘Hide,’ I said. Beth was beginning to move. The man began to put a few large and heavy old cans around them and began unrolling a black covering of some sort. I smiled. ‘I’ll be back,’ I said, ‘with food.’ Then I squeezed out of the doorway into the light of the wood. The door was quickly shut behind me. As I got out I saw Colin looking about.
Turning, he saw me and shouted, ‘Tally ho!’
Root and Rob appeared. ‘We’ve got the stag,’ Rob shouted.
Root called out, ‘Abby, Josh!’
They splayed out around me. I had to escape them and lead them from the shed.
‘Get him,’ Doug shouted. They tried to grab me. But I fought them back. I wasn’t expecting the game to turn this way.
‘What’s in that hut?’ Root asked as they prowled around me.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Stags can’t talk,’ Abby said, arriving on the scene.
Again they pounced on me – but I fought them off again. It was as if something had grabbed hold of me and was controlling my limbs. I’d never fought in this way before. Colin went towards the hut. I thumped Root in the stomach and threw myself at Colin, bringing him down. Then they began piling on me and I was like a boy drowning in an ocean of limbs. With all my determination I rose and gulped air. I saw Abby close to the hut’s door and then a blood-curdling scream came from within. Everyone stopped. I knew this was my chance. ‘It’s a ghost,’ I said. ‘It’s a monster,’ I added. ‘I saw it.’ Another scream came from inside. The others were frozen. I took a gamble. I got to my feet. ‘I’m free,’ I called out. ‘The stag is free. You can’t catch me.’
Running swiftly, I sensed their dilemma. Whether to go into the hut or save face and follow me. I knew what they would do and sure enough I heard their whoops and shouts again as they made chase. With all my remaining energy I ran as fast as I could. The farther from the hut I could get the safer they would be inside it. I knew this wood better than any of them but I had to lure them away. Keeping a short distance between us, I brought them to one of the main paths and ran hard so that eventually I found myself in open fields. Collapsing in the grass, it wasn’t long before they all arrived.
‘Got you, you’re dead,’ Root said. And we all laughed.
We lay in the grass under the hot sun, panting for breath.
‘I didn’t know you were that good at fighting,’ Doug said.
‘Nor did I,’ I joked.
‘What do you think was in that old shed?’ Abby asked.
‘Maybe a wild animal,’ I said. ‘Or a ghost.’
‘We should go back and investigate,’ Root said.
‘No way,’ said Josh.
‘Not today, at least,’ Colin added.
‘If it’s a wild animal it could be dangerous. Best leave it alone and let it escape,’ I said. ‘If it’s a ghost, I’m going nowhere near.’ They all laughed.
I didn’t say anything to my friends or my family about what I had seen in the hut in the woods. Instinctively I kept it a secret. But I couldn’t get back out on Sunday as my mother announced we were going to see my grandparents. The ones that the man had asked about. By the time we got back it was dark. It was Monday when I got home from school and packed my haversack with food I could find that wouldn’t be missed. I had plenty of time before the sunset, when my parents would worry about me. I told my mum I was off to play football. It was a very safe neighbourhood.
Finding the hut was more difficult than I imagined and at one point I nearly went back home. But I thought of little Beth. Recalling where I had run as a ‘stag’ I eventually found the wooden hut. It felt as if the wood would eat it up by high summer. Looking around to make sure no-one was about I went to the rotting wooden door and knocked. At first there was no response. Pushing the door open, I heard Jen say ‘Who is it? Is it Jim?’ She sounded worried. I entered. ‘It is Jim,’ she said surprised. For some reason I felt as if she wasn’t expecting me. There was only Jen there. ‘They’ll be back soon,’ she explained as I was looking around. ‘Beth’s going for a bathe in the stream.’
‘Is everything okay?’ I asked. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yep. Monk got some food.’
‘Monk?’
‘My husband,’ she said. ‘It’s what people call him.’
The wooden hut was as tidy as it could be and the window was fixed. Taking off my back pack I handed it to Jen. ‘As much as I could get,’ I said. ‘And a bottle of my dad’s beer too, for…for Monk.’
‘He’ll enjoy that.’ Then, ‘You know we’re not from these parts?’ I nodded. ‘We’re not from around here at all,’ she said. I felt she wanted to say more but the door was opened fully and Monk came in holding Beth in his arms. ‘Jim.’ he said.
‘Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,’ had to visit my grandparents, then school.’
‘I understand,’ Monk said. He sat Beth down carefully and she immediately got herself onto her feet. I was absorbed by her movements. ‘Thanks,’ Monk said. I smiled at Beth.
‘No-one has seen you?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘How long will you stay here?’
‘Not sure Jim,’ Monk said. They seem able to track us down.’
‘Who’s they? The police?’ I ask again.
‘Not exactly,’ Monk said, looking over at Jen.
‘Like the police,’ Jen said, ‘but we’ve done nothing wrong…’
‘Nothing but get old,’ Monk said.
‘Monk!’
‘Getting old isn’t a crime,’ I said in innocence.
‘Not yet, maybe,’ Monk said. Then, ‘Are you hungry, will you stay here and eat with us?
‘You can help feed Beth,’ Jen said.
Before I left I asked again if they, or Monk, were in trouble with the police. Jen again explained that they’d done nothing wrong but the authorities were after them.
‘You believe us?’ Jen asked me. I knew she wanted me to believe her, that it was important what I, a boy, thought. I nodded.
Monk said, ‘It’s been good to meet you Jim. Keep your wits about you. Try not to believe everything you’re told by your teachers or what’s on the news. Times can change. Time can…’
‘Monk!’
‘Time can be…’ he searched for his words. ‘Time can be a friend or a foe. It can be like the wind or as solid as a tree. But it’s still growing and changing.’ He looked at Jen. She smiled. ‘It’s been nice meeting you Jim,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’ll grow up into a fine young man. Don’t you think Jen?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ She was holding Beth’s hands and bouncing her up and down.
‘I’ll come tomorrow,’ I said.
‘I think we’ll be gone,’ Monk said. ‘Have to stay one step ahead. Time’s catching up with us.’
‘Oh,’ was all I could say. I said goodbye to Monk and Jen and then stroked Beth’s hair. ‘She’s very nice,’ I said, ‘and she saved you from being discovered when she cried out.’ Jen and Monk looked at each other puzzled. But then smiled.
As I left and looked back they were standing outside next to the door. ‘Take care,’ Jen said. ‘Grow up to be a good man. And stop them if you can.’
I waved. I wanted to ask ‘who?’. But I stopped myself. The next time I looked back they had disappeared. For some reason a tear formed in my eye and rolled down my cheek. I don’t know why.
Root had come to the door. It was Friday night and we were going to town to get some pizza and chips for a treat. ‘Hi Root,’ I said.
‘Hi Jim. Been police all over the village.’
‘Police, what’s happened?’
‘Looking for a dangerous prisoner who’s escaped. Never seen police that looked like them before.’
‘They there now?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Hang on, let me get my shoes on.’
We ran into the centre of the village where the church was. No-one was about. Nothing. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ I said, ‘follow me Root.’
I ran down the lane, past the pub on the left where we had met the previous weekend. Root was right behind me. We got to the bridge and to the style and then we were up and over. Like the wind we rushed along the path and into the wood. ‘Where are we going?’ Root asked nearly out of breath.
‘Can’t you guess?’
We went along a path and then I darted off down another, which was overgrown. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I know how to get there.’ We tore through the bushes and got scratched by thorns and spikes of branches but eventually I stopped, Root nearly crashing into me. ‘There,’ I said triumphantly.
‘That old shed again,’ Root said.
‘Where I beat you all,’ I laughed.
I walked up to the door and knocked on it. Root thought this funny. There was no sound so I pushed it open. ‘Nothing,’ I said out loud. Monk had made a make-shift table which still stood there. It still looked quite tidy but the cans had been knocked over and there was no trace of footsteps in the dust of the hut’s floor. No rubbish. Not a mark. Root was looking about. Then on the table I noticed that there were stalks of grass – and they seemed to spell out something. It wasn’t obvious but I could see they spelt out ‘TIME’ and underneath them were two tiny letters written with blades of grass ‘JH’. I wasn’t being fanciful. I was sure they read TIME with my initials underneath. Well, they had to be mine. But perhaps the J stood for Jen? Without thinking I brushed the stalks and blades from the table top. Root looked at me and I looked back at him innocently.
‘Why did we go to that hut?’ Root asked as we walked back up the lane.
‘I wanted to see if there was a wild animal there, perhaps a deer’s calf…’
In the village a smart-looking man handed us a poster with a photograph on it. At first I didn’t recognise him but I realised it was Monk. Clean shaven, haircut.
‘Seen him around boys?’
‘Who is he?’
‘A fugitive.’
‘What’s that?’ Root asked.
‘Someone running from the law. He might have been with a young woman and a toddler.’ I looked at the man. ‘You know anything son?’ he asked. I wasn’t his son. ‘He could be dangerous.’
‘What’s he done?’ I asked.
‘He’s broken the law.’
‘What’s he done?’ I asked again.
‘He has stepped out of society,’ the man said, ‘stepped out of his obligations.’
‘What’s that?’ Root asked.
But I had a strange feeling come over me. I looked up at the man’s face. There was something different about him but I couldn’t explain what. As we walked away the man shouted over to us, ‘If you see him, make sure you report him.’ Then after a pause. ‘We’re running out of time.’
This story was originally part of my latest novel The Experience [to be published 2025]. It is one of five ‘outtakes’ that were originally threaded through the novel’s opening chapters. The job of these stories was to reflect or counter the nature of the narrative’s ‘reality’. Their style and viewpoint being contrary to that of the novel’s. It was eventually decided to remove them, simply to keep the continuity of The Experience’s particular style. Please feel free to comment.
Tim Bragg
I arrived at a signpost with paths leading off in different directions. The day was warm, not hot. Spring was in full bloom. It felt as if the world was content with itself. As if there were no wars raging. The globe felt like it was alive and full of energy but at peace. All the destructive forces of humanity channelled into the delicate petals of flowers. The trees were in light leaf, some more than others. Each spring I felt hope and optimism for the future. It was natural.
The signpost was wooden, with its fingers pointing out and destinations carved. I looked up and was confused. There were five paths and on the signs was carved: The same way, A different way, An alternative way, The future, The past. I’d never seen such a sign. I half-smiled. Was it a joke? Someone’s or some council’s ‘bit of fun’? Was it cryptic? The air was still but from the trees that surrounded this meeting of paths came the melodies of birds. I looked down the paths that all began, at least, straight. Dividing the natural, organic nature of the wood.
I had no clear intention of where I was heading. I’d parked the car and left it in the carpark. I saw no-one. Earlier I’d dropped off my wife Hannah, with our twins, at the station. She was going to see her mother in the south of the country. There was nothing for me to do and no pressing engagements. I’d always wanted to see the castle ruins and check out the wood, maybe it was a forest, that surrounded. I had no communication device, just the original sign that pointed from the carpark. ‘Nature Trail’ it read and I followed it. There was no real intent to go anywhere. I imagined that the trail would be circular and maybe there’d be a picnic table somewhere for me to rest.
As I walked along, a whole host of thoughts passed across my mind. Jumbled and incoherent. But the more I walked the less jumbled they became and slowly my mind marshalled them into a coherent narrative. The problems I’d faced, I could view with rationality. Maybe it was the regularity of my steps on the earthen path. Sometimes my attention was disturbed as I found a stone or rock jutting out. But mainly I was lulled into making sense of things. Was life a chaotic mess – or was there order? Order behind it all at least.
I don’t know how long I’d been walking when I reached the sign at the five ways. The path I’d taken had led me there. I suppose I could have left it and gone into the wood. But walking along calmed me and I had the sun above in clear blue skies. Looking up at the sign I was half-amused and half-confused. It would have been reasonable, I presumed, to follow the sign which read ‘The same way’. That would suppose that I was on the right way. And I had no prior intentions as to where I was going. I was just meandering along, with my thoughts, as much as the path allowed. So, I could continue in the same direction or go a different or alternative way. ‘The past’ and ‘The future’ signs were more intriguing. The ‘different way’ would, I presume, take me to a different location, or just a different way to the same place. Taking either the past or the future meant I would have a different experience. ‘An alternative way’ would certainly suggest arriving at the same destination. The question was – what did it mean by alternative? No, I was more charmed by either the future or the past. There I was at the five ways in the present. At the present? What does it even mean ‘the present’? I’d never catch up or slow down enough to be in that present. The present was as elusive…well as elusive as the butterfly that delicately flew before me as these thoughts were forming.
‘The past’ was simply pointing back to the way I had come. But at the start of the path it had signed to the future or even the present. Therefore I was intrigued to think that if I went back the way that I came that I might find the path changed in some way. I couldn’t help imagining that if I returned maybe the path would be changed radically, or I would be changed. It was tempting. If I turned back and found both the path and myself changed then would I even know where I was. And if I panicked and went down the same path again, as I had done originally, would I end up somewhere completely different? Then again would it even be the same path? Was the past and the future set?
I decided to take ‘The future’. In many ways this seemed to be the logical path to take. The future was inevitable, wasn’t it? Thus, I was compelled to take that way. I might have thought more deeply about this and even considered taking the path to the past was also, in some way, the future. But I was content enough with my decision. And in curious but good spirits I began walking this new way. This future path began in much the way as my old path had been. Trees were either side of me and I could hear the birds singing and the sun was above me shining brightly. And yet everything seemed new to me. Familiar but at the same time strange. As if I were not sure of my place in the world – I felt slightly apprehensive.
As I continued to walk, I noticed from time to time, paths leading off from the one I was on. There were no signs. The paths appeared like the one I was on except some were more used than others. I had no idea where they led so presumed whoever had used them previously knew where they were going. Or perhaps they had simply walked into the wood on a whim, or seen or heard something that they followed. In which case the first person to walk into that now path had randomly or suddenly veered off. Then I thought that all paths began with a single person doing this. There had to be something about that way, or decision, that led others to do exactly the same before the path was used enough to become, well, a path. A recognisable way.
I was thinking all of this when I noticed a figure in the distance before the path turned to the right. It cheered me seeing a fellow human. As I got closer to the figure, I could see it was an old man, dressed in fairly baggy trousers and an old worn tweed jacket. He also had a worn black hat on his head. As I approached I smiled and said hello.
‘Hello,’ he answered.
‘Where does this path lead to?’ I asked.
The old man looked at me. A smile further crinkled his lined face, ‘Don’t you know?’ he asked.
I shook my head and said, ‘I don’t.’
‘Why, tis the future,’ he began, ‘the path here leads to the future. Didn’t you see the sign?’
‘Is that the name of a pub?’ I asked, presuming he wasn’t referring to the sign at the five ways.
‘A pub? You mean a public house?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t drink. Never have seen a public house where I live.’
‘You live in a dry town?’ I’d heard about such towns and villages but thought they belonged in the past.
‘No idea what that is,’ he said. ‘Gets good and proper wet at times,’ he smiled.
‘What’s the name of the town you live in?’
‘Tis no town, tis a village,’ the man said.
I was feeling a little exasperated, ‘Well the name of your village.’
‘It’s called Foresite. There’s a manor house there, Foresite Manor.’
‘Thank you. How far is it?’
‘Far? Tis no distance,’ he said, ‘tis no distance at all.’
‘Thank you,’ I said again. He touched his hat and we continued on our ways. As we passed, he looked at me with a smile. He seemed familiar. He could have been my grandfather. I smiled back.
I walked on and when I thought it proper, turned and looked back. But the old man had disappeared. The path had turned slightly, so I ran back farther to see where it was straight and a good view beyond where we’d stopped and talked. Nothing. I imagined him sprinting down the path and out of sight. Then I laughed, he was probably in the wood somewhere relieving himself, or maybe he’d taken one of the turnings between the trees. Walking at a brisk pace, feeling somehow renewed, I carried on. I even began whistling. I didn’t normally whistle. Eventually I came to a village.
There was no sign telling me what the village was called. It wasn’t on the path but rather the path forked and it lay to the left. Once houses appeared the path became a road. Not much of a road. No cars about either. The houses were cottages for the most part. They looked old – they were old. What was I thinking. As I continued, I could see a square ahead. And a church spire suddenly became apparent. How had I missed that? There were shops either side of the entrance to the square. I knew they were shops but they looked empty.
‘Looking for anything?’ came a voice. I looked around and across the square with its plane trees and wrought-iron benches. The church was at the top right, its huge wooden doors and metal rivets clearly visible even from where I was. ‘Looking for anything?’
I then realised the voice was coming from an upstairs window above the shop on my left. Looking up I could see a young man staring down at me. ‘Hello,’ I said.
For the third time he asked, ‘Looking for anything?’
‘Is this village called Foresite?’
‘Yes, it is,’ said the young man. ‘Have you come from the past?’
‘The past?’
‘Yes the past,’ he called down. ‘Wait there.’
I waited outside, there was still no-one around. I heard the jingling of a bell and the shop door opened. The young man stood there gazing at me. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Come in.’ I followed him inside the shop. It wasn’t empty but sparsely stocked with what looked like wooden gadgets. If they were toys I had never seen their like.
‘Forgive me,’ the young man said. ‘May I touch your face?’
I recoiled slightly, then realised he was blind. ‘Of course,’ I said.
He felt the shape of my head and face, his touch was light and sensitive. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I can gain a sense of someone’s spirit in this manner.’
‘By touching their face?’ He nodded. ‘I didn’t know you were blind,’ I said.
‘Thank you, though it is of little consequence. I have been blind all my life and know this shop and this village as if I could see. Though I don’t know what it is to see. People try and describe sight to me but it makes no sense. I see with my hands and with my body. I can feel when things are around me. When it rains the sound of the rain hitting the rooves of houses or the branches of trees gives me their shape and position. Or I can hear when the wind blows through branches, and if the trees are leafless I can hear the creak of a bough.’
I was impressed. But I had to ask, ‘You asked me if I were from the past.’
‘Yes indeed, but follow me, I have rooms upstairs.’
Deftly, he weaved between obstacles then climbed the old, winding stairs. I followed tentatively. I had some story to tell my wife and the young twins would be spellbound. I watched as he entered a room and bid me follow. ‘Please take a seat,’ he said. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘If not too much trouble,’ I answered awkwardly. He smiled. There was no look of a blind man about him. His face and eyes appeared perfect.
‘The past,’ he said.
‘Yes, in a manner,’ I replied hesitantly.
‘I presumed you were from the past. The way you sounded as you moved and waited by the shop. And then when you said ‘hello’ I knew for sure.’ Handing me a drink of coffee, which he’d poured from a pot, he also sat down at the table. I wanted to ask him how he knew when to stop. But I thought that impolite. When he spoke he looked directly at me. His eyes were a cool blue colour and betrayed no blindness.
‘I’m not really from any past,’ I began. ‘I don’t think.’ I recalled I was following a sign to the future but surely this village was from the past, rather than me. It certainly felt that way. ‘I suppose, technically, we’re all living in a kind of past,’ I explained.
‘What year is it?’ he asked.
‘1979,’ I answered.
He seemed very happy. ‘Then you are from the past,’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought so, my senses never let me down. Rarely,’ he added. ‘We haven’t introduced ourselves,’ he said. ‘My name is Root. And yours?’
‘James,’ I said.
‘This is quite exciting,’ he said, ‘it’s been a long time since I’ve talked with someone from the past. I was beginning to think I never would again. I always think it strange that you find this village though.’
I was somewhat perplexed. ‘I rather thought this village was from the past,’ I said. ‘It looks quite an historic place.’
Root laughed. ‘Of course not,’ he said exuberantly.
He asked me many questions about my life in 1979 and what I remembered from my past. He was very curious. He wanted to know many details. I was fascinated by this young man and I was more than willing to give him information. He really wanted to know details about my childhood during the war. And as I told him I was taken back into the past.
Abruptly he stopped speaking. I looked into his eyes. Then turned my gaze away for fear that some magic existed inside them and that he could ‘see’ me without seeing.
‘I have to show you something,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’ He retraced his steps to the shop’s front door. I wanted to ask him about the wooden gadgets but he was swifter than me and ushered me outside. As we stepped out, the village seemed full of people. They looked at me quizzically. At least I thought they looked at me, but as I walked with Root in front, they often bumped into me. Eventually I asked Root, ‘Are all the village folk blind too?’
He laughed. ‘No. No, not at all,’ he spoke with an air of playfulness.
‘But they keep bumping into me,’ I said.
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied. ‘Hold my arm,’ he said. I thought it was for me to guide him across the square, milling with people. But I soon realised it was him guiding me. We reached the church doors, the huge doors I had seen from the other side which I now saw contained a smaller door which was left ajar. ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘It’s very dark inside.’
I smiled.
We walked in and he gently let go of me. I looked around, adjusting my eyes to the lack of light. It was a spectacular cavern of a church. I wanted to shout out or sing.
‘This way,’ he called. I followed him holding on to the end of a pew when he made a sudden turn. We went close to the alter where there was a huge case and many lit candles.
‘This is wonderful,’ Root said. Quickly, he opened the dark-wooded case and searched for something. Instinctively I wanted to help him. Yet, he seemed dexterous, as if he could see in the dark. I even grew suspicious of his professed blindness. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He took a huge heavy book and rested it down on the flat surface in front of the case’s opened doors. Lying the book down – he seemed to know where to turn to – he held out his hand to beckon me closer.
‘Please, tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’
The darkness meant I had to take my glasses case from inside my jacket. Opening it, I took the glasses out and rather self-consciously put them on.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘look.’
And I looked. I peered close to the page he had turned to.
‘Tell me what it says.’
I started to read but I was quite shocked and unnerved as I did. ‘James William Holden a member of this parish, born 1933, died 2013.’
‘You see?’ he asked.
I looked around, a little confused. Whoever this was had the same year and the same date of birth as me.
‘You see?’
‘I’m not sure what I’m meant to see,’ I began.
‘It’s you. You. I knew. As soon as you said ‘James’. I knew. And I’m the only one who can see you.’
‘You can’t see me,’ I said. ‘You’re blind.’
‘I am blind,’ he said gently. ‘But I can see ghosts.’
‘Ghosts?’
‘Yes, ghosts like you James. Dead people. From the past. It’s been some time but they all arrive here eventually. You’re one of the last. Wonderful,’ he said.
I stepped back. Was he a madman, or was I a dead man? Was any of this real?
‘They, you,’ he said, ‘have to come back while you’re alive. But in fact you are really alive and dead. Both at the same time. It’s fine,’ he reassured. ‘You’ve come home,’ he said.
‘But I have no recollection of this village,’ I said.
‘Step outside with me.’
Carefully closing the book and then returning it to the case, Root led me from the dark interior of the church to the outside, where I was blinded by strong light.
I opened my eyes and found myself in my childhood home’s village. Exactly as it was. It could have been before or during the war. People smiled at me but stared straight through Root.
‘Hold my arm,’ I said to him. ‘I’ll take you back.’
He laughed.
Some boys came running through the square. They stopped, saw me. ‘Jimmy,’ they called out. ‘Jimmy where you been?’
I looked at the boy. ‘Root? Is that you Root?’ He laughed out loud. I felt my arm grow heavier and when I turned from the boys, my guide, Root had disappeared.
‘Come on Jimmy, come with us, we’re going to play hide and seek in the wood.’
For a moment I thought I had lost my mind. I could feel my glasses case now in a pocket. But my vision was as sharp as an eagle’s.
The hesitation I felt evaporated. ‘Coming!’ I called and found myself running hard to catch up with my friends.
This story was originally part of my latest novel The Experience [to be published 2025]. It is one of five ‘outtakes’ that were originally threaded through the novel’s opening chapters. The job of these stories was to reflect or counter the nature of the narrative’s ‘reality’. Their style and viewpoint being contrary to that of the novel’s. It was eventually decided to remove them, simply to keep the continuity of The Experience’s particular style. Please feel free to comment. – Tim Bragg
I woke after some vaguely disturbing dreams. I tried to hang onto them, to analyse them, but the more I tried, the more I left them behind. My wife was next to me. She turned around.
‘Are you awake Hannah?’ I asked.
Her eyes flashed open. ‘Hannah?’
Was I back in my dream. ‘Hannah?’ I asked, unsure of her reaction.
‘Who is Hannah?’ she asked.
I sat up in the bed, rubbed my eyes. ‘Hannah?’ I asked again.
She too sat up and stared at me. ‘Are you still dreaming?’
‘I don’t think so.’
She reached over and pinched me. I flinched. ‘You’re not dreaming,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘I see,’ she said.
‘You see?’
‘Did you have any dreams?’
‘Yes.’
‘Think,’ she said.
‘Think? Of what?’
‘You’re not fully awake,’ she said. ‘You think I’m Hannah.’
I did think she was Hannah. Perhaps I was still in a lingering dream, that somehow touched my awakened state. But that didn’t explain why Hannah was behaving the way she was.
‘Sometimes you’re so strange. After all these years, you’d think I’d be used to you. Jim. Hello Jim, wake up. Wake up,’ she teased.
‘I am awake. And don’t call me Jim. You know I don’t like that.’
‘You do like that,’ she said.
‘Why are you acting so strange,’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’
She seemed to grow a little more serious. ‘Think,’ she said.
‘I am thinking.’
‘This is crazy,’ she said. ‘You’re doing this to wind me up aren’t you? One of your games.’
‘Hannah?’
‘No, I am not Hannah. Who is Hannah?’
I got up and walked to the window and looked out. The trees in the distance were familiar. I wasn’t dreaming. But was I going insane? Is this how it begins? Why was she acting the way she was. Perhaps I was in a dream still – a lucid dream. I said to myself, ‘James, wake up, wake up.’ But I was awake.
‘Who is Hannah?’ she asked again.
I resisted replying that she was. What was I to do. I had to think. ‘This is crazy,’ I said.
‘You’re crazy.’
‘Why me? You don’t even know your own name.’
‘I know my name,’ she said. ‘You can’t even remember liking being called Jim. Have you been smoking?’ She became very serious. ‘Maybe it’s stress,’ she said.
‘This is utterly crazy,’ I said. ‘Are you doing this on purpose?’
She laughed. Then she stopped. ‘You need to see a doctor. Or if this is some great big wind up…or,’ she paused. ‘You’re not playing with me?’
‘Playing?’
She smiled. ‘Am I a character?’
I thought. This was an odd thing for her to say. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you creating? Are you trying out dialogue? You’ve done it before. You did it with your last book Which was years ago. But I remember that. I thought you were going mad then, remember?’
Was I creating? ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t like this. I don’t like how you’re behaving, if you’re trying to be funny, or clever, it’s not working.’
‘Are you trying to be clever?’ she asked. She got up and walked past me. ‘Who is Hannah?’ she asked.
I could feel the heat of her rage. She was holding herself back, but I could feel it. ‘I thought…’ I was going to say that I thought she was Hannah. But she was Hannah. I was questioning my own sanity.
I could hear her in the bathroom. I could feel the tension. I decided on another tack. Perhaps she was ill? She’d been under some tension, there was a lot going on. I got dressed quickly and went to the bathroom door, which she’d shut. I tapped. ‘Hannah?’
‘Fuck off!’
‘Please. I don’t understand what’s going on. We need to talk.’
‘I don’t want to talk with you,’ she said. And in case you forgot,’ she stressed, ‘it’s Jen. Jen! You remember now?’
‘Jen,’ I said out loud, confused.
‘Ah, now you remember. You just wanted to annoy me. First thing. Put me in a bad mood. Well you succeeded.’
Jen. That was odd. That was an odd name for her to have chosen. I was perplexed. The door burst open and she pushed past me.
‘Jen,’ I said.
‘Too late, you’ve managed to ruin the weekend already. Well done.’ She stamped down the stairs.
Jen. Interesting. She’d chosen the name of my heroine. From my novel. The novel that was fighting for its life. The novel that didn’t seem to go anywhere and I’d left Jen, Jenny in a predicament. Uncertain of which path to take. I’d lost control of the narrative. Perhaps Hannah had read the opening chapters. She didn’t normally. Normally she left me to get on with writing. Writers are admonished not to speak about their work. Write don’t tell.
In the kitchen she was making breakfast. As I entered she turned to me, ‘Make your own. There’s coffee on the table.’ I always drank tea in the morning. ‘Get Hannah to make your breakfast,’ she spat. I wanted to hold her. Whisper to her. But I was unsure. Unsure of everything. We sat in silence at the table in the living room. I sipped the coffee, it tasted dirty. Eventually I broke the deadened atmosphere. ‘Have you been reading my novel?’
‘Why?’
‘I just wondered.’
‘No,’ she said.
I sipped some more of the coffee, looked at her. I could see she was hurt. ‘The main character, well, one of them, is called Jen,’ I said. ‘Jennifer.’ I could feel her brittleness.
‘And?’
‘I think that’s…funny,’ I said.
‘Funny? So now you think my name is funny?’
‘No, no…obviously not,’ I said. ‘The fact that you think your name is Jen. Jennifer.’
‘I don’t like being called Jennifer,’ she said.
‘That’s the same as my character,’ I exclaimed.
‘Perhaps you made me up?’ she said. ‘Perhaps you’ve made everything up.’
‘No, no, don’t be…’ I was going to say ‘ridiculous’ but stopped myself. ‘I mean, it’s funny, a coincidence,’ I stressed. I looked at her. Did I know her? I thought I did. I mean I absolutely did and yet now she seemed more like a stranger. I changed tack. ‘Do you think I’m losing my marbles?’
Looking at me, I could see she wasn’t sure if I was being serious or not. ‘Well you can’t remember your own wife’s name. You think I’m named after a character in your novel. So. Quite possibly.’
‘Seriously, what if I’m, losing it? What if your name is Jen and I’m making it all up?’
‘That’s my name. And I was called Jen long before we met. My dad wanted to call me Rose and my mother Jennifer. That’s why I’m Jennifer Rose, and because my dad wasn’t too happy he’s always called me Jen.’
‘Have you told me this before?’
‘So many times you usually say…’ She stopped herself, realising that whatever I would normally say, I wasn’t saying now.
‘What do I usually say?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. She became solemn. ‘Jim. James. I think perhaps you need to speak with someone.’
‘Who?’
‘Just one of your friends, or perhaps…’
‘Perhaps what?’
‘One of your friends. What about Doug. He’s level-headed.’
‘Doug. So we agree I have a friend called Doug.’
She smiled. Stopped and became very still. ‘Jim,’ she said kindly, please, if this is some kind of joke, some novel plot you have going, some need to act things out in real life…please…’
‘It isn’t anything to do with any of my writing. But you know I write?’
‘Yes, yes of course.’
‘So I am a writer?’
‘Yes. Not very successful…’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Are we married?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘You’re called Jen’
‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘do you remember now?’
I shook my head. ‘In my novel the heroine is called ‘Jen’.’
‘Yes, if you say so.
‘I have a friend called Doug?’
‘Yes.
‘And Colin?’
‘Yes, him too,’ she snarled slightly.
‘And Root?’
‘Root?’
‘Yes Root, you know he was my best friend, still is, but he’s in South America now.’
‘Root? Are you kidding me?’ she taunted. ‘What kind of name is ‘Root’?’
‘It’s what all the kids called him, call him…If he even exists!’ I got up and paced up and down the room. ‘Maybe this is you, Hannah, Jen, what-the-fuck-ever. Maybe it’s you gaslighting me. Yeah. Maybe so. You know Doug and Colin but you don’t recall Root. And – let’s get it out in the open – you know why he’s in South America? You had an affair with him. Remember that? Or have you casually forgotten that bit of life.? Like you can’t remember I don’t like being called Jim. Like you can’t even remember your own name. And, funnily enough, you think you’re called Jen. And you haven’t read my novel yet but you probably know that Jen has an affair in that too. Is there something you need to tell me Jennifer?’ I spit out in rage.
‘You’re fucking nuts,’ she said. ‘That’s it I’m done. Nuts. I’m out. Enough of this. I mean I should have listened to Kara…’
‘Kara? That bitch?!’
‘Ah, now it’s out. Now it is out. I thought as much. She said to me, don’t marry that man. He’s a bit, you know…’ she twisted her forefinger against the side of forehead.
‘What did she say?’
‘Spends too much time in his head…making things up. A contender for the funny-farm. You know, that kind of stuff Jim.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ I said. ‘Hey, go ahead and twist the knife now you and Kara have it in my back. She was always a bitch, calling herself a feminist and manipulating all of you uni-pod friends…’
‘Uni-pod?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘You’ve lost it. You’ve lost it,’ she was shaking and could only repeat herself.
‘Lost what?’ I taunted.
‘You’re having a breakdown Jim. You’ve let all those words and ideas get in your head.’
‘That’s where they’re from, Hannah. Han-nah. That’s where they’re from. The ideas and thoughts come from my head. Least. Well…’ I wasn’t sure where all my thoughts and ideas came from. ‘I’m going out,’ I said. ‘Getting some air. You think I’m mad. Cuckoo. Ban-na-nas. Don’t you? Well I think you are, whatever your name is. Maybe I’m making you up right now.’
‘That is so fucking typical,’ she said. ‘Such a narcissist.’
‘You don’t even know what it means,’ I retorted.
‘Just get out,’ she said.
‘Try and stop me.’
I left the house and slammed the door. Outside the sun was shining. The postman came whistling down the lane, close to where the pub was. He smiled. Then we both heard a car revving up and Hannah, Jen, whoever she was – blasting down the lane. ‘She’ll kill someone,’ the postman said.
‘She’s upset.’
‘How’s the writing going?’ he asked me. ‘No large envelopes for you recently. Submitting online?’
‘I like the old-fashioned way,’ I said, thinking about Hannah.
‘I had a good idea for a story recently,’ the postman said.
‘Do you write?’ I asked. Glad of his company.
‘Not really,’ he answered, ‘but I do have ideas.’
‘Ideas?’
‘Yes, I had an idea this morning that really stuck with me.’
As a writer, even a writer whose wife was mad and who had run out on him, I was always listening out for ideas.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The idea’s probably been done a million times before. But I imagined being in bed and not knowing who the woman lying in bed next to me was. And I don’t even know her name…’
‘Are you kidding me?” I asked.
‘You think it’s good?’ his eyes had lit up.
I brushed my hair back. ‘It could be interesting,’ I said.
‘One of those odd tales you hear,’ the postman continued.
‘Yes. Yes. Listen I have to go back inside and make a few calls. In private.’
‘I understand,’ he said.
I was deeply unsure of everything. And found myself doubting my own sanity. I wanted to be sick. Sick.
‘Oh, before you go,’ he said, ‘I have this letter for you. Great to get a letter isn’t it? They’re in vogue again. Means something.’ He handed me the letter which had exotic-looking stamps.
‘From Argentina,’ he confirmed. ‘Must be your daughter,’ he smiled.
‘Yes. Yes,’ I said. ‘Must be.’ I looked at the envelope. She was there in Argentina with my best friend. Well he was my best friend. ‘Thanks.’
He waved as he walked on over the road and down the lane.
I took the letter in. I ripped it open and read her words. I sat down and put my head in my hands.
Waking up in the bed I could see my wife next to me. I was half-dressed. I must have drunk to forget. Forget what? I’d had strange dreams and ideas were beginning to form. My wife turned to face me. ‘God you were drunk,’ she said. ‘Never seen you that drunk before James.’
‘Hannah?’ I asked in a soft but gruff voice.
‘What is it?’
I had thoughts come tumbling in but I felt bad and rolled onto my back. ‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Nothing?’
‘No nothing. I feel rough. Why did I drink so much? It’s this life,’ I said, ‘this, I don’t know, this experience. Gets to me sometime.’
‘At least you’ve finished,’ she said.
‘Finished?’
‘Wow you really did drink a lot. Your novel. You finished the novel. At last.’
‘Jen?’ I asked seemingly out-of-the-blue.
‘She got her just rewards,’ she said. ‘I read the end. That bitch had it coming to her.’
I smiled. But I feel guilty,’ I said.
‘They’re not real.’
‘Who?’
‘The characters.’
‘Not real,’ I murmured. And I was out like a light.
Falling through the air I felt myriad images pulling me this way and that. Would it be like one of those dreams where you hit the bed with a bump – leaving your stomach behind and waking with a start? Or would I be gently held mid-air and slowly, slowly brought to the surface. Tranquil waters resting atop of the cushion of air. Maybe, but the waters were already very choppy.
This story was originally part of my latest novel The Experience [to be published 2025]. It is one of five ‘outtakes’ that were originally threaded through the novel’s opening chapters. The job of these stories was to reflect or counter the nature of the narrative’s ‘reality’. Their style and viewpoint being contrary to that of the novel’s. It was eventually decided to remove them, simply to keep the continuity of The Experience’s particular style. Please feel free to comment. – Tim Bragg
I lay in bed, thoughts coming and going. I still felt tired but wanted to get up. The phrase ‘I’ve got to get up’ formed solidly in my mind. A phrase I have said or thought many times. But this time it felt poignant in some way. So I thought harder about the phrase – like when you think hard to bring a dream back into your consciousness. But nothing came. I remained prone. Aeroplane noise sounded through the open window. That should have been a clue. And when the traffic stopped I heard faint birdsong. That should also have been a clue. But I got up.
When I opened the shutters I was surprised that I could see neither planes nor a road with traffic. Had I been dreaming? Perhaps I hadn’t woken up when I heard them previously and the phrase ‘I’ve got to get up’ formed in my dream, trying to wake me up. That seemed plausible. Yet for those first few seconds, maybe a minute, I could have truly believed in the aeroplanes and the traffic. Now I had the birdsong. This was my life. Smiling, I presumed I’d been in that hypnopompic state between sleep and waking – my mind caught between two realities. ‘I’ve got to get up’ it was saying to me.
Outside the air smelt fresh and the view was inspiring. This scene never tired me. I could stare at it for an eternity. Again I smiled. An exaggeration. I was prone to that. I knew myself. For a fleeting moment the idea of painting what I saw entered my head. But why would I paint it when I could see it every day of my life? As I thought this a neighbour passed along the lane below. ‘Bonjour,’ I said. They smiled and replied ‘Bonjour,’ craning their neck to see me. I have an odd idea that I don’t normally speak French. Then I think again and I hear myself say, ‘Good Morning.’ Odd. But then I’ve just woken up and the sun was already rising in the sky. Everything felt good. There was some kind of significance about the day that invigorated me.
There was no-one in the house. I wondered where my daughter was. Having got dressed and throwing some cold water on my face, I descended the stairs. I loved the staircase, I’d always wanted to live in a house with a solid old wooden stairway. There was a hint of smoke in the air. The nights could still get a little cold so we’d have the wood stove burning logs for a while. I went into the living room – I suddenly found that a funny description: the room where we lived. Was it that anywhere else in the house we’d be dead, or only partially living? I imagined a world where folk were partly alive, like fleshy-ghosts or zombies but with an instinct. An instinct to get to the ‘living room’ where they would instantaneously rediscover themselves. In which case the living room of a house would most likely be the largest room. Which would make sense. Then I thought, would there be any need for bedrooms? Would these ghostly zombies need sleep? Time for a coffee. Kick in my brain. Kick in some normal thoughts. Where was my daughter? Perhaps Hannah had taken her into town. Was it Saturday or Sunday? Well, if they’d gone to town it wouldn’t be Sunday. This thought comforted me. I made coffee. Good coffee. I prefer tea but in the morning I need a good strong cup of finely blended coffee beans.
You probably think I’m a bit scatterbrained – but truly, one day seems to meld into another. And a day can feel short or last for an eternity, depending on my mood. Hannah thinks having a creative mind like mine must be torture. I didn’t even know I was creative. Then again I didn’t know why I wanted to paint the scene from out the bedroom window. Perhaps I’d begin painting. Are we all creative? That’s the common idea isn’t it, we’re all creative in some way but that ability has been squashed by routine and societal put-downs. The idea of painting swirled around my head for a while and then was lost.
I was sitting down when someone knocked at the door. Getting up I hurried to open it. There was a postwoman standing there holding a parcel. I guess I couldn’t have slept too late or if I had the postwomen was very late. ‘Bonjour,’ she said. Automatically I answered ‘Bonjour’. Was I speaking French now? Handing me the parcel she smiled warmly. ‘Gracias,’ I replied. She said, ‘De nada.’ As she turned and walked down the path I did what everyone else does to a parcel and weighed it in my hands, turning it to feel its dimensions. Unlike most people I only then looked to see who it was addressed to. Me. ‘Gracias,’ I said again. I didn’t normally speak Spanish either, and neither the postwoman, I didn’t think. But it felt as natural as it did odd.
At the table I began to open the packet. It wasn’t my birthday. I hadn’t ordered anything. Maybe Hannah had used my account and the parcel was really for her? With the wrapping off I could see a solid looking box. Quickly I opened it, there were no clues as yet to what it was. Inside was truly a box of tricks. All manner of small packets of circuitry and minuscule objects I had no idea about. But I emptied the box onto the table and began assembling. That is the truth. Despite having no idea what it was I was constructing I set to the task briskly. Perhaps I was allowing my sub-consciousness to take over. I was a reasonably technologically-minded man, that was how I made my living. That was how I had made my living.
After some concentrated minutes I looked up and around. I hadn’t eaten and I hadn’t gone out. Getting up I stretched my limbs. Where was Vicky? I don’t think I’d even got to talk to her by herself this visit. Anything to eat? A banana. That would do. More coffee or make tea? I looked out of the kitchen window and saw my neighbour returning – she passed by and I was unnoticed. The countryside called to me again. Why did I want to paint it so much? I made some toast, spread some butter and jam and made another mug of coffee. Then sat back at the living room’s table.
Once the assembly was finished, I stared at it curiously. What on earth was it? It was small. It lit up. Flashed. And then spoke to me, which took me totally by surprise.
‘Thank you,’ it said. My mouth opened in wonder. I’d constructed a talking box. I was both surprised and excited. ‘And congratulations,’ it added. I looked at it. I dropped my head down close. Now I was concerned about touching it, even though I assembled it. I waited. ‘Are you going to ask me any questions?’ I looked about the room. I was confused. ‘Questions?’ it reiterated.
‘Well what are you?’ I asked.
‘I am the creator,’ it said.
‘The creator of what?’
‘Of everything,’ it answered. Then added, ‘Of your world.’
‘But I made you,’ I said.
‘But I made you,’ said the box.
‘I could break you,’ I said. ‘Easily.’
‘You’d be too late,’ said the box.
‘Too late for what?’
‘You can’t undo what has been done.’
‘Who says?’
The box flashed. ‘I made you and therefore I would make you break me if that was my desire. Besides, I’m often broken. When that happens I just arrive as a parcel at someone else’s door.’ It flashed.
‘Are you like a genie, are you going to grant me three wishes?’ I said flippantly.
‘I already have done.’ The machine seemed to smirk. I found it slightly condescending.
‘What three wishes?’
‘Three of them.’
‘Yes, you told me.’ I couldn’t believe I was talking to a machine I had, by chance, assembled. ‘Be more specific.’
The machine flashed again. It seemed playful, but how could I know?’
‘You expected me to assemble you?’ I asked.
‘Everyone does,’ it said. ‘Not strictly true,’ it corrected, ‘there was someone who didn’t.’ If a machine could be angry, it was then angry. I felt it. But then the machine would be recalling something that had made it angry. That would be pretty advanced. An emotional memory.
‘Who made your parts?’
‘I did,’ it said.
‘How can you make yourself?’
‘Didn’t you make yourself?’
‘I’m not a machine.’
‘But you did make yourself. You grew all by yourself into who you are now. You aren’t anyone else, are you?’
I had to think about this. What was I doing arguing with a machine? The contents of a box. There had been a strong compulsion to assemble it. Build it. ‘I didn’t grow by myself,’ I began, ‘I had parents that nurtured me and gave me food. I have to eat to grow, to maintain myself.’
‘It’s everything I gave you,’ said the box.
‘You gave me?’
‘Yes,’ it flashed.
‘This is crazy,’ I said. Maybe I’m going crazy? I questioned. ‘I’m going to smash you up, smash you into smithereens. Then try and turn up in a box at someone’s house.’
‘It’s all been done before. You have to learn. You’ll have to learn…’ As the machine said this I picked it up and smashed it against the tiled floor. Then I took it outside and smashed it against the brickwork. And then I laid it down on the patio we’d had laid and I took a rock which I heaved above my head and bent over and brought it down on the machine, or what was left of it. Its parts were scattered with some turned to technological dust. I sat down on the patio’s brickwork. The sun was shining. It was a glorious day. My breath came heavy. My hands were shaking. Two mugs of coffee. I shouldn’t drink so much coffee. I could see bits of the machine everywhere. What did it mean, it made me? An arrogant machine. What did it think it was?
I went back into the house and washed my hands and threw water on my face. What on earth had gone on? Probably some elaborate joke. Technology could do that kind of stuff these days. Maybe ex-work colleagues. Creating a machine that thinks it made me and everything that made me, me. I decided to go for a walk into the beautiful countryside I could see from my bedroom window. Bathe myself in nature.
Lying on my bed I heard a bird singing loudly outside. I felt very comfortable where I was. The duvet was warm from my body’s heat. And my wife’s. I turned round to look at her but she was gone. Her pillow was depressed into a bowl where her head had rested. I was desperately trying to remember my dream. I was willing my thoughts to bring it back. I’d experienced it, why couldn’t I conjure it once more. Do dreams go into our memory banks? And if they do, what distinguishes dreams from reality? Besides, when you’re in a dream it is reality.
‘I’ve got to get up,’ I said out loud to nobody. I had that curious feeling you sometimes get when you’ve experienced something before or that something seems peculiarly poignant but you don’t know why. As if the words were harking back to another fictional world, perhaps a dream world. I pulled myself out of bed and stood and stretched my arms upward. Walking over to the window I looked outside at the view. Such a beautiful view. I wanted to take a photograph of it – try and capture it. But it was always there. Each day it welcomed me in whatever time of year, whatever the weather.
The sun was rising. I wanted to fly out from the window and across to the distant fields and trees. My neighbour walked past below me. I watched her get close and called down to her, ‘Good morning.’ Looking up she smiled and replied, ‘Good Morning.’ Then she carried on her way. Tripping down the stairs I felt truly alive. Where was Hannah and my son? No trace. I got myself a mug of tea, I’d given up coffee, it could excite me too much. I opened the side door of the house and looked outside. The sky was blue with not a cloud. I was very happy. Resting against the wall I let the sunshine pour over me.
From around the corner of the house I heard a voice call out, asking if there was anybody home. I must have missed them knocking at the front door. Walking quickly I turned the corner to face the postman who was waiting by the door. ‘You need to sign for this parcel,’ he said. I strode over and we smiled at each other. Bending down he picked up the packet. ‘It’s a little heavy,’ he said. Passing it to me I said, ‘Thank you.’ I watched as he disappeared down the path. I held the packet in my hands and weighed it like we all do, turning it as I did. Gauging its dimensions and wondering what it might be. Looking at the address I saw it had my name. Curious, I thought, as I’d not ordered anything. Perhaps Hannah had got something for me. A surprise perhaps? But then why would she send it to me and not to herself. I brought the parcel in and placed it on the living room table and began to pull off its wrapping. As I unwrapped it I had a very curious feeling.
Rain had just stopped when Jo DaCosta lit her cigarette outside Café Sol. The pavement glistened under the morning sun, and Camden’s streets shimmered with a damp, electric sheen. She watched the steam rise from manhole covers like breath from the city itself.
Inside, the café was mostly empty. Jazz trickled from an old speaker in the corner, and the waitress gave her a familiar nod. Mia Petrova was already seated at their usual table, back to the wall, gaze sweeping the room. Jo slid in opposite her without a word.
Mia’s black hair was tied back messily, her leather jacket soaked at the shoulders. She cradled a mug of flat white like it was the only warm thing left in the world.
Jo spoke first, voice low. “You feel it?”
Mia didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
It had started three days ago, after the woman in 42B was found dead. No sign of forced entry, no trauma, no explanation. Just a body on the floor, hands folded neatly on her chest, as if waiting for someone. A name scribbled in a foreign hand on a slip of paper beside her: Joana D.
Jo hadn’t slept properly since. And neither had Mia.
Then the courier came.
He entered Café Sol like it was just another delivery. Mid-thirties, lean but muscular, olive skin, a shaved jawline, dark curls barely tamed under a hood. He wore a standard-issue courier jacket, but something about the way he moved—deliberate, observant—made Jo sit straighter.
He didn’t order. Just walked to the back and sat, alone. Pulled a tarnished silver coin from his pocket and tapped it against a chipped ceramic cup.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The sound drilled into Jo’s nerves. Mia’s eyes flicked up to the mirror behind the bar—where the man’s reflection revealed something his posture did not: a discreet black earpiece curled into his right ear.
Jo’s gaze narrowed. “Courier, my ass,” she muttered.
Mia nodded slightly, her voice barely above a whisper. “Cufflinks. Gold. Monogrammed.”
Jo turned her head slowly and saw it—something gleaming beneath the edge of his sleeve as he adjusted his collar. A flash of old money. Incongruent. Intentional.
The man didn’t look at them. Not directly. But Jo had been a fixer, once, in places where looking directly meant losing everything. She knew surveillance when she saw it.
He was waiting. Watching. And not for coffee.
Chapter Two: The Storage Unit
They followed him the way ghosts follow warmth—quiet, persistent, and with the knowledge that once you’re seen, the game is over.
Jo stayed on foot. Her boots slapped softly against wet cobbles, her breath visible in the cold spring dusk. Mia trailed behind on her old Vespa, a rumbling relic of university days, now a dependable second set of eyes. The bike’s muffler coughed every few blocks, but in the noise of Camden’s nightlife, it didn’t matter.
The courier made no attempt to shake them. Either he hadn’t noticed, or he wanted to be followed.
He led them through alleyways behind Chalk Farm, past shuttered thrift shops and graffiti-slicked walls, then out onto the northern ring road. There, behind a chain-link fence and a rusted sign that read Civic Storage — Units Available, he stopped.
The unit he unlocked was low, gray, and unremarkable, save for the faint scent of paraffin that leaked from its seams. Mia killed the Vespa’s engine and coasted into shadow. Jo tucked herself behind a dented skip, watching.
The man pulled the shutter half-closed behind him.
Jo glanced over her shoulder, met Mia’s eyes. No words. Just instinct.
She crept forward first, keeping her profile low. Mia followed.
Inside, they found something that shouldn’t have existed.
Dozens of photographs hung from twine nailed across the unit’s concrete walls, like crime-scene bunting. Some were colour snapshots: Jo walking out of a Miami nightclub in 2008. Jo boarding a ferry in Rio. Jo stepping off a train at Paddington just last week.
Others were grainy black-and-white stills. Surveillance. Long-lens, high angle. Her. Always her.
Mia crossed to the far corner. There, neatly pinned with a single rusted tack, was a photo of the dead woman from 42B. Hair loose, lips parted slightly in what might’ve been sleep. Her eyes, closed. Peaceful.
Mia turned it over. One line written in a jagged, impatient hand.
Ela era a primeira. She was the first.
Jo’s skin prickled. “Whoever she was… we weren’t meant to outlive her.”
They barely had time to take it in before a door creaked behind them. Jo spun. The man was back—framed in the half-light, eyes calm.
He didn’t speak. Just flicked a lighter and dropped it.
Fire bloomed instantly—liquid accelerant had soaked the walls and floor. A roar of heat and smoke drove them backwards. Jo lunged for the desk, grabbed the nearest thing she could—an old, leather-bound notebook smouldering at the edges—and bolted with Mia through the rising smoke.
They burst out into the alley coughing, eyes streaming. Behind them, the storage unit burned.
By the time fire crews arrived, there was nothing left but melted film and ash.
They walked home in silence.
Mia rode with her Vespa engine off, coasting next to Jo. The notebook cradled in Jo’s coat reeked of smoke. Its pages were singed, but some words—some pages—remained legible. The writing inside was strange.
Familiar.
Mia stopped her bike outside Jo’s building. “You saw it, right?”
Jo didn’t answer immediately. She ran her fingers along the notebook’s edge, then nodded.
“Yeah. My mother’s handwriting. And yours.”
Mia looked up, confused. “What?”
“Pages. Dated twenty years apart. Some in your diary style. Some in hers. Same ink. Same words. She was the first.”
Mia stared, silent for once.
That night, they didn’t sleep. The city did. The lights dimmed, the fog rolled in off the Thames, and somewhere—high above them or maybe just beneath their skin—a new sense of purpose took hold.
Whatever they were part of, it didn’t start with them.
And it wasn’t over.
Chapter Three: Ghosts oChapter Three: Ghosts on Paper
Jo sat at the cracked desk in their makeshift office above Café Sol, cigarette smoke curling in lazy spirals toward the flickering ceiling light. The notebook lay open like a wound between them, its pages stiff with soot. The room was still, save for the faint hum of the espresso machine downstairs and the scrape of Mia’s boot against the wooden floor.
They’d read the same lines a dozen times, but the words refused to dull with repetition.
January 12th, 1999. She dreams in fire again. She says the watchers are waking. She says I must prepare Joana. I fear we’ve passed it down.
Jo traced the loops of the handwriting with her fingertip. “It’s hers,” she murmured. “My mother. This is her script. Even her phrasing. She used to talk in riddles near the end.”
Mia leaned in. “This part—look.” She pointed to an entry in cramped, slanted letters that echoed her own teenage journals:
April 3rd, 2011. Sometimes I feel her in my spine. Like a memory that’s mine but isn’t. I see a red door. Always that red door. And someone humming behind it. I think Jo is in danger.
Jo exhaled slowly, eyes haunted. “You didn’t write this?”
Mia shook her head. “Not a word.”
The notebook was stitched together from two lives. Words that belonged to them, written long before they’d ever met. Entries decades apart, but somehow linked—mirror images in different hands.
“You ever black out as a kid?” Jo asked quietly. “Lose time?”
Mia nodded, almost absently. “When I was thirteen. Two days, gone. My mother said I ran away. I don’t remember a thing. Just… salt in my mouth. Like I’d swallowed the sea.”
Jo looked up, meeting her eyes. “Same thing happened to me. Rio, 2004. I woke up on a rooftop. Holding a key I’d never seen.”
They both fell silent.
Mia closed the notebook. “This is bigger than surveillance. Bigger than the dead woman. It’s…” She paused, searching for the word. “Inheritance.”
Jo stood, pacing to the window. Outside, a man with a limp dragged a bin across the alley. The pub next door let out its regulars in a lazy wave of drunk laughter and car horns. But Jo felt none of it.
“There’s something ancient underneath all this,” she said. “Like we’ve stepped into someone else’s memory. And now it’s bleeding into ours.”
Behind her, Mia’s eyes lingered on the final entry:
She was the first. You are the last. It must end with the flame.
They drove to 42B Dockside Row the next morning.
The building had been sealed with crime scene tape, but Mia knew how to slip locks like a magician. They stepped into the dim corridor where Lúcia Santos—“the woman in 42B”—had died.
Her flat was neat. That was the first wrong thing.
Dishes still drying in the rack. A half-read novel on the armrest. One mug, still faintly warm. No sign of struggle. No blood. Just absence, neatly packaged.
Jo wandered to the bookshelf. Most of the spines were in Portuguese. Poetry. Mysticism. A tattered first edition of Fernando Pessoa marked with handwritten notes in the margins. Mia drifted to a small table by the window. On it sat a leather pouch, unzipped, revealing a pendant: obsidian, oval, set in copper filigree.
She held it up. “This was hers.”
Jo looked over, and her stomach turned.
The pendant matched one her mother had worn for years, right up until the day she died in Lisbon.
“It’s a key,” Jo said, almost without thinking. “Not literal. But it… opens something.”
Mia’s breath caught. “Jo.”
She pointed to a painting above the bed: a crude oil portrait, faceless and dark. But behind it, scraped into the plaster, were words.
O olho que tudo vê. The all-seeing eye.
Beneath it: a red spiral.
A symbol Jo hadn’t seen since childhood, carved into the underside of her mother’s nightstand.
Her voice dropped. “We’re not being watched. We’re being remembered.”
A noise at the door.
Both froze.
Footsteps in the hall. Slow. Deliberate.
They didn’t wait. Mia pocketed the pendant, Jo grabbed a faded journal from the bookshelf, and they slipped out the rear balcony just as the lock turned and the door creaked open.
Neither dared look back.
Certainly — here’s the next chapter:
Chapter Four: Vespa
He was born Marco Duarte, in Porto. But by the time the Portuguese police compiled their first dossier on him, they’d already scratched out his name and scrawled a different one in red ink: Vespa.
It started as a joke—he rode a beat-up silver scooter through Lisbon’s Alfama district, ferrying messages for men too dangerous to own phones. But the name stuck long after the scooter disappeared. By twenty, he was fluent in five languages, forged passports for half the Balkans, and wore bespoke suits to funerals no one else knew had happened.
Nobody ever hired Vespa twice. Not because he failed, but because he left the job changed. Tilted. Cursed, some said.
Jo had crossed paths with him once in Caracas. Or maybe Bucharest. The memory blurred, but the feeling didn’t: like standing in a shadow that didn’t belong to anyone.
Now, he was back in London.
They found him through old favors—Mia still had a contact at GCHQ who owed her for a discreet cleanup in Prague. The tipoff was simple: Duarte was operating again. He’d landed at Heathrow four weeks earlier. No passport on file. No visa. Just a customs stamp tied to a diplomatic pouch.
Officially, he didn’t exist.
But a whisper traced his trail through the criminal underground: Camden, Soho, Hampstead. Always trailing women with Portuguese names and faces that matched old surveillance prints.
Jo and Mia followed the breadcrumbs to a derelict flat above a pawnshop in Dalston.
They waited until just after midnight.
Mia picked the lock. Jo kept low, Beretta drawn—not standard issue, but a gift from her mother’s old contact in São Paulo. The flat reeked of old books and linseed oil. In the centre of the room, under a single lightbulb, sat Vespa. Calm. Waiting.
He looked older than Jo remembered. Deep lines around his mouth. Gray at the temples. But his eyes were the same: cold, calculating, and utterly still.
“You’re early,” he said.
Mia didn’t speak. She hated games.
Jo stepped forward. “You torched the unit. Why?”
Vespa leaned back, as if relaxing into the inevitable. “You weren’t supposed to see what came after. Only what came before.”
“What does that mean?” Jo asked.
Vespa smiled faintly, as if amused by a riddle only he could solve. “Your lives don’t belong to you. Not entirely. You were shaped. Conditioned. Each choice… curated. Like heat-tempered glass.”
Jo’s jaw tightened. “By who?”
He looked at her. Really looked.
“You know already. The spiral. The watchers. Your mother was part of it. So was hers.”
Mia moved suddenly, slamming his chair against the floor, pinning him beneath the table. “Why follow us?”
He didn’t resist. “Because you’re the last two. And you’re both starting to remember.”
Jo crouched down. “Remember what?”
Vespa met her gaze. “What you did. What was done to you. The rituals. The forgetting.”
He spoke the last word like a curse.
They found little else in the flat. Just another photograph—this one of Mia, aged seven, standing barefoot in a Romanian monastery courtyard. She had no memory of it.
And beside it, a map.
Drawn by hand. Marked with dates. Red spirals at each intersection.
The last one: Lisbon. July 6. Six days from now.
Vespa was gone by morning. Not a lock broken. Not a trace left.
But the silence he left behind screamed louder than any words.
Chapter Five: The Red Door
The plane touched down in Lisbon just after midnight. The air was thick with salt and heat, and the city shimmered under a half-moon like a secret waiting to be remembered.
Jo hadn’t been here in almost twenty years. Last time, she was thirteen and silent, clutching her mother’s hand as they passed a nunnery with no sign and no name. Her mother had told her they were visiting “relatives.” But the only people they met were veiled, quiet, and smelled of burnt herbs.
Mia disembarked wearing a scarf over her head and dark glasses, as if anonymity could be stitched together from fabric. She hadn’t spoken much since the Dalston flat—not after seeing herself as a child in a place she had no memory of.
They found the red door by accident.
It was tucked at the end of a narrow street in Alfama, past rows of sagging laundry and broken stone steps. Painted crimson, the door had no handle—only a brass keyhole shaped like an eye.
Jo didn’t knock. She touched the wood, and it opened soundlessly inward.
Inside: cool, dry stone. A cloistered hallway lined with flickering oil lamps. A woman stood waiting, dressed in gray robes. Her face was lined, her eyes sharp.
“You’ve come late,” she said, voice clipped by age. “But not too late.”
Jo opened her mouth, but Mia stepped forward first. “We want answers.”
“You want memory,” the woman replied. “That’s more dangerous.”
They called it O Espelho—the Mirror. Not a thing of glass, but a process. A ritual. One designed to recover what had been intentionally forgotten. Mia volunteered first. She lay on a slab of cold marble in a chamber that smelled of rose water and old fire.
The robed woman, whose name was Catarina, burned a thread of Mia’s hair, whispered over it, and dropped it into a bowl filled with ink. Then came the chanting—low and rhythmic, in a language Jo couldn’t place. And Mia’s eyes fluttered.
She didn’t sleep. She remembered.
A forest. Snow. Her mother’s voice, tense. A clearing ringed by stones. Hands pressing hers into wet earth.
Then… nothing. A noise. A flash.
She came to an hour later, body shaking, sweat-drenched. Catarina handed her a mirror. Mia looked into it and wept.
Jo went next.
She saw her mother too—but younger, radiant, filled with fear. Holding Jo’s hand beside a stone well. Whispering. Jo remembered the word now.
“Spira.”
The spiral. The shape of the enemy, the symbol of the pact. A cycle meant to be broken.
Jo stumbled from the chamber disoriented, her knees weak. Mia caught her before she fell.
Catarina handed them both a small, cloth-wrapped bundle.
Inside was a photograph—one neither of them had seen before.
Two babies. Swaddled. Sleeping in the same bassinet.
On the back: Ela não está sozinha. She is not alone.
Back at their hotel, Jo sat on the balcony watching the Tagus river glimmer. She held the photo between her fingers.
“I think we’re twins,” she said softly.
Mia didn’t respond right away. “Or something like it.”
Jo lit a cigarette. “This wasn’t just some vendetta.”
“No,” Mia said. “This was a breeding program.”
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the hum of the city.
And far below them, on the cobblestones near the tram tracks, a man in a courier’s jacket flipped a silver coin against his palm.
Once. Twice.
Then vanished into the shadows.
Absolutely — here’s the next chapter.
Chapter Six: Ashes of the First
They flew back to London two days later. Something had shifted. Mia didn’t speak for the first part of the flight, just stared blankly at the notebook, the pages brittle with soot and salt. Jo sat beside her, quietly turning over the photograph—two infants in the same cot, swaddled in mismatched cloth, oblivious to what they’d been born into.
By the time they landed, the fog over Heathrow was thick and gray, a smothering kind of weather that blanketed the city in silence.
Their agency—Third Eye Investigations—had been shuttered since the fire. But when Jo turned the key in the office door, the smell of burnt electronics and stale coffee still hung in the air. Something was off. A drawer had been forced. A bulb flickered. Someone had been here.
In the middle of the desk lay an envelope with no postage. Just their names scrawled across the front in a sharp, elegant hand.
Inside: one item.
A single key.
Old brass. Stamped with a symbol they now recognized all too well—the spiral.
They traced the key to a town in Oxfordshire. A convent, officially closed since the 1980s, sold to a private trust. The locals said no one went in or out. That it was haunted. That the bells rang sometimes, even though the ropes had rotted decades ago.
They arrived just after sunset.
The grounds were overgrown, wild with weeds. Stone angels loomed over the entryway, wings chipped, faces eroded into mournful masks. The front door didn’t open with the key—but a side passage, barely visible beneath ivy, did.
The air inside was cold and dry, like a library sealed for centuries. Their footsteps echoed on flagstone. Candles lit automatically as they passed, flickering to life in alcoves as though the building recognized them.
At the center of the main hall stood an altar. Not a Christian one, not really—more geometric, older. A slab of black stone etched with spirals, concentric circles, and mirrored symbols they didn’t understand.
On the wall behind it: another photograph. Larger this time. Faded.
A group of women. Twenty or thirty. Some pregnant, some holding infants. Jo’s mother among them. Lúcia. Catarina. And others they didn’t recognize.
Jo stepped closer. In the corner of the image, a man stood alone, barely visible.
Mia’s breath caught.
“Vespa.”
Jo nodded. “He’s older in this photo. But it’s him.”
Below the image, in Latin, someone had carved:
“Ex prima, orta est memoria.” From the first, memory is born.
They didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late.
The doors slammed shut.
A voice, calm and unhurried, echoed from the shadows.
“You’ve come to burn it down,” it said. “But what will you do when you learn you built it?”
Vespa emerged from the darkness, no coin this time. No courier’s jacket. Just a black shirt and the kind of stillness that makes dogs whine and lights flicker.
“You were meant to forget,” he said. “The rituals. The replication. The binding.”
Mia’s voice was ice. “You used us.”
Vespa smiled faintly. “No. We preserved you.”
Jo stepped forward. “We know. About the mirror. About the pact. The first woman—the one who died—Lúcia. She tried to break it.”
“And you think you can finish what she started?” Vespa asked. “You don’t even know the cost.”
Mia moved first.
Quick, hard. She tackled him to the floor as Jo circled behind, snapping the ancient spiral key into the stone altar’s base. It clicked. A groan echoed through the walls.
The building began to tremble.
Light burst from the etchings on the altar—blue, then white, then gold. A sound like wind and memory and static all at once filled the hall. Vespa screamed. Not in pain—but in rage.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done—!”
“We do,” Jo said quietly. “We chose to remember.”
The altar cracked down the middle. The spiral shattered.
And then the world went still.
Chapter Seven: Spiral Ends
When Jo opened her eyes, the light was gone.
The altar was broken, fractured clean down the center. Smoke hung low across the stone floor like a veil. The hall smelled of burning sage and ozone. Vespa was gone—no body, no trace. Only the faint echo of his final words, still vibrating in her chest: You don’t understand what you’ve done.
Mia was on her knees beside the shattered altar, catching her breath.
“You alright?” Jo asked, her voice hoarse.
“I think so,” Mia said. “But I remember everything now.”
Jo did too.
The spiral wasn’t just a symbol. It was a cycle. Generations of children born into this hidden network, women used for their ability to… see. Not in a psychic sense—not exactly. More like antennae. Receptors for memory, history, possibility. Their minds carried something ancient, something passed down and rewritten until it could barely be traced.
The Mirror wasn’t a tool—it was a failsafe. To erase what they couldn’t afford to let survive.
And now, they’d broken it.
They burned the photograph.
Back at Café Sol, Jo lit the edges with a match and let it smolder in an ashtray until all that remained was a curl of ash and the faint outline of the spiral, still stubborn in its refusal to vanish.
The city went on. The rain returned. Somewhere across town, a tube train rattled past midnight.
Mia drank her espresso in silence, flipping through the now-blank notebook. The ink had vanished. Pages wiped clean.
“Do you think that’s it?” she asked. “Cycle broken?”
Jo shrugged. “Cycle broken, maybe. Pattern paused. But someone always rebuilds.”
Mia nodded slowly. “Then we make it our business to watch for the rebuilders.”
They sat for a long time. The coin—Vespa’s—sat on the table between them. Its surface was worn smooth now. No markings. Just the cool, silent weight of something unfinished.
Epilogue: Afterlight
Weeks later, Jo received a package. No return address. No note.
Inside: a mirror.
Old. Cracked. Framed in oak. Wrapped in cloth that smelled of eucalyptus and lavender.
She stared at her reflection and waited.
Nothing unusual.
Until, just behind her, a shadow moved.
Not a threat.
A figure.
A woman.
Her mother.
Smiling.
And just before the glass flickered to black, her mother mouthed a single word.
Tim Bragg is an engaging writer, novelist, poet and multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter and musician with an impressive bibliography of both fiction and non-fiction works and recorded albums to his credit, the very latest being the cyber gothic slow burner and critically important ‘The Mirror’ (Sycamore Dystopia 2023).
The Mirror is a dystopian novel set in a not too distant future – 2073 – where humanity is held captive in a society completely run by a system of artificial intelligence and technocracy similar to that envisaged by both one-time Fabian socialists Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and George Orwell (1984), both of whom portrayed ‘one world’ collectivist states run by an elite of central planners where life, language, media and ‘entertainment’ are completely regulated and controlled. Bragg here offers a very compelling and highly relevant take on this theme for the contemporary times but with perhaps a story more reminiscent of the film ‘Blade Runner’ (itself based on the novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ by the gnostic Philip K Dick) and Mary Shelley’s classic ‘Frankenstein’, but with a much more uplifting and positive affirmation of the human capacity for self- transcendence through the essence of creativity and art; the nature of art being one of the central themes of the book but also how art can be captured and simulated by technology (witness now how AI can itself write poetry and paint images of incredible complexity etc.).
There is a cryptic relevance in the story to how the world changed in 2030. Some of the characters in the book who hold positions of power have names that appear rather ‘hipster’ or eco-themed although the world they inhabit is anything but ‘natural’ – cloning, eugenics, genetic engineering and mass surveillance. Even personal reproduction, itself reduced to life inside something resembling a panopticon, is closely screened in the name of ‘mother earth’.
Given that Tim Bragg is connected with the excellent ‘Off The Left Eye’ YouTube channel having composed music for some of its broadcasts and podcasts which serve to popularise the esoteric Christian spirituality of the 18th Century Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, it was no surprise to see space given in the book to themes of human immortality in the face of individual extinction, particularly as one central character has a near-death experience, this theme being central to the novel’s central premise – do humans and nature have a Soul or Spirit? Are we Soul and Spirit, or merely biological machines with neither? Does consciousness actually exist independently of the mind? Do we think thoughts or are thoughts thinking us? What does it mean to be human? (Another work worthy to be mentioned in this context here would be C.S. Lewis’s ‘That Hideous Strength’, an anti-transhumanist classic.)
Tim Bragg has succeeded in writing a highly readable novel depicting what the world would look like should Klaus Schwab’s vision of the Great Reset and Agenda 2030 actually come to fruition and succeed in reducing all of humanity to automatons. Given the indefatigable spirit of humanity though, Bragg gives us much inspiration to suggest that a single blade of grass could cut through concrete given time and genuine human values like compassion, friendship and love and the redeeming capacity of art to transcend and ennoble life which will win through in the end somehow.
This is a multi-layered work with good characterisation and many textures and tones which slowly draws the reader in, with twists and turns in the tale amidst a mounting fear that builds to its shocking conclusion. A gripping polemic against transhumanism which succeeds without either preaching or condemning but clearly displaying the author’s obvious empathy and sensitivity to the human condition.
Written with the full approval of the Orwell estate, Julia is a retelling of George Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty Four from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover, the eponymous hero of this novel, rather than of Winston himself. As a long-time fan of Orwell’s book, which even three-year’s membership of the Communist Party of Britain didn’t dissuade me from, this was a book I knew I had to read as soon as I became aware of its existence a few weeks ago. It’s to the novel’s credit that even though I rarely read fiction nowadays, and at four hundred pages it’s of a fair length, I got through it quickly. It is a real page turner, and though not without reservation, it’s one I strongly recommend.
I did approach it with some trepidation. Whilst reading it, I purposely avoided any reviews. I have however looked at a few since finishing it. Some of these have recommended it be read as a companion piece to the book Wifedom by Anna Funder, which is a biography of Orwell’s first wife Eileen O’ Shaughnessy nee Blair (Orwell was Christened Eric Blair). This apparently portrays Orwell as an insensitive misogynist, possibly a closet homosexual, who took many of his best ideas from Eileen, without acknowledging her contribution. Eileen died in 1945, four years before the publication of Nineteen Eighty Four, but it seems written a poem of this name several years earlier. She also suggested he write his planned satire on the degeneration of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia as an allegorical a fable. This book of course became his second most famous novel, Animal Farm. Funder alleges that Orwell’s dislike of women, or at least his belief that they were of little political importance, was embedded in his writings, in his novels, his essays and his letters, which is not something I personally have noticed, despite having read virtually everything he ever wrote by the end of the 1980’s. To be fair to Funder though, I’m not a woman, and wasn’t looking for such things.
Clearly, Orwell is not immune to cancel-culture, and this was my fear with Julia, even before I’d hear of or read anything about Wifedom, that it would be a ‘woke’ retelling of his masterpiece, and one that may even end up replacing it as required reading for the youth of today.
Fortunately, my fears in this regard proved unfounded. Naturally, women, Julia herself of course, but also women in general, do play a more important role than is to be found in Orwell’s original. That is to be expected and is essentially it’s point of the novel. Female sexuality, in particular plays a role that is, as you’d expect of a novel written in the late ‘40’s, almost entirely absent from Orwell, and is subtly handled. But none of this change of perspective was done at the expense of the male characters, who remain much as we remember them. There is a tendency today in fiction, in books, in films and television, to make all women into strong women, and portray all men as being weak and/or stupid. I didn’t find this the case in Newman’s work, where the male characters, principally Winston but others too, are not only recognisable from Orwell’s novel, but are also given an extra dimension through being seen through feminine eyes.
I will try to review, as is my general policy for book reviews (for films I tend to assume the reader has most likely already seen the movie), without giving away too many spoilers.
First, I suppose I should answer the question as to whether this book could be read without familiarity with Orwell’s original. Here, I’d have to say that the answer has to be, in general, ‘no.’ I suppose it would be possible to read this and then to go back and read Orwell’s source material. But then a re-reading of Julia would I think also be essential. At the very least, a reasonable knowledge of the world Orwell created, of its main themes, concepts and chronology, is essential for the fullest enjoyment of Julia.
Indeed, spotting where you are in relation in relation to the original was a big factor in my own enjoyment of the book: ‘Ah, this is the shop where Winston buys the paperweight’, or ‘Yes, this is the Prole woman who Winston watched singing and decided was beautiful.’ Thoughts like this were frequent occurrences for me, and to not have that background knowledge as a guide would be a huge handicap for a reader.
Of course, some aspects of NineteenEighty Four, have become such a recognisable aspect of modern culture and politics, Big Brother or Newspeak etc, that they would be understood by any reasonably intelligent, politically aware reader. Indeed, the very term Orwellian has become a part of modern political discourse, denoting anything perceived as a further step towards a totalitarian society.
I’m pleased that the author has remained faithful to the world that Orwell created. This was a world that, although set in what must have seemed to readers, and perhaps to Orwell himself, as a far-flung future date (though the real ‘1984’ is now further away in our past than it was in Orwell’s future!), it was still clearly based very much on his own time. The ‘Thought Police’ were obviously influenced by Stalin’s then still highly active KGB, and to a lesser extent the recently defeated Hitler’s Gestapo; and the general shabbiness, shortages and rationing of ‘Airstrip One’, the modern name for England in the novel, was very much influenced by Britain under the 1945-51 Labour government of Clement Attlee, a government rightly revered on the Left, particularly for its creation of the NHS, but which presided over a nation ravaged and bankrupted by war, a grey, decayed country of enforced austerity.
(Orwell chose the even more austere atmosphere of the remote Scottish island of Jura, then sparsely populated, and now devoid of all human presence other than hardy travellers, for the actual writing of the novel).
I very much enjoyed the way the author filled out Orwell’s world, giving us more detail of how people lived in Airstrip One, be they the Proles, the Outer-Party, to which both Julia and Winston belong, and the elite Inner-Party, the elite to which their soon to be interrogator O’Brien belongs, and which has at its apex, omnipresent on the ‘tele-screens’ (which are now a reality in all but name in our own world), the infallible Big Brother himself.
There are, however, problems with such detail, and this where the novel, in my opinion, reveals its weak points. Surely, the main takeaway from Orwell’s book, is that this is a totalitarianism that is indeed total in almost every respect. ‘A boot stamping on a human face, forever’, to quote O’Brien, from which there seems no possible escape.
In Julia ‘Airstrip One’ often resembles a run-of-the-mill ‘Peoples Democracy,’ the official, Soviet approved names for the East European one-party communist states which were in the process of construction at the time Orwell was writing. It wasn’t a surprise to me to discover that one of Newman’s previous books is called Stasiland, and is a work of none-fiction about life in the former German Democratic Republic.
(As an only partially reconstructed Tankie, I still don’t see everything as negative about those societies, something that is also true of many people who grew up in the Soviet Union or in one of these ‘People’s Democracies’, and is also true of my own wife, who had what she remembers as a very happy childhood in ‘Communist China.’ The lack of emphasis on consumerism and individuality, the social solidarity, and the hope and joy many experienced through collectively working to build what they were convinced would be a better future has an almost spiritual dimension to it that is often overlooked. Would the citizens of modern Cuba or Vietnam, or indeed China be better off if a successful, western-orchestrated ‘colour revolution’, brought them liberal-democratic ‘freedom’ of the kind we ‘enjoy’? This is a discussion for elsewhere, but I doubt it. Already, I’ve digressed too long, but although I never bought into the ‘Party-line’ on Orwell, I do regret how his two most famous books, Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm, although both were indeed heavily influenced by Stalinism, are routinely utilised in the service of capitalist propaganda. After all, hasn’t modern corporate-capitalism already taken us a long way down the road to absolute totalitarian control? Google/You Tube/Facebook, the Big Tech giants, already have greater and more absolute powers of surveillance than Stalin or Mao, or indeed Orwell, could ever have imagined).
Having said that bleakness and an absence of any hope of beneficial change is generally regarded as the main takeaway from Nineteen Eighty Four, I have long seen more than a glimmer of hope in Orwell’s book. This hope lies, not with the ‘proles’, to quote Winston Smith, but with the ‘Appendix on Newspeak’ which concludes the novel. This is clearly written from the perspective of a future-point where Big Brother, Ingsoc (English Socialism, the guiding ideology of Airstrip One) and it’s trilogy of ‘principles’, ‘War is Peace’, Freedom is Slavery’ and ‘Ignorance is Strength’, and indeed Newspeak itself, are relics from a nightmare era that no longer exists.
Orwell died soon after the publication of the novel, and I’ve never seen the text of any interviews where he discuses it (surprisingly, considering he made so many broadcasts for the BBC during the war, not a single audio clip of his speaking voice has ever been unearthed either), so we will likely never know his intention. But I’m pretty sure that the insertion of this Appendix was a conscious, artistic decision, designed to suggest that ultimately, the human will to freedom will always eventually triumph, over even the most seemingly perfect tyranny.
However, the Appendix aside, there is no doubt that within the main text of the novel, Orwell does indeed create a system that appears to have no weaknesses through which the human spirit might begin to assert itself. In this world, language, and through language thought itself, is being reconstructed in such a way that concepts such as freedom and justice will eventually become impossible, even in the abstract.
They are not quite there yet in Orwell. People like Winston and Julia can still hope and dream, but it is strongly suggested that even these hopes and dreams are creations of the elite: Does the Brotherhood, supposedly led by Emmanuel Goldstein (clearly based on the Soviet renegade Leon Trotsky, and the object of the daily ritual ‘two-minute-hate’ sessions) really exist? O’Brien suggests that they too are creations. Do Eurasia and Eastasia, with whom Oceania, of which Airstrip One is a part, is permanently at war, first with one then the other, with history suitably amended to show that today’s enemy is also yesterday’s enemy, even exist as separate entities?
Orwell suggests they do, though their ruling ideologies (‘Obliteration of the Self’ and ‘Neo Bolshevism’ respectively) are in any case indistinguishable from Ingsoc, thus making their ‘separateness’ irrelevant.
If they didn’t exist, the implication is that it would be necessary to invent them. Because every tyranny needs not one, but two enemies: One is internal, as represented by the Brotherhood/Goldstein, and the other is external, represented by whatever foreign power it is currently expedient to be at war with.
(The benefits of ‘Forever Wars’ seems to be a lesson our own elite rulers have learnt well.)
In fact, O’Brien suggests that even Big Brother himself may be an invention. He is a face on the posters and on the telescreens, seemingly immune to the normal human process of aging, a voice booming through the loudspeakers, an object of the people’s love, gratitude and devotion whose physical existence as a living, breathing human being doesn’t matter one way or another.
This is another area where, in my view, Julia falls short as a novel. Somehow, we need this world to be something far worse than perhaps East German was between the late forties and the late eighties, even as seen by its biggest critics. There are too many gaps in the totality of control of the party in Julia, too much hope within its text. For instance, there is a suggestion at one point that help, maybe eventually even liberation, might come from America. Yes, this could be more false hope engineered from above, but the Inner-Party in Orwell’s book would never have allowed even the idea that, somewhere, alternative, freer models of society might exist. The ideologies of Eastasia (presumably America is part of this bloc or is it independent of all three blocs? This is not made clear), and Eurasia and their identity with the ideology of Oceania, is never mentioned.
In any case, the idea of America as a force for liberation has been exposed as a Neocon fantasy/propaganda exercise in or own, real world. It’s importation to the fictional world of Nineteen Eighty Four seems curious and out of place. I doubt Orwell would have approved, even if, like most British citizens, he acknowledged the invaluable role the United States had recently played in the defeat of Nazism (though of course their level of suffering was much less than that of the Soviet Union).
But in addition to this flaw, by the end of Julia, much of the mystery of life in Orwell’s world has been unnecessarily de-mystified. We know the answers to questions as to such as whether the Brotherhood and Big Brother really exist.
Personally, I would sooner be left with the mysteries.
The book also, though I stand by my earlier assertion that it’s a real page turner, goes on too long. Orwell’s original, again leaving aside the Appendix, ends with the desultory meeting between a broken Winston and a broken Julia, before Winston is quietly dispatched with a bullet to the head, his last thoughts being that he did, finally, love Big Brother, in a way that was every bit as real as the Party demanded.
I have no problem at all with Newman choosing to end the book differently from Orwell, and there was nothing in the original, as far as I remember, that ruled out the possibility that Julia’s fate might have been different to that of Winston. But I do think that, in chronological terms, it would have been better to have ended the book at the same point in time as Nineteen Eighty Four.
The author made a mistake similar to those that have been made in recent television adaptations of classic books. For example, one of my favourite novels is The Man in a High Castle by Philip K Dick. Amazon produced what was a very good adaptation of this for the screen a few years ago. Or at least, that was very good for two seasons, at which point they’d reached the end of Dick’s original source material. Because of the show’s success, they chose to continue anyway, the story becoming ever more fantastical and further away from the spirit of the original novel. The same could be said of Channel Four’s adaptation of Margaret Attwood’s novel The Handmaiden’s Tale which, again, was good for a couple of seasons, until the writers reached the end of the material the writer had originally created, at which point the plot became increasingly unhinged and unbelievable.
I’m sure there are purely literary examples, but Julia definitely, in my view, becomes much less recognisably a part of the world Orwell created, once she continues the story on beyond the point where Orwell chose to end it.
One review I’ve read since I finished the book described it as ‘superior fanfiction.’ That’s not a world in which I’ve ever immersed myself, either as a reader or a writer (though I’ve had a Doctor Who story knocking around my head for years, which I might get around to writing one day), but I think it’s better than that, and of course the approval of the Orwell estate elevates it above that world anyway.
It is however a valid, and perhaps the best way of looking at Julia. It’s a good idea, that of taking a classic novel and re-imagining it through the eyes of a different character to that of the original; and in Newman’s hands, the possibilities of the idea are, for the most part, very well executed.
I was never bored or tempted to give up on it, and the ‘woke’ element I feared was almost entirely absent.
But the novel, if not quite ‘fanfiction’, is best not seen as canonical. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four is one of the best, and most important novels ever written. It stands alone, without need of addition or extension, or prequals or sequels. Writers are free to write them, and if they can get official approval, all power to them. Readers though, should not, and do not, have an obligation to regard them as an official or essential part of the story.
Read Orwell’s original if you haven’t already done so, learn something of the environment within which it was created, and the ideas that influenced it. Think about it, absorb it, consider its relationship to our own world, and then, at some point, when you’ve a mind to, give Sandra Newman’s Julia a read. I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it.
In a quiet Romanian village, nestled among rolling hills and fertile fields, lived a young couple named Ilie and Lorena. They were simple, hardworking people who spent their days tending the land, caring for animals, and cooking fresh food from their own harvest. Their life was humble but full of love — the kind of love that grows stronger with every shared sunrise.
