“What if,” Claire said. “Instead of going to school, we just didn’t go to school? Like ever again?”
At first Claire thought the silence that followed was because everyone was in awe of her great idea, but then it turned out that Tina and Ethel just didn’t understand it all, the idiots.
(Daniel wasn’t listening.)
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Notes:
1. Written on December 7th, 2022
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It was always blank, the very last page of a book. Tina found this almost incomprehensibly sad. She always had. She always will. The sort of sadness that if you tried to explain it would simply dissipate away as soon as it left your lips, like your breath in winter. The sort of sadness that if you tried to alleviate it by filling all that emptiness in with words of your own would only get worse and worse until you could not look.
So she treasured it for herself. Her own secret sadness. It was nice knowing it was there. She could look at it whenever she wanted to. Look away when she’d had enough.
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Notes:
1. Written on January 1st, 2022
2. This is the last chapter of the pointlessly palindromic sequence started here.
3. 30 odd tales ago.
The well wasn’t always haunted. But it had always been a well.
It is an echo of that which happens above, shaped by all the things it cannot see.
It’s as young as the rain, younger than clouds, newer than children, more recent than sleep.
Its memories are memories of the memories it once remembered itself. It longs. It yearns. It needs. It wants. But for what it does not know.
The well is a mouth that feeds on old bones. The well is a prison that is impossible to escape. The well is a hole even blacker than our hearts, even deeper than our despair.
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Notes:
1. Written on 29th March, 2022
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1. It’s going to snow. It’s not snowing yet but’s going to snow this evening. We don’t care if you don’t think it’s going to snow, Mum, because a boy at school said it was going to snow and his mum’s a farmer and she said you can get snow in November, Mum, you can. It’s going to snow before dinner it is and if it doesn’t it’s going to snow during dinner you’ll see, Mum, you’ll see!
2. It’s going to snow. It’s going to snow this evening once it gets dark and we’re going to sit here and watch out the window until it does and even then if it doesn’t snow this evening it’s definitely going to snow tonight while we’re asleep and then we’ll wake up and there’ll be snow everywhere and it’s going to be so amazing, Mum, it’s going to be just like Christmas, not real Christmas but pretend Christmas from a book! It’s going to snow in the middle of the night and when we get up and look out the window it’s going to be like we’re on the moon.
3. It’s going to snow. It’s going to snow today, Mum, while we’re at school, and we’ll be in the classroom and we’ll see it snowing outside and we’ll all run to the windows and watch it and it’ll be like being in a film, Mum, and then we’re all going to go outside and play in it and throw snowballs at everyone and make snowmen and and and igloos! and we’re going to crawl inside the igloos and pretend to be penguins and eat snow just like real penguins and it’s going be the best day ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever everve evrevevrveevevevevevevevevvevvvvevvev
4. It did not snow.
5. It was never going to snow ,was it?.
6. Not now.
7. Not ever ever ever again.
8. Stupid snow.
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Notes:
1. Written on the 18th and 19th of November, 2022.
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“What’s all that noise up there? It sounds like a herd of elephants!”
“It’s Claire, Mum!”
“She’s upset!”
“Upset about what?”
“The new rooms!”
“What new rooms?”
“The old new rooms!”
“They’ve gone, Mum!”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Just gone.”
“Completely gone!”
“There’s not even a door there any more!”
“Just a door shaped gap in the wallpaper!”
“It’s like the lodger was never here!”
“Well that’s weird. And a bit worrying, I have to say. But what’s that got to do with Claire?”
“Claire’s furious!”
“Really furious!”
“Furious even for Claire!”
“She’s stamping her feet!”
“And screaming!”
“And blaming the lodger!”
“Again!”
“I don’t think we can blame the… the… I don’t think we can blame that man this time.”
“She wanted those rooms for herself, Mum!”
“But the lodger took them!”
“She wanted them so bad and now she’s not going to get them at all!”
“Ever!”
“Well you don’t all have to sound so pleased about it…”
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Notes:
1. Written on 31st October, 2022
2. I think.
3. I forgot to write down the date in my notebook.
4. Sorry.
5. So it might actually have been earlier in October that I wrote this one.