The Letter, A Story for Halloween

THE
LetteR

The following letter comes from the old British Museum Library collection in Bloomsbury where it was found folded tightly into the spine of an old book in amongst a collection gifted to the Museum during the First World War.  The donor was long forgotten and the collection was a strange mixture of scientific treatises - mostly human anatomy - eastern mysticism and magic, of the black variety, dating back three hundred years. The collection had been unexamined until just a few years ago when the reading room was renovated and the contents of many such boxes were catalogued. The books and accompanying papers have now been digitised and may be read by anyone with access to the world wide web.

This particular letter is a puzzle.  It is dated October 31st 1849 and is addressed to a Miss D. Hallsworthy in Lincolnshire and consists of two pieces of paper. Though clearly both written by the same person one sheet is large, closely written on both sides whilst the second is somewhat smaller and the writing more untidy, perhaps frantic.  It is a mystery then that the first sheet is typical mid-nineteenth century cotton rag paper whilst the second is an example of paper from the Millington paper mill produced only from around 1912, leading some to believe that the whole is an extravagant hoax.

One final curiosity is a note fastened to the cover of the topmost book, in a bundle bound together with leather straps reading simply "Examine the contents of the box very carefully. Assure yourself there is nothing inside. Tell everyone."

This is the letter.

"My dearest, dearest Sister

What a wretch I am. And how wretched are you, though you do not know it; cursed beyond imagining. 

I hardly dare describe what I am about to suffer nor the fiendish person that has brought me to this end.  

Please, I beg you, do not tell Mother the contents of this letter. I am afraid that it would drive her to madness and I cannot bear to think on that. You, I know, are strong and have ever been my support.  But even you I fear to be crushed under the weight of knowledge that I must share.

I have been given but one hour and barely the light of a single candle to write this. I am sick with fear and dizzy with disbelief that I should be in this predicament to which, through my words, I must bring you in mind and imagination, though thank God, not in your person. However, write I must, making my account as full as time permits.

Believe me when I say, were it not for the foulest threats ranged against you and Mother, I would have summoned up the courage to fight, even to the death. But then I fear you would have heard nothing from me, nor could I then have protected you from the vengeance that is now being wreaked on me. Hence, I have no choice at all. My fate is before me and is terrible.

I should explain how I came to this pass.  As you know, I have been working in London these five years for Mr Eldridge, editor of the London Advertiser. My fond ambition to be a writer I thought that the position as junior clerk would afford me some opportunity and I was as industrious as any youth of seventeen years could be.

I believe that Mr Eldridge soon came to see in me some accomplishment and he sent me to attend Bow Street to report on the dramas that there daily played to a small crowd of reporters and the city's lowest creatures.

Having discharged my duties thus in short reports of crime and punishment, I occasionally added embroidery to what sometimes seemed dispiriting commonplace lives held up to the blind judgement of justice. Eldridge would grunt, strike out my most lurid prose and, gradually, direct me to work that afforded more licence for the artistry I thought I possessed.  

Within two years I came to be Eldridge’s principal reporter of entertainments, offered at the many music halls of which I know Mother would not approve. I may say that both on the stage and off, I saw such things that completed my education as a man of the world, or at least that nether-world that exists, I suppose, in all great cities and away from the gaze of good Christians. And I wish to God I had stayed reporting honest thievery and murder.

But enough. It was, I think just a week ago that I was instructed to attend the performance of a Fakir or a magician who had excited some attention from an acquaintance of Mr Eldridge and I attended late that afternoon the second house at the Green Gate Tavern, opposite the much more salubrious Eagle, in the City Road.

It was a dark, wet and foggy evening and the roads were filthy with mud. A few miserable citizens ventured out and only hardened drinkers lingered in the Tavern. Yet, it was at the Green Gate that the magician was to be seen.  Amongst the broken drunkards and incorrigible moll-hunters of the tavern was an imperious Chinaman with a painted face and dressed in a red silk gown.  An easel on the stage declared him to be "Fu-Chow the one true magician of the East".

He was not commanding the attention of the crowd. He produced living lizards from a red flame and caused a bottle of water to boil over and turn to bubbling tar, yet the crowd jeered and continued with their drinking. 

Finally, it seemed in a rage, the magician pulled at a damask cloth, uncovering a cabinet; a red painted box little taller nor wider than a coffin.  He opened both the front and the back to show it empty and invited a volunteer to assist.  The first drunken man to stagger forward proved too corpulent to fit within the cabinet and he gave way to another who was smaller but no less inebriated.  The smaller man walked with a stoop and used a cheap bamboo walking stick in his left hand. After stepping into the cabinet, the doors front and back were closed.

After a moment and some incantations, almost inaudible over the din of the Green Gate customers, the Chinaman opened once more the cabinet to reveal not, as one would expect in this age of cheap trickery, an empty cabinet but instead a skeleton. I was intrigued, especially as the skeleton both stooped and held, wedged between its bony fingers the same bamboo cane which the cripple had taken onto the stage.  The Chinaman, far from being triumphant cursed and kicked the cabinet violently. Even then, the audience bayed and catcalled, one shouting that they were well rid of the man. Then a bottle was thrown and, no doubt in fear, Fu-Chow called for the curtain to be rung down.

Out in the street I pondered a little on the trick I had seen, for a trick it surely was. No rational mind would spend more than a moment on it. I decided that the stooping man was a confederate of the Chinaman and that there was no more to the illusion.  Would that I had thought longer and even ventured backstage to enquire of the man.  I did not. And instead I wrote a mocking account of the ‘One True Magician of the Green Gate Tavern’ which was published in the following evening edition. I was, I must admit, too proud even to admit to myself that I was troubled by the skills of the magician I had seen, and instead I sought to belittle him and his conjuring in the eyes of our readers.

It was the day after publication that a message reached me at the Fleet Street office of the Advertiser to request urgently, but politely, that I attend a house in Clerkenwell that afternoon where Fu-Chow himself would be glad to show me some of the secrets of his trade.  Perhaps you have already guessed that the magician was seeking some recompense for my dismissing his performance and I am afraid you are correct. To my lasting regret I did not think on this until it was too late.  

The magician Fu-Chow himself answered the door at my first knock and smiled at me broadly. He was indeed from the east, his tanned, yellowish skin was taut, over a round, clean-shaven face. I estimated him to be perhaps forty-five or a little older.

Immediately he began gabbling at me in a mixture of broken English and what I supposed was his own tongue. No sooner had I entered the house than I was led down to a cellar lit only by candles in which stood the same red painted cabinet I had seen on stage.  Fu-Chow explained to me that I should examine the cabinet very carefully. He urged me to assure myself that it was empty. These were undoubtedly words of English that he had practiced for his performance, for they were pronounced clearly and carefully unlike his earlier gibberish. Finally, and comically I thought at the time, he prompted me to "tell everyone", although there were only the two of us in the cellar room.

He gestured into the box and I innocently stepped inside as he closed first one door and then another. A small chink of candlelight illuminated the inside which appeared plain and smooth. I tried to make a joke of the unsettling situation by asking him questions. Whom did he suppose I should tell about this cabinet?  Was I too to be transformed into a collection of bones?

My dear sister, he laughed. It was a laugh so high in pitch that it seemed to pierce my heart and it spoke only of his demented triumph at my imprisonment. It was then that he slipped this paper and a small pencil through the crack in the cabinet and told me to write an account of what I had seen. Though he assured me that I would not be transformed as the stooped man had been at the Green Gate, I was - I am - fearful that he was hiding his true object from me so that I should write this account to you.  Further he swore that, should I not co-operate, he would seek out all my family and cause them to enter this self-same cabinet to face who knows what end?

I have but a slender hope that you will receive this before I die. 

Though I can hardly place my faith in this loathsome beast. He has promised that he will deliver this letter. My entreaties to bring this letter direct to your hand have been met with silence. On one occasion only has he uttered anything about his intent. Through the merest gap in the cabinet - through which the faint light of the candle seeps - I heard his fearsome voice tell that my letter would be 'found'. 

I cannot but suppose he means that it will be after my death.  Or that he is completely without his wits for, in his ranting, he says there will be a time when my letter will fly through the air like a vapour to materialize before the eyes of hundreds, if not thousands of people. Quite insane. He wants me to tell you that one day his magic will be understood and welcomed by all peoples, by emperors and paupers and on that day will my letter be seen.

I have no more paper and so must close with only love for you and Mother. Your fond brother, John.

 

The second, smaller sheet is undated...

---------------------------------

My dear sister, on this second page I have to continue but I hardly know how to explain what has happened. In the blink of an eye my fear has increased tenfold. 

No sooner had I slipped my letter to you through the narrow gap than the room in which this cabinet sits was bathed in light. It was a harsh, sickly light so unlike the candle it replaced.  I cannot say that I had slept for it was but a moment. I had sighed, closed my eyes momentarily and opened them again as I heard a hissing and the now familiar crackling laugh of my tormentor. Still held in my hand was the pencil I had used, but the room, such as I could discern seemed, indeed smelled, changed.

I called out, asking the Chinaman what had happened and he answered with a laugh.

"It has worked" he called triumphantly. Yet his voice sounded changed, his command of English more accomplished.  I asked him what time it was, fearing that I had been drugged. Again he laughed and slipped me this second sheet of writing paper with which to continue my letter and then he urged me to record this, the most insane story of all.

He claimed to me that it was now the year 1914 and that he had caused me to die, to waste away in this box, and then to come alive again at his bidding. As he spoke I peeped out into the now brighter room in which I had been ensnared and I saw not the flushed face of the man I had met just moments before but the grizzled face of an ancient, bearded man. The voice was recognizable; the same strange accent but now undoubtedly far older and creaking as if he had but few breaths left in his body.

Oh sister, should you be delivered of this letter read it only once and then destroy it. Do not seek help, do not cause any other living creature to read its content. The fiend has explained, and I cannot but believe he has the power, that he has placed some kind of hex, a spell over the very paper and the words that I am writing. He has told me, with a cold voice that commands my absolute and terrible faith, that it is so arranged that the cabinet, with my living body within, will be buried here under the floor of this cellar and that I shall die as I feared I would, trapped and without hope. 

But he has a yet greater torture prepared for me. He tells me that I was revived after sixty years by his reading the first page of my letter and thus, should these pages be read in their entirety, then no matter how long I have been beneath the earth and no matter how corrupt my body I should be revived...I should become alive again, though trapped, in order to die once again within this cursed cabinet.

Mark my words, sister, should by some miracle, you receive this do not I pray, cause it to be read again. Destroy it. Allow me to rest in peace.

Eternally your brother, John

 

© 2014 Philip R Holden

Fear and loathing in UK politics

I had an interesting Twitter exchange with Peter Hitchens (reproduced in full below) in which I took issue with his (and others') celebratory reception of the results in the European elections.

It was - if you can be bothered to read it - not entirely a satisfactory debate.  I don't think Hitchens was especially clear about what he believed and why, beyond some assertions that I think could be questioned.  I don't think my own counter-arguments were especially cogent either.

Pondering, as you do when you argue and leave issues unresolved (let's give Hitchens the benefit of the doubt and accept that he was almost certainly too busy to reply, rather than crushed by my last tweet) I wondered why I felt so strongly about UKIP.  What was the logical argument  against celebrating their apparent victory in what can only be labelled a free and fair election?

I think - and I only put this forward as my own, current, idea - that there are two arguments for considering the May results a"bad thing'.

The first is that the vote for UKIP is an irrational reponse to the situation in which we find ourselves. The second is, by contrast, that the success seemed to have been built on an abuse of emotion.

The irrational vote

Voting in any free election is as subject to emotion as it is to rationality. That's a given.  But if people were making a rational decision to put an X next to one of UKIP's candidates then I would suggest they didn't think it through. Or we're working on inadequate evidence.

For a start, these are European elections. The clue, as they say, is in the title.

A party that champions withdrawing from Europe utilises a European mechanism to gain a measure of power, in Europe.  Well, there is, possibly a tradition the 'fight from within' but bear in mind that UKIP don't want to fight within Brussels, they just want to leave.

So that's an interesting way to exercise the legitimate power they claim to have from the electorate. Vote us into the body that we say has so much (too much) control over your lives ...and we'll leave it.

At the heart of this is the logic (and I wouldn't question that there is indeed, a logic) that Britain is better off governing itself.  There is no question that, in fact,we do. 

Some time ago, we elected people (admittedly under a less fair system than the version of PR that returned Mr Farage) who took us into Europe. They didn't, I'll admit, double check with us that we really wanted them to govern.  But then they didn't double check, for example, that we wanted an NHS some years before nor, for that matter some years later, that we wanted to spend billions on an IT system (that didn't work) for the NHS.

Incidentally, the last time we were asked about something it was about a fairer electoral system. We couldn't be bothered. Prior to that? We voted to join Europe.

But Britain does, indeed, govern itself through elected officials of which (currently) none belong to UKIP.  But we also, in fact, govern ourselves (and several other countries as well) through a similar democratic system called the European Parliament.

Bemoaning that 'we' don't get our way in this somewhat larger entity is a bit like complaining that not all national policies favour the Kent consituency where Farage lives.  Of course, in these kinds of systems, there will always be compromise.

But more than this; the idea that we can 'take back power' is a fiction. Back to where? To Westminster?  But that is the exact same institution that decided that it was, on the whole, in our interests to be a part of Europe. And, in addition, the logic suggests that once back in Westminster, power should be further devolved, indeed to Kent and Leicestershire and Cornwall.

But then why stop there? We can't have Maidstone telling us in Hastings what to do. We can't have those in Hastings telling us in Rye what to do.  We can't have people in Rye telling me what to do in my own home.

Where does independence end? And why is Nigel Farage the final arbiter of that?  

There is a further, logical problem.  It lies in the notion that somehow Europe 'over-regulates'.  The argument is, roughly, that if we weren't in Europe, we wouldn't have to submit to European regulations. Try telling that to countries such as the USA who have to sell to the EU.  If we trade with Europe, they will impose regulations on our products and, indeed, our businesses.

If fact, you might expect that if we leave Europe, those that remain might feel justified in imposing additional regulations on us and setting standards that favour their own products and services.  A non-EU country that wants access to one of the biggest markets in the world would go to Germany or France or the Netherlands.

Ah but, the critics might reply, if everyone in Europe feels as we do (look at the rise of 'anti-European' parties) then maybe everyone will leave the EU.  And then?  Well then you'd have 28 countries making their own regulations to suit themselves.  Would it really be better for a UK company to have to meet a completely new set of regulations for every country with which it traded?

Ah but (again the Euro-sceptics object) we want a single market, but not all the regulation and imposition of straight bananas.  OK, so how do you get that without being 'in' and negotiating?               

Emotional hijacking?

The emotional arguments are, perhaps, more thorny.

Why did people feel that the UKIP represented their best interests?  What convinced voters that a vote for UKIP was a good move?  I can't believe it was entirely logical.

One issue was, I think, the rhetoric.  I'll concede that politicians haven't been very good at communicating what they intend and why.  Likewise, what opportunities have the electorate had to question the governmental response to the global financial crisis, or bankers bonuses or, for that matter, our relationship with Europe?

The problem here, in part, is a lack of democratic engagement. Again, the system doesn't involve its citizens very much.

But I think there is a wider issue with the emotional content of the debate that ensues, perhaps shaped by a feeling of impotence. Our voice doesn't count, so we have to shout louder (or shout ever more incendiary words) to make our feelings known.

Some politicians, perhaps instinctively, have recognised this - as indeed - many media people have.  The reponse is to provoke more of this kind of language and the expression - I might say the 'normalisation' - of disaffection. And alongside, the normalisation of selfishness.

The process, for promoting unease, which I suspect is fairly well documented in studies of propaganda (I must read about it...), runs something like this.

1. Find out what worries people (fairly easy as we all have worries) something like health or our income.
2. Make it specific. So not just health, but something like "If I fall ill, will I be looked after? Will I even get better?"
3. Now take a (not necessarily a related) matter that you would like to promote. Oh, let's say...Europe.  And, maybe add in another (again, not necessarily related fear or matter).
4. Now nail them together in a statement that implies causation without explicitly linking them.
5. And stir.

What you get is something like -

The NHS is under stress, less money, more regulation and yet we have completely open borders with a limitless number of Eastern Europeans able to come to the UK and access our health services.

The statement is laden with implications that require substantiation before they can be understood. As I've just said, there isn't enough political engagement or debate to thoroughly question such statements.  

Furthermore, the immediate response to these kinds of assertion is a limbic, stress response; someone (with apparent authority) is warning you, alerting you to danger; your brain-stem responds with a slight dose of fear.  You are being manipulated into associating worry for your own health and future with the 'problem' of immigration.

It's telling I think that pretty much every issue that the UKIP (and to a lesser degree, many of the other parties) promote, can be summed up as a kind of fearful "Yeah, what about me?"

Sadly there isn't an obvious emotional counter argument. How can we counter such conditioning unless by logic and reason?

The simple fact is that we're not required to deliberate over our political decisions. Our one political act (a blunt pencil X, in a box, on a piece of paper - a chimpanzee could do it) simply infantalises us.  It's an irritant, even ,which may be worse, a duty.

In every other aspect of life if we feel any kind of compulsion to do something simple and there is no obvious cost for non-compliance we expend the minimum effort to minimise our feelings of cognitive dissonance.  If I can get away with minimal time, thought, effort, I will.

Swimming against the current 

Since we are relentlessly assured both by commercial and political communications to put ourselves first that is, largely, what we do.

Since we are told, and indeed learn by experience, that we are powerless and our contribution to political debate is a single X every five years, then that is what we accept.

Since we are told, again relentlessly, to be afraid - of the 'others' who are trying to take away what we 'own', of each other, of illness, of death - we live our lives defensively alert to any reminder of these threats.

UKIP - and, as I say, other parties as well - depend on this. They remind us of our worst fears - of our worst selves - and keep us impotent and fearful.  They say, they can change things, but they ask in return for more power. Trust us they say; we're different.

A true liberation politics would be to give power to the people. Not as individuals, to be divided and conquered and not as represented by political parties that exist only to exert power and not a for-profit companies that exist to collect surplus value for the owners but as families, associations, co-operatives, self-help groups, art organisations and many others that exist for mutual benefit and are not owned by the few.

UKIP unsettle me, not because they propose a revolution, but because they are the epitome of political self-serving manipulation.   They frighten me because they demonstrate that the disengaged, irrational public (that's me and you) are so easily manipulated. 

See my other blog at www.pleasewalkonthegrass.com and this especially on a Marketing Illusion.

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* I apologise if these prove not to be in quite the correct order. Some messages overlapped and it's quite difficult to reconstruct a reliable thread. If any corrections are notified, I'll gladly update this.

Pantomime

The President of the United States of America shifted in his seat. The lady he was watching was probably the same age as his wife, but she had one hell of a voice on her and, most of all, a hypnotic smile. What made him uncomfortable just now was that everyone around him clearly found her hilarious. He didn’t know why. Dammit. She was pretty hot.

She was tall and blonde, and her dress was extravagant. A cascade of purple sequins tumbled from her right shoulder, across her very significant chest and down to a frothy train that snaked behind her.

He always felt lonely on foreign visits. His wife was staying home for Christmas, whilst he had to be on another damn State visit, pretending to be nice to the British. They didn’t have anything he wanted and, thanks to the NSA, he already knew every bargaining chip they held.

Looking along the row of seats he could see the Prime Minister was beaming. Occasionally he would throw back his head and bark a laugh that could only have been developed at Eton. Or Oxford. Or wherever the hell prime ministers went to school these days.

Immediately behind the President sat his four bodyguards. And within the first four rows of theatre seats were various mediocre ministers and heads of tiny British Government departments. He should have sent his Secretary of State. But then he wouldn’t have met her.

He looked back toward the stage. The lady with the great smile was still singing and she was dancing too. A long leg with a glittering garter kicked from the slit in her dress. True, she wasn’t the most beautiful but, man, that smile!

An hour or so ago, when he had been introduced to her just before the show, she had seemed…what was the word? Irresistible. He stared at her smiling and working the room. Throughout the champagne reception she had been giving clear ‘signals’ in his direction.

She was dressed differently then; silver, shimmering like fish scales. It had been amazing. He had been introduced, but he hardly caught the name. Julienne? Something like that.

The President started in his seat, surprised by the sudden and enthusiastic applause that greeted the end of the song. The object of his fascination had curtseyed extravagantly and then began to announce something.

She was speaking English, he guessed, but the words were delivered in great swooping cadences and in an accent quite unlike the Prime Minister’s. The President just about made out that her character had a son called Jack who was evidently late back from doing something with a cow. It seemed to be causing the poor lady some distress, but still her smile sparkled mischievously.

No-one had seemed to notice when the President left the reception. It had only been for five or ten minutes. He had told his close security to go away with just enough expletives for them to take him seriously. Then he’d silently followed his new friend, the actress, into a small adjoining office where she had locked the door.

On stage, another character had now entered and was standing towards the back. Julienne pretended not to have seen the new actor, her soaring voice imploring the audience to do something. Something to do with Jack.

The audience responded and, for a moment, the President felt panic rise within.

“He’s behind you!” They screamed; their faces alight like the evangelical audiences he’d encountered in the Primaries. He looked along the row again. Yes, the Prime Minister was joining in. And his rat-faced Foreign Secretary. It was like the whole audience was possessed. Maybe there was something in the champagne? Then he noticed Jack and he knew something was wrong.

There was no doubt that in the play, this was the longed-for son Jack, because the lady with the scintillating smile was calling his name over and over…

“Ooooh! Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack!!”

She was clutching him to her substantial bosom and kissing his head. Again the audience found this hilarious. But the President was preoccupied. Was he the only one who had noticed?

Whatever else Jack was, he couldn’t be Julienne’s son, or anyone’s. Though not quite as voluptuous as the creature in purple sequins, ‘Jack’ had obvious, jutting breasts. His legs, clad in sheer tights and poured into long leather boots, went on forever.

The President shook his head, murmuring to himself. Weirdo British.

–

After the final curtain the VIPs were quickly led to the waiting queue of black limousines. It had been a strange day. On the plus side, the President had enjoyed the intimate attention of a beautiful stranger, and there were absolutely no witnesses.

As his car drew away, the glass partition in front of the President slid down and a figure in the passenger seat turned to him.

“Oh, Mr President.” It was the rat-like Foreign Secretary. “I hope you had an enjoyable evening.”

“What the hell …?” The President was irritated but stopped abruptly when he saw the envelope being offered to him.

“We thought you might like to see these. Before we get back to negotiations.” The rat smiled.

Frowning, the President lifted the flap of the envelope and slid out a handful of photographs. A series of stills taken from surveillance cameras. They showed two people in a small office, seen from above; one in a dinner jacket and another in a glittering ball gown.

As he flicked through them, his skin prickled. He took a moment to calculate. They couldn’t use these, could they? He looked up as coolly as he could.

“Well? I wouldn’t be the first President to get caught out. It’s a cheap trick.”

The rat didn’t flinch. The President continued.

“So, she was a honey trap was she? A sting?”

For a moment the Foreign Secretary looked puzzled and then a smile spread slowly and menacingly across his face.

“Her? Oh you mean Julian Barclay? One of our finest Shakespearean actors. You’re very fortunate to see him in Panto. You really should see his Lear.”

The President looked back down at the final picture in the sequence. The figure in the silver gown was kneeling in front of the man in the dinner jacket, refastening the Presidential flies. His face was turned towards the camera with a dazzling smile.

The President sank back in his seat.

“I think I just did.”

Written for the Tunbridge Wells Writers Group Advent Calendar from the keyword Pantomime