Some Christmas things and a story
Hi friends,
This isn't a proper news update, because I PROMISED I'd keep those to once a month, but because of this whole Christmas business, there's a few bits of admin I need to do. Like Scrooge's visitations, this comes in THREE PARTS. Um, at the end of this email I will do a brave thing. Please wish me luck.
The Ghost of Christmas Present(s)
Both The Magic of Terry Pratchett and the companion book, Turtles All The Way Down (featuring unedited interviews, deleted footnotes and a guide to all 60 Pratchett books) are back in print and available to buy. Get in ASAP and I *should* be able to get them to you by Christmas. You can get them both here: www.askmeaboutterrypratchett.com/s/shop. If you're worried about shipping before Christmas and you're not in the UK local online book stores (including Amazon) should have them in the US, Australia and Canada – and possibly other countries I don't know about.
Though the Hog-based Festive Boxes have now sold out, I have some of the bookplates left so the next 25 orders of Magic will have a special hand-numbered label and a bespoke stamp. They'll be labeled with an x to show they're different from the main box sets. I'm also going to put some extra bits I've got leftover (including button badges, bookmarks, cards and prints) in all orders between now and Christmas. I designed the labels myself. Spot the unwelcome visitor.
The Ghost of Christmas Past
Back in 2011 I wrote a Christmas Album – because of course, I did. The songs are all quite odd and mostly silly, and were recorded in my bedroom, but as pieces of writing I'm quite fond of them. You can both stream and buy downloads from Bandcamp. Have a look below. (Before Victoria is the name I record music under).
A Christmas Gift For You From... by Before Victoria
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come
And ... this is where it gets scary. Deep breath. I have written some fiction. It's a Christmas story. Sort of sci-fi/fantasy, sort of nostalgic. It might be the start of a novel. This is a really, really early draft but I'd love to know what you think. Please feel free email!
That's all for now! Have a safe and lovely generic Hog-based festive period and I'll see you on the other side.
Marc
That Was The Year
A Time Travel Tale of Christmas
THOSE times I wake up to find myself a child are always the strangest. As an adult, you really can’t appreciate how different a child’s body feels when you’re the one wearing it. On the one hand, you’re diminished. Your muscles are less developed, your limbs are weaker, and being tired – which can come on suddenly – is a soul-deep pull into unconsciousness that you are completely powerless to fight. Also, being that much shorter is a complete headfuck. The world feels out of proportion; like you’re in a real-life version of the Borrowers or the Hobbit, and all the props and the furniture and the cars have been built scaled-up, comically oversized. On the other hand, you find you have a wonderful, bird-like lightness. Limbs have no weight to them, joints have a delightful elasticity, and oh my god the energy. It’s boundless. Irresistible. You’re basically running everywhere, and if you happen to fall you bounce; though you need to keep a tight grip on yourself or the shock can make your burst into tears. The younger I find myself, the stranger all of these proportions and sensations are, and the bigger the disparity. The difference between twenty-five and fifty isn’t all that great, physically; not once you’ve adjusted. But four, nine and fifteen are entirely distinct worlds.
This time I awake in the dark. The middle of the night. It’s not that unusual. Every time I fall asleep it creates a save-game marker and I can theoretically surface at any point of waking. Normally I wake up in the morning, but finding myself in the dark, or groggy after an afternoon nap, happens often enough for me to take it in my stride now. As unpredictable as the shift is, I’ve learned to ride out those first few minutes of disorientation. I’m getting pretty good at assessing: fixing the point in time, working out where I am; though the instinct to check my phone for the time and date never seems to fade. Alas, one of the things I’m immediately sure of is that there’s no device in reach to help me. Not by a decade or so, if I’m any judge. I go through my usual checklist, lying back, focusing on my breath. Judging my weight pressing into the mattress, scanning down my body slowly. It’s a technique I stole from a mindfulness app. I’m not sure assessing one’s age and location in personal space-time is what the developers had in mind.
I can tell immediately that I’m young. Not super young, not a toddler. I feel in proportion at least, not formed of the pudgy, unshaped clay of the early years. I’m rangier. More focussed in my flesh. I’m light though. Thin. Slight. A deep breath and a lung full of air is a quick thing, and my heartbeat has the obnoxious enthusiasm of childhood. Five, six, maybe seven at the outset. So … where? I hadn’t planned this one. This wasn’t a visualisation. Sleep had come quickly and I had no time to direct my thoughts. I switch my focus to sounds. The nighttime sounds of my childhood. Silence, first of all, the type that has a tangible, weirdly audible quality. A thick silence. Second is breathing. Not mine. Paul’s. A noise I’ve heard at night for so much of my life, that I have to force myself to even notice it. The occasional slither of a car, like the sound of the sea in the distance. I let myself look around as fresh and sharp eyes adjust to the gloom. The room is narrow, I’m in one of two twin beds with barely a half-metre between them. A window above my head. there are clouds painted on the walls. The paper lampshade is stylised like a hot-air balloon, complete with a basket dangling below, piloted for some reason by a vapid looking clown. I can make out the shape of Paul now, asleep a third of the way down his bed because he didn’t like having his head too close to the window. He’s tiny. Barely more than a toddler himself, and breathing deeply, his little chest rising and falling. I can see the man he will become in his small, round face, the seriousness it will sometimes show. The contrast is unbelievably cute. Somewhere is a slight flicker of irritation, because for the six-year-old me, bobbing just below my adult consciousness, Paul is the most annoying thing on the planet. So. Wood Lane then. We only lived here for a few years, but they’re the first I can solidly remember. That puts us in the mid-1980s. 85 or 86, probably.
I realise that I’m wide awake. That is unusual. Normally when you surface as a young child in the middle of the night, that soul-sapping weariness will claim you sooner rather than later. It’s a short adventure if you don’t act fast to establish control, and even then you’re piloting a body that’s operating beyond its limits. Rest your eyes for a second and suddenly you’re a student, or on your honeymoon, or camping. This time is different. This me, the young me, wants to be awake. His body has shrugged off that weighted blanket of sleep. There is a churning of excitement in the stomach, butterflies, and it’s nothing to do with the surfacing. They’re his butterflies, not mine. Well … obviously mine. But young-mine, not mine-mine. Right. Interesting. I decide that for the minute I’m going to sit back and watch. Kid-me can keep his body for a while; there’s obviously something he wants to do with it and I’m curious enough to let him. Sometimes it’s nice to relax and let my instincts – in this case, the thoughts and desires of a six-year-old boy – run the show. The body isn’t exactly moving against my will, but I’m not quite in control either. It’s a curious mix of being in my own skin and being along for the ride in someone else’s. I can’t read his thoughts, despite occupying his brain, though I can sense the tick of his instincts. I’m beginning to suspect that even that is only the memory of how I felt on this night when I experienced it for the first time, rather than any genuine access to the hosting mind. The mind of the boy I used to be is closed to the adult consciousness recently arrived inside it. I can assume control of the body any time I want to, but sometimes it’s interesting to see where I’m going. He’s … I’m ... obviously excited about something.
Slowly, with the exaggerated quiet of a beginner-level cat burglar, legs swing out from under the duvet, and I feel my bare feet make contact with the rough carpet, a cheap, hard-wearing thing woven from tiny knots, which I would try to unpick when I was bored, leaving little frayed patches I would blame on the cat. The bedroom door is outlined in gold from the hall light. We always insisted that Mum and Dad leave it on. I feel my hand reach for the handle and then hesitate. A step backwards. I know why: The werewolf. I never actually saw the werewolf, but I knew, I just knew he was there, on the other side of the door, mirroring my movements, breathing in time with my breath. Drooling. My eyes close. I remember this ritual. In the walled-off mind of child-me, I’d be generating a signal. A message I’m beaming through the door … “go away … go away … please … I’m awake now … not this time …. Please … one … two … three.” The counting gave the creature time to leave. I feel the small lungs fill as the boy takes a deep breath, which catches as he opens the door with a sudden movement. The landing is empty. The wolfman has gone. Even now, with years of experience in what we laughably call reality, I still have trouble believing it wasn’t there. Young-me was absolutely certain it was.
I creep across the landing and start very quietly making my way down the narrow staircase, hands splayed against the walls, feeling the rough bobbles of the wallpaper. I can feel this small body working so hard on keeping its breath and footfalls as silent as possible. At the bottom of the stairs are two doors, one on either side, with a little pantry straight ahead. On the right is the entrance to the kitchen. The door is wide open, as it always is, leading into the small space with its beamed ceiling and ancient cooker and newish dining table. It is achingly, painfully familiar. Even the particular hum of the fridge. These experiences are always strange, and I’ve never quite gotten used to them. I haven’t been here for forty years, but it is a space in which I feel intimately comfortable. Always more true of my childhood homes than it is of the later ones. The other door is closed. It’s the door to the living room. There is no light on the other side, I’m fairly sure my parents are in bed in the room above this one. I, he, reaches for the door handle, and as with the bedroom, hesitates. And I know why. I know exactly why. Because I’ve allowed myself to turn his young head to look into the kitchen and there’s some ratty tinsel around the door to the yard, and across the table is a line of string with Christmas cards hanging from it. It’s Christmas. Actually, I know with complete certainty that it’s Christmas Eve. And I know exactly which Christmas Eve, and I know why I’ve woken up so excited. I’d heard a sound. I never knew if I was dreaming, or if there’d really been a shuffle and a muffled grunt from downstairs, but real or imagined it has jerked me awake, and I’ve gone to investigate. I was hesitating because the six-year-old me knew that there is only one person who makes a noise in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve when everyone has gone to bed. I remember this. I’d known what I’d see if I opened the door. The man in the red suit, the jolly face, the big sack, bending low under the Argos Christmas Tree with the multicoloured lights. He’d turn to me and twinkle and it’d be just like Santa Claus: The Movie or The Snowman, and we’d have adventures and fly in the sleigh and it would probably snow and it would be the best Christmas ever. All of that was waiting. It was behind the door. All I had to do was open it and step through and the wonderful story would begin. I’d known that just as surely as I’d known about the werewolf. And I know what will happen next. I won’t open the door. I’ll stare at it for a while. I’ll put my ear to it and strain to hear something, and then I’ll go back to bed, because I was a “good boy”, because I didn’t want Santa to take my presents away because I’d caught him in his annual reverse robbery, and most of all, the thing I would never say out loud, because I didn’t want to find out that it wasn’t true. That’s what was going through the head I was sharing, on the other side of the internal wall that I could only penetrate via forty-year-old memories.
An absurd thought occurs. But what if I don’t? What if this time it’s different. What if this time I surface properly into this body and I take control and open the door and we see what’s on the other side? I mentally flex and twitch the fingers, enjoying a surge of excitement, a thrill that could be my conscious mind or generated by this body on its own. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I might currently be sharing headspace with a prepubescent, sandy-haired child, but I am a grown man. There is every reason to go through the door, yes, but not to meet a fairy story. I want to see the room again. I want to see the familiar old things. I want to touch the spongy wallpaper, and stare into the glow of the tree lights. But I don't. I can't do it. So it is child-me who moves to put his ear to the door, straining to listen for any sound. I strain too. I can’t help it.
This is the thing. I am not a child. I am temporarily, and for reasons I don’t understand, inhabiting the body of one, which I can take control of if I want to, but I’m not actually six-years-old. The consciousness currently enjoying these thoughts is a developed adult who knows full well that there is no-one in that room. And yet. And yet. I still strain to hear. I want to hear.
I realise that the only reason this body isn’t crying is because I’m not currently controlling it. If I allowed myself the use of tear ducts then I would be flooding them. Because, well. It’s Christmas. It’s a real Christmas, and as an adult, unless maybe you have children, you don’t really have Christmas. You just have a day where you get free stuff and eat lots and feel nostalgic. It’s not the golden, impossible joy of the real Christmases. The ones you remember. The ones where you vibrated with excitement. The shape and the feel of those impossibly magical days live on in the smell of tinsel, and the glow of fairy lights, but those are just … The memory of joy. Homoeopathic joy. You never really, truly, experience Christmas as an adult in the same way you did as a child. Somewhere along the line it stops. Wendy realises she’s outgrown Peter. The Snowman melts. Your parents have flaws. The world gets …. Complicated. You lose Christmas. It becomes a day off work and a big dinner and Eastenders and arguments with Aunty Sandra about immigration. The boy whose eyes I am seeing through, I realise, dimly knows this. He’s not stupid, though he is a bit of a dreamer. He knows how adults see Christmas. On some level, he knows why the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is the scariest of Scrooge’s visitors. Opening that door now, for him, is opening the door into a version of Christmas he is not ready for. An empty room and a broken heart.
What’s curious is the way I am reacting. Because knowing all of this, it has somehow flipped into reverse. Consciously I know, just as my younger self does unconsciously, that there’s no-one in that room. But just as young-me’s instincts are screaming at him that to open the door is to lose the magic, my own instincts are telling me the exact opposite. Open the door, they’re telling me, and you can get the magic back. Which is, I am aware, bollocks. It doesn’t work like that. You get to a certain age and you’re not allowed back into Narnia again. Not until you die in a horrible train crash, anyway. The back of the wardrobe is just the back of a wardrobe. Behind this door is a 1980s living room full of curios and memories, and seeing it all again will be fun and interesting. The glow of authentic Christmas is not contained within.
I realise that we’re both torn by this, he and I, me and me. In the present and in the past at once, I am facing the same dilemma, fighting the same instinct. Then as now. Which is also now. And also then. The man with the sack, just like the werewolf, exists for both of us in some intangible way, while plainly not existing at all.
My body steps backwards and my head turns to look upstairs. If I let it take me back to bed, the wave of sleep will come quickly – it usually does when you’re this young – and I’ll lose this moment, probably forever. I have not yet had a repeat surfacing. I’ll be off, waking up in 2008 or 1994 or maybe back, finally, in my proper time and place. You never know. But I would lose this Christmas, and we get precious few of the real ones. I am crying. Both of us are crying. I don’t have to occupy those tear ducts now. I know what’s on the other side of the door. I know the smell of the ashtray and the orange sodium glow of the street lights outside, and the small, wiry, cheap and impossibly glorious Christmas tree, and the pile of presents next to it. I know what I’ll see if I let him go inside. I know what I won’t see. And in the past, I am crying because I’m scared and confused and torn between wanting to know and never wanting to know. I am frozen, twice, forty years apart, and yet in the same time and place, and I don’t know what to do.
A cough. A snort. A sound. A shuffle. Behind the door. The sound of something being dropped and suddenly I am running on the balls of bare feet, both of us at once, running and shaking and trying not to make a sound, and diving through the bedroom door and into the bed and under the covers and the small heart is racing and fluttering and I am shaking, he is shaking, and with both hands the pillow is pulled over the head and the tiny hammer of the heart is all I can hear and I strain and I listen. We both do. And we wait. And we breathe. And we wait, and we listen and tiredness roles in and the world fades and heavy eyelids close and when I open them I am someone else entirely.
ⓒ Marc Burrows 2020