Sunday 12 November 2017

Crows - More from Portsmouth DarkFest

This was what I performed at the Portsmouth DarkFest evening of Dark Town Port Town at the Araura cafe in Albert Road, Southsea.

Crows

When we finally reached the port of Dublin the crows that had been gathering throughout our journey were so many that the sky was black.  At first sight, you could almost believe that it was past sunset, but my watch told me it was only mid-morning.  We were glad to get on board the ferry, hoping to leave the dark flock behind.  The boat was filled with tourists - Germans, Americans, English, as well as lorry drivers from all over Europe.
    Through the lounge window I could see a lone jogger, running in the gloom along the length of the harbour causeway, almost as though he was racing us as the Ferry slowly moved out into the open sea.  I feared for his safety, out there alone, under the sky filled with crows and wondered, not for the first time, why the collective noun for crows is ‘a murder’.  Then the cloud seemed to funnel down as a group flocked around the jogger.  He struggled to reach the lighthouse which marked the entrance to the port.  I watched him fighting off the vicious birds - it was impossible - there were too many.  Looking away for a moment, feeling sick, when I looked back, he was gone from view.  Perhaps it was just in my imagination - I looked around at the other passengers but no-one else seemed concerned at all, each wrapped up in their own conversations which seemed to get louder and louder.
    Four hours later, having crossed the Irish Sea, leaving behind what I’d convinced myself was, in fact, a dream - a nightmare brought on by the long journey which had taken us to Dublin overnight, we docked in Holyhead.  We disembarked ahead of the other passengers, smug on the motorcycle which was so much more easy to travel on than in a car and rode swiftly out into the countryside, making our way to Liverpool.
    The wind in my face as we rode across North Wales blew away any trace of the nightmare and when the sun came out, all seemed perfect again.
    There’s nothing like fish and chips by the seaside.  When we stopped at Rhyl we left our crash helmets on the bike and sat on the promenade.  The evening sun was still warm, the cool breeze from the sea welcome.  We unwrapped out chips as we gazed out at the horizon.  In the distance I could see what I thought was a tanker but as I watched it seemed to grow.  “It’s moving too fast for a tanker,” I said.
    “What’s that?” asked Mark, taking his attention away from his crispy batter.  I pointed.
    “Bloody Hell, that’s weird,” he said.
    And it was, terrifyingly weird.  As it grew closer, a chill settled in my stomach - I had seen this before.  Moving so fast and heading towards the shore where we sat - the crows!  I dropped my chips and struggled to get to my feet.  I ran, clumsily in motorcycle trousers, not made for ease of movement.  Mark grabbed my hand and dragged me along.  We stumbled and I found myself falling - off the promenade and onto the shingle beach.  Still, he pulled me up and pushing, and pulling now, we managed to find ourselves under the pier.  For some strange quirk of fate, the birds swooped straight overhead, missing us as they headed inland. We noticed the sky was lightening.  They had gone.
    Still shaken, we held each other, wondering what awful twist of nature had caused the crows to act like this.  But we needed to get home.  The prospect of another week travelling on the bike had lost its appeal and we could be home in a few hours, so we abandoned our plans, got on the bike and made for the motorway to Portsmouth.
    Again, being on the bike, riding through the peace of the countryside, helped to push away thoughts of what had happened.  After a few miles, it all seemed again like a bad dream.  I knew I had a vivid imagination so perhaps this was just another of my stories, conjured up for amusement.
    There’s nothing as good as arriving back in Portsmouth after being away.  Riding to the top of Portsdown Hill, it’s always nice to pause and look down at our home, something that always lifts the spirits.  It was dark by the time we reached this point and as we paused, we looked down at the myriad of lights that is Portsmouth at night.  We didn’t notice the black patch of darkness at first, then we saw that it was moving, moving slowly over the island city, as though looking for something, searching, searching across the rooftops of our home. 
    Making our way down the hillside, and then across the island to Southsea, I wondered what the hell was happening, but it was when we arrived at the end of our street that I knew we could never go home.  A massive cloud of crows had settled across the whole of the road, covering the houses, the walls and all of the vehicles parked in the street.  In the darkness, I heard nothing but the rustle of feathers as wings shifted and settled for the night.  Then, a quiet whimpering, the sound of a child’s nightmare, I thought, but no, it was moving towards us along the pavement - a figure, completely covered in those huge black birds.
   

Friday 10 November 2017

Day of the Dead V @ Portsmouth DarkFest

This was what I performed at Day of the Dead last week.  Unusually for me, I recycled this one from the recent Gosport Steampunk Festival where it was performed to a small but select audience:

Jake the SteamPunk
I wouldn’t want it to get out but I’m not really a Steampunk.  Don’t get me wrong,  the dressing up is fun and I quite like the fantasy side of it.  It’s just that - well, this is my story...

I met Jake on the Isle of Wight Ferry last year.  He was on his way to the Pirate Festival and I was going to the revival event at Havenstreet, dressed in my smartest 1940s outfit, complete with hat and gloves and he, well he was dressed in a bizarre collection of Victorian frock-coat, leather waistcoat with chains looped all over it, a pair of what looked like biker boots, a top hat with goggles attached, and he carried a pistol!  It was the pistol that did it for me.  There was an instant attraction, that’s for sure.  He stared at me with his one eye - the other was covered with a patch.  It wasn’t obvious whether this was part of his costume or a functional necessity.  Then he grinned, showing me his beautiful white teeth as he offered to buy me a drink in the bar.
    The ferry was crowded and we were jostled together in the melee of people - pirates, Steampunks and Second World War re-enactors.  Oh, and there were a few holiday makers on their way too, excited children and pissed-off parents, all wishing that they were already at their destination.
    We parted when the ferry docked at Cowes, each totally out of synchronicity with the other’s destination but we did exchange phone numbers and over the next few months embarked on a steamy love affair.  I won’t go into details here - let’s just say I was hooked on his pistol and he just loved my 1940s stockings and the lacy gloves.
    It had all been going so well until he introduced me to his submarine.  Not your run of the mill sub, oh no, it was something that he’d built in his garden shed.  In fact, it was still in his garden shed when he introduced me, enticing me to slide in through the hatch to experience the true Steam-Punk adventure.  He said it would be our own fantasy voyage to the bottom of the sea.  I have to admit that I was concerned about getting a ladder - authentic 1940s stockings are not easy to find - and I wasn’t sure about being incarcerated in this contraption although the fantasy aspect of the voyage did appeal to me at the time.
    It was cosy.  We lay side by side, the buckles on his boots digging into my thighs as I wondered what would happen next.  After all, there’s not a lot you can do without being able to move about much.  That’s what I thought anyway and maybe with hindsight, it would have been better not to have tried. 
    The problem began when I got cramp.  Well, you know what it’s like when you get cramp in bed?  Your leg starts to jerk and you just have to sit up.  Of course, there was no sitting up in the submarine and the fact that it was only built for one didn’t help.  I did thrash about - and I made a lot of noise, quite a lot as it happens so I didn’t notice the gunshot. Nor did I notice that Jake had gone very quiet until the cramp died away and I could turn my attention back to him. 
    There was so little space in our cocoon that it was difficult even to turn on my side to look at him properly.  His eyes were open but they seemed a little glazed. ‘Oh, dear,’ I thought.
I had a bit of a job but finally managed to wriggle out through the hatch and once out, I could see more clearly from above that he was not in a good state at all.  In fact, I believe he was dead.
    I’m still not sure why he was carrying a loaded pistol but that was what ‘did him in’ in the end.  I was very fond of him and was reluctant to end our affair, so I gently closed the hatch of the submarine and left him there whilst I went away to think.
    What could I do?  He was dead, after all.  He’d previously told me that he had no family as such, just an Aunt in South Africa that he hadn’t seen in years.  So no-one would be likely to come round to visit.  Apparently, none of his Steam Punk friends visited him.  He had kept himself to himself, not encouraging close friendships.  It did seem rather strange to me when he told me that, although now I realise that it was a bit of a Godsend because I could have him all to myself without any interference from anyone else.
    The submarine, his tomb, was very warm and soon the whole shed was rather smelly.  I decided to help things along a bit.  Luckily, he had one of those ‘Wormeries’ or whatever they’re called, just outside of the shed and a few scoops of that, together with the worms into the hatch of the sub helped to speed up the natural process of decay.  I left it alone after that, but the other day, when preparing for this event, I popped in for a quick look and lo and behold, there was Jake, grinning up at me, showing all of his lovely white teeth.

Wednesday 8 November 2017

Portsmouth Darkfest

My feet haven't touched the ground yet.  It's only the 8th November and we are well into Darkfest.  This past two weeks have seen me performing in three events and I still have a couple more to come in November.
My favourite so far has been The Cure, The Cure at Southsea Castle on the 26th October.  Great fun dressing up as a plague doctor and performing in front of a fantastic light/video show to a very welcoming audience.
This is what I performed:
Mercury - The ultimate cure

I’ve always wanted to help people.  When I was young I knew that I was born to heal.  Of course, being a woman, it wasn’t possible for me to study the healing arts in the same way as a man could.  But I spent time in the shadow of the midwife, watching and assisting her in birthing and with the dying. 
    “Death is a natural part of Life,” she would say, and there was much birthing and much dying in our town.  I learnt aplenty.   I’ve seen many of the fevers and pestilences that are common everywhere.  I believed I was charmed because however close I got to those who were suffering, I always seemed to escape from any malady myself.
    But because I was a woman, I was shunned by men in the profession.  Doctors looked down their noses at me, called me witch and said it was unnatural.
    My Father being a well-respected Parson, taught me to read, but disapproved of my desire to heal the poor so I hid what I was doing by pretending that I was ministering to the peasants, taking them scraps of food as was appropriate and only right from the daughter of a man of religion.  Mother died when I was born and perhaps this was why I had such a desire to heal the sick.
    It was frustrating having to hide what I was doing.  Gathering herbs and plants from the meadows and marshes, drying and grinding them into remedies was time consuming.  Seeing the benefit of what I was learning when I tried out the concoctions on my patients was satisfying to a degree.  Only I wished that I could be open about what I was doing rather than having to keep secret all that I had learnt.  I stole a book that was left on the table in the Rectory after my Father had been entertaining a medic friend and this book became my Bible.  Hidden in a box under my bed, I would take it out at night and study the pages until my eyes were sore.  I soon was able to try out more and more remedies.  People came to me secretly, no one wanting to be associated with a woman healer.  Father would not have understood.

    Then came the Plague.
    The Doctors tried everything they knew: poultices of onion and butter with a sprinkling of dried frog, arsenic or floral compounds, bloodletting, inducing diarrhea to relieve the body of invading demons.  It seemed that nothing worked and soon the Doctors, one by one, faded away, either by succumbing themselves to the deadly disease, or leaving town for the safety of the country.  Even when dressed in their protective robes, they were not safe from death, so they went, leaving us poor town folk to the mercy of the devil that was the Plague.
    For me, it was my chance.  I believed I could help where they had not, and when donned in the robes and mask of the Plague Doctor, I could be anonymous; no-one would know who I was, nor my fair sex. I needed not to even touch the patient, my cane would suffice to remove the covers so that I could inspect their frail bodies.
    I witnessed all stages of this foul disease, saw the look of fear in the eyes of those inflicted when they found the blackened buboes in their armpits.  I had seen how leeching these swellings did nothing to stop how swiftly they spread throughout the body until the poor soul’s skin turned black, they bled from the mouth and fell into a stupor, the only outcome of which was death.
    None of the cures worked.  It seemed as though it was only the hand of God that decided who was to live and who was to die.  And yes, some did survive, only it was impossible to see why one person lived and another was doomed to hell.
    It was on the morning, after a long night of study, that I discovered two things: firstly, the new treatment of Mercury painting, and secondly, that I was suffering from the first sign of the disease - fever and chills like I have never before experienced.  I obtained the Mercury from my Father’s office - it had, in the past been used as a store for the local medical man and I had often filched supplies from there before.  I had read that it was to be made into a paste using a base of flour and mixed with water.  Simple, I thought.  It was hard going as I was feeling weaker as time passed but soon it was ready.  Next I had to make sure that the bread oven was fired up and hot enough to complete the process.
    “Cover the infected body with Mercury paste, then bake in the oven until a crust is formed.”  These were the instructions that I followed.  When I climbed into the oven, I hadn’t expected it to be so painful, but the heat certainly killed the Plague.  Feeling the flames licking over me was almost a relief.  I closed my eyes and let the ultimate cure take place.