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Riffs and variations on loss and friendship featuring ZZ Top, Carrie Fisher, incessant drizzle, and the reminders of absence

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“I’ve got a confession. I spent too much time in my formative years masturbating to ZZ Top videos.”

“Was it the beards?”

“No, it was those spinning guitars they had. I couldn’t get enough of them.” They both laughed.

“You’re a strange, strange man, Pete, you know that?” said Jen.

“And yet here you are. Again. So what’s that make you?”

“Loyal. Kind. Maybe a bit strange too.” Jen paused for a moment. “For the record though I don’t tend to walk around garages in dusty pit-stop American towns wearing tiny cut off denim shorts so I would have been no use to your adolescent self.”

“Oh I don’t know. Teenage boys can spin a wank out of almost anything.”

“Gee Pete, you really know how to flatter a girl…”

“I meant…”

“I’d leave this one if I was you. Quit while you’re way, way behind.”

“Okay. You don’t want to hear about my Carrie Fisher phase then?”

“Not if it’s more tales from the wank-bank, no,” said Jen. “If it’s a radical feminist awakening phase that you went through when you learned to appreciate strong, independent women for who they were rather than whether they were wearing a gold bikini then maybe. We’re in a post-Weinstein world Pete.”

“She was quite something.”

“Yeah, she was. Did you read any of her books? I can lend you Postcards From The Edge if you haven’t got it.”

“I’ve read it,” said Pete. It was his turn to pause. “Georgie had a copy. She loved it and she loved Fisher. I still haven’t seen the new films, you know. I know she was really looking forwards to them, especially when she heard she’d signed on, and I just don’t want to see them without her.”

“They’re pretty good but I’m no judge,” replied Jen. “Georgie was the expert on that sort of stuff. I saw Phantom Menace with her, I think it was before you two got together when she lived with me. I liked it. Couldn’t understand why she was in such a foul mood for a couple of weeks.”

Pete laughed. “When we moved in together she made me get rid of my DVDs for episodes 1 to 3. Said she didn’t want them in the house. These aren’t the films you’re looking for. Those were her exact words. I was in love with her before that but I think that was the moment I really knew.”

“It was the moment she knew too. I’ve never told you this but she rang me that week because she couldn’t believe you’d thrown them out. Apparently you didn’t even try and argue about it. Just opened the back door and chucked them in the bin. She was seriously impressed…”

“Really?” said Pete. “That’s funny. All she told me was how seriously unimpressed she was that I even had them in the first place. I still think there’s a decent film trying to break its way out of parts 2 and 3 but she was pretty militant about it. I did once catch her watching Revenge Of The Sith though when it was on TV. She said she was checking that it was as bad as she remembered it.”

“And was it?”

“So she said. You reckon she’d have like Last Jedi?”

“Yeah, I do. I think she’d want you to go see it, too.”

They were both silent. Jen was about to speak again but she was stopped by Pete’s voice, cracking but growing progressively stronger. “The funny thing is that I know you’re right but it’s just one in a long list of things I’ve stopped myself doing since she died and I don’t know when I’ll be ready to any of them. I haven’t listened to Ryan Adams. We saw him at the Lyric before anyone knew who he was. He was always our singer. There’s a Turkish place we used to eat in a couple of times a month that I haven’t been back to. Won’t walk over Hammersmith Bridge. It’s where I would have proposed. Gave up reading Game Of Thrones and I won’t watch the TV show. She was always telling me to read it but I wanted to wait until he finished writing all of them. There’s an upcoming exhibition at the Tate, retrospective of Japanese contemporary art, that I won’t go to because… No, I don’t get how it can be retrospective and contemporary either but that’s not why I’m not going… She won’t be there with me.”

“When do you think you’ll be ready to let…”

“Let her go? I won’t ever be ready to do that Jen.” No anger; a weary resignation.

“I wasn’t going to say that. Not let her go. Let those things go is what I was going to say. They’re not her.”

“No but that’s where I feel the traces of her most sharply,” said Pete after another extended pause. The conversation’s rhythm was broken now. Staccato sentences punctuated with silence. “Or that’s where I feel the absence of her most sharply. I still catch myself turning to tell her something, to point something out, and then remember she’s not there. I tell her anyway. In those places, with those things, it’d just be too much. How can I find joy in the things we used to find joy in together?”

“Can I tell you something stupid?” asked Jen.

“More stupid than my ZZ Top confession?”

“More stupid than that. You were young and impressionable. I’ve got no excuse. For a while, after she died, I didn’t know what would happen to us. To our friendship I mean. Me and you. I knew Georgie a long time, before you guys got together, but all my strongest associations were with both of you, as a couple. I worried that seeing you, speaking to you, would just be a constant reminder to me that someone was missing. That it’d be too painful. I worried we wouldn’t be able to be friends.”

“And yet here you are. Here we are. Again. I appreciate it, Jen, I really do. You’re like – these talks, they’re like a little bit of sun through the clouds.”

“I thought I would be more like incessant drizzle?” said Jen.

“Incessant Drizzle? Weren’t they on Rough Trade?”

“You’re thinking of Mild To Moderate Snow Showers. Or maybe Outside Chance of Hail. I always get them mixed up.”

Pete laughed, sucked in a deep breath. “Thank you for…, well for this. For talking shit and listening and making bad jokes and… well for all of it.”

“No thanks necessary,” said Jen. “Don’t think I’m letting you forget that you described me as a little bit of sun through the clouds though.”

“Just ‘cos it’s cheesy doesn’t mean it’s not true. Normal service will be resumed when we next speak.”

“I look forward to it. Seriously though, are you alright?” There was the same pause he always left before answering and then the same exchange before the line went dead.

“You know the drill by now Jen. No. I’m not alright. Not today. But ask me again tomorrow. What about you?”

“No. Me neither Pete. But ask me too.”

 

Ghosts of Hiroshima

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Katsu muttered the words of the poem under his breath as he stared at the reflection in the pooling water beneath the steps. The ghost of a woman, her body overboard laid, in the waters around. It had rained heavily last night and the city now glistened, the sun radiating back from hundreds of puddles that dotted the streets each time it found room between the clouds. He disturbed the surface of the water with his foot, just a light tap to send ripples racing towards the edges, and the reflected figure slipped from focus, breaking apart and reforming, undulating, until finally he could see only black.

He looked up at the steps themselves, at the source of the reflection. He knew that it wasn’t her. It wasn’t anyone anymore. The bomb frozen shadow etched forever into the concrete wasn’t his mother. There were no features to discern in that dark silhouette beyond a leaned-on walking stick but that wasn’t how he knew that it wasn’t her. He had no memories of his mother that weren’t borrowed from photographs but he knew she hadn’t been here because she’d been on the river. Just as she was every day after he’d been taken away.

She’d been on the Motoyasu river right before it boiled.

The ghost of a woman, her body overboard… he murmured again, turning away from the steps, and continuing on towards the bank.

……

Yuri Mori hurried down to the boat, jostling amid the throng of women making their way towards the river. It made no sense, she thought, to live in the city and take this trip every day down to the factories. Why didn’t they just move everybody down there, down towards the harbour ? Nothing made much sense to Yuri anymore.

A woman in front stumbled and fell to her knees as the crowd moved forwards. Other women pulled her to her feet. She looked down at her grey overalls now scuffed from the dust on the ground and raised her hands in mock dismay.

“My monpe. My beautiful monpe. However will I find a husband now ?”

“You are lucky Aiko,” shouted another. “Now you have an excuse to visit Fukuya Store.” There were some weary laughs from those close to the exchange and the steady procession towards the river renewed. Yuri didn’t laugh. A year ago perhaps she would have: defiant and proud bringing her son into the world and naming him for victory. She shook her head, refusing to think of him, and pushed her way towards the boat again. It must be eight o clock by now and she did not want to be punished for being late.

As the boat nosed out into the river Yuri stood at the stern, as she always did, and watched the city start to slip away. Diesel leaking in the boat’s wake refracted the light on the water into a rainbow as it caught the early morning sun.  She closed her eyes and gripped the rail, scarcely noticing as the boat sounded its horn to signal its departure; their world was full of sirens and horns and klaxons. She vaguely remembered the all clear sounding out just an hour ago as it did each morning but it scarcely registered these days; a cacophony of warning for a catastrophe that never came.

That was why they’d sent him away. They said he would be safer in the hills. It’s your duty. Japan must have men for the future and you must work for its present. It is the right thing – the honourable thing – to do. He had been barely a year old when the military police prised him from her arms, tears running freely down her face.

A distant burr pulled her back from her thoughts. She raised her head to locate the sound and picked out a lone plane in the sky. Just a speck in the distance but coming closer. As it approached the women on the boat gazed upwards at their distant visitor.

“Another one ? What do they want with us today ?” said one.

“Don’t worry Miyu. Look how far away it is. Those cowards don’t bomb us from up there anymore”. It was Aiko who spoke, her overalls still dusty at the knees from where she’d slipped over.

“Perhaps they are bringing you your new monpe Aiko” laughed another woman.

“They are taking photographs I expect” said Miyu.

“Yes” said Aiko. “Photographs of us beautiful Japanese women in our fine clothes ! Their American women are too ugly for them !” She looked up at the sky, leaning back to present her dirty monpe, and gave a broad smile. The other women laughed and joined in with Aiko’s clowning, posing for an imagined photographer’s flash.

Yuri looked up the boat, turning her eyes away from the receding city, and briefly allowed herself a smile at her fellow women. Temporary respite from thinking of her lost son, her little Katsu. She clung to the hope that the war would soon end and she could take back her child.

It was her last thought before the world turned white, the boat was thrown from the water, and she and the women were burned to ash.

……

“What’s your name child ?” asked the tall man in the long coat. He didn’t look like the others. He was American, Katsu was sure of that, but he didn’t wear a uniform like the ones he’d seen on the streets coming into the city or the ones in charge of the boat they’d taken him on.

“He can’t understand you. We only took him in today.”

“Another from the hills ?” said the tall man.

“Yes. Far as we can tell he’s been there for six or seven years. The farmer didn’t want to give him up – he told us we were taking a good worker.”

“You think he was mistreated ?”

“Perhaps. Life in the hills is hard Mr Cousins. Life in Japan is hard but we can support him here and educate him. When you go back you should tell them about Katsu – tell your friends about him and the ones like him. That is what we use the money for.”

Cousins bent down to look more closely at the boy. His face was dirty and he carried scratches and bruises; perhaps the kind of scratches and bruises any eight year old boy might wear. Perhaps. He gently pulled the boy’s face up, lifting his chin so that the Director of the orphanage might also see. He raised his eyebrows.

“The man who had him was no worse than many in the hills. Don’t judge him too harshly, he took him in, kept him even after the city was destroyed. It is difficult for outsiders to understand how it has been since the war. For some here the sense of shame in defeat has been too hard to bear and they take it out where they can.”

“Hiba…ku.. ?” started Cousins.

“Hibakusha” corrected the Director. “It means people affected by the explosion but that’s perhaps too literal. It has come to mean more than that here since the bomb. There were so many stories about radiation, so much fear. I’m afraid that survivors have faced terrible discrimination.”

“But the boy was outside of the city. Wasn’t he beyond the reach of the bomb ? Beyond the area affected by fallout ?”

“Yes but he is an orphan with no history. Or no known history at least. People are suspicious. I doubt that we will find a home for him here.”

“He has no family at all ?” asked Cousins.

“None that we can trace. The farmer says he was taken from his mother when he was very young. He was given him by the police. It happened a lot, to keep the children safe.”

“The mother ?”

“She was in the city” said the Director. “We don’t know where but she must be dead. What was it the farmer called her ?” He paused, thinking. “Yurei. Yes, that was it. Yurei.”

“Her name ?”

“No, Mr Cousins. Yurei. It is not exact but in your language it means ghost.”

……

Katsu Mori leaned on the railings and stared down into the depths of the Motoyasu, the first time he’d seen it since leaving Japan thirty years ago. What had he expected to find ? There were no answers here. He wasn’t even sure he knew what he was looking for anymore. He had spent his life dislocated since that bright August day that ended the war. Raised first in the hills surrounding the city, working farmland as soon as he was old enough to be of use, before being handed in to the orphanage on Ninoshima. It was supposed to be a temporary refuge but he’d stayed for three years, no family in his homeland willing to make him a part of them. Eventually Cousins had found him a place in America. In time his anger had faded and he’d come to be grateful. In time he’d built a new life out of the wreckage of his old one; pieced together a second family in the country that had torn his first one apart.

Light danced on the water rippling against the wall of the jetty as the sun broke cover. The river was choppy here, continually broken by passing boats. Katsu shielded his eyes, raising his hand to his forehead, as if to try to see past the shimmering surface. A cloud overhead rolled across the sun dimming the twinkling lights on the water. Katsu gazed down, his own reflection now visible, staring back at him. He thought it looked like a ghost. There was a black and white photograph of his mother in the inside pocket of his suit jacket but he didn’t need to get it out to imagine her face swimming in and out of focus on the surface of the waves. Yuri. Yurei. Ghosts were the souls of the dead that were unable to find peace. She would be glad that he lived, even as he lived with the nagging, restless displacement of those orphaned by the bomb.

A woman’s face appeared in the water next to his own, smiling up at him; a quizzical, worried smile.

“What do you see Katsu ?”

Katsu looked up from the water and turned to his wife.

“I guess I see my home Asuka. I see home.”

“We can come back. Like I’ve always said, if you want to come back here for good then that’s what we’ll do.”

Katsu smiled at his wife and shook his head. “You know how children grow up and, when it is time, when they are ready, they leave home ? I see my home here Asuka but I am ready to leave it now,” said Katsu before whispering “the ghost of a woman, her body overboard laid, in the waters around…”

“What’s that ?” asked Asuka, tilting her head to look at her husband, concern in her eyes.

“Just a poem they made me learn in school,” answered Katsu. “It always stayed with me. I wanted to see where she finally laid.” He looked out over the Motoyasu and tried to imagine his mother’s last moments. A woman he didn’t know, had never really known. Just one victim in thousands. Silently he vowed to take back what little he knew of her story, of all their stories, and keep them alive in the years to come. The ghosts should haunt us all, he thought.

Asuka placed a hand on his shoulder and, together, they looked back down at the river, back down at their own reflected, ghostly faces. A plane taking off from Hiroshima airport climbed above them and they watched its silhouette in the water before the sun reemerged and it disappeared in a dazzle of lights on the waves.

……

This is the twentieth story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. This one was also specifically written to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. If you’re interested in donating to a great cause then please visit my fundraising page. https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

I must be losing my mind

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37. Lazarus – The Boo Radleys (with guest appearances from “Indian” – The Cult and “Finest Worksong” – REM)

A cautionary tale from a more guilty time…

Where are they ? Where the fuck are they ? It’s been too long. Something must be wrong, properly wrong. Must be wrong to have been this long. Too long. Too, too long. Wrong. Wrooong. Fuck. Get a grip. Concentrate. Think. Mind enhancing, isn’t that what this is supposed to be ? An upgrade. A stepping up and out of normal consciousness. So thinking shouldn’t be too hard. It should be easier and better in fact. Shouldn’t get stuck on an echoing rhyme of long and wrong bouncing around endlessly in my head. Long. Wrong. Long. How long could this go on ? And not be wrong ? Or be wrong ? How long ?

I seem to have lost something here. It might be my mind. If I sit very, very still perhaps nobody will notice. Not that anyone is here anymore, only me and Andy. He won’t have lost his mind, I think he’s used to the artificial enhancement. I better not let on that mine may have been misplaced, it won’t look good, will make it look like I don’t know what I’m doing. I should let you in on a secret though – I don’t actually know what I’m doing. But if I sit here very, very still and just listen to these songs then nobody need know and in a few hours I expect – at least I’ve been told – that I will find my mind again. The mind I will find. A mind find.

Focus. Don’t start all that again. He will suspect if you start all that again, the rhyming of a madman. Although I don’t think I said it out loud so how would he know ? It feels like he would know. He seems calm, just sitting there listening to the songs, so that’s what I need to be. He seemed pretty calm when we rang the ambulance, the only one thinking we should get out of the house and find a phone box. Best not let them know where we are. Smart thinking. We were just panicking. He seemed calm when the ambulance picked them up. I’m glad he didn’t go with them. He’s the only one who knows what’s going on so I’m glad he stayed. He can’t have been completely calm though because as we were walking back across that petrol station forecourt he didn’t seem to see the fuel lorry siphoning its load into the ground. He can’t have seen it otherwise he wouldn’t have lit that fag as we walked by. We both saw the guy come running out of the booth shouting and waving his hands. We ran.

There could have been an explosion. A spark was all it needed. Like the ones he’s making now, running his thumb around the wheel of that lighter, holding it upside down and watching the flame invert itself. Why does it do that ? I should know this. Heat rises, maybe that’s it. Maybe the flame rises too. Maybe I’ve been looking at that flame for a long time now. It feels like a long time. Best look away before he gets suspicious. Just listen to the songs.

He’s rewinding the tape again. How many times is that ? The same three songs over and over again. “Lazarus” and that one by The Cult and then REM, “Finest Worksong”. Bliss. Despair. Hope. Again and again and again. Did he only tape three songs ‘cos they’re all so long ? So long and not wrong. Steady, hang in there, focus. I know these songs and they’re not that long. Time stretching out and out and out must be one of the enhancements. Only that Cult song – what’s it called, Indian Woman or something – sounds so bleak and I don’t want it to go on and on and on. Standing at the edge of the world. Me too Ian, me too. What happened to you and Billy Duffy after Love anyway ? He suddenly learned the guitar as if he’d had a time machine like at the end of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and you uncovered some long lost Native American heritage and started prancing around with feathers in your hair. Maybe you had some of what we’ve had. Come to think of it you probably had quite a lot. Where do you get the Native American stuff ? Peyote. That’s it. Rhymes with coyote. Shit – where is my mind ?

Standing at the edge of the world… Wonder where they are ? They must have gotten to the hospital by now. Ages ago in fact. We’ve listened to these three songs – the longest, longest songs in the world, the longest songs ever recorded – at least four times so hours must have been and passed. I can’t listen to this one again. I need to tell Andy to turn it off. That refrain, it’s killing me. What if they are standing at the edge of the world ? Not literally. I haven’t lost that much of my mind. Just misplaced some of it. Not literally. What if they lost theirs and they can’t find it again ? He seemed pretty out of it. We’re all pretty out of it. Keeping clear of heavy machinery might be a good idea. What’s Andy doing skinning up again ? Surely that’s not a good idea ? In for a penny I guess.

It started well. That’s what we’ll probably say later when we’re laughing about it. It started well. Like these songs. Wait for Lazarus to come back on ‘cos that’s kind of how it started. A slow vibrating, swelling noise – dislocated shapes echoing out of the silence. Shapes ? Shapes don’t echo. Ignore me, I’m wasted. Settling into that dub bass with the fragments of feedback sounding queasily in the background, everything shifting and sliding slowly out of the old focus and into something different. Shaking your head as if descending into a dream and then that build into the trumpet, rising, rising, swelling and rising, peaking and climbing, a wave crashing over the sea wall you’ve put up around your consciousness. Jesus I am wasted. But that’s how it started. The song ? Not just the song.

I must be losing my mind…. It’s right there in the first verse. It’s not like they’re hiding these clues. It’s not particularly oblique. I must be losing my mind. Lost it and bought the tee shirt. Lost it and we’re a man down, carted off for an adventure in A&E whilst we sit here in silence and listen because we don’t know what else to do and don’t have control of our brains anymore. But it started well.

And now it’s The Cult again and standing at the edge of the world and, presumably, slipping off the edge of the world and tumbling into some terrible abyss, never to return. Except… except hang in there for a few minutes – it will feel like a few hours but believe that it’s a few minutes – and REM will roll around again. “Finest Worksong” is the most aptly titled song in the world. Listen to it blazing out of that cheap little tape player, all defiance and pride and get-up-and-go. I want to roll up my sleeves. Andy wants to roll up a joint. He is rolling one up. No wonder we’re not finding our minds, he must have done this every time that song has come on. Worksong, roll one up. Rewind tape. Smoke joint. Listen to Lazarus and believe we are touching the outer limits of a higher state of being. Finish smoking. Listen to The Cult and believe we are about to be pitched into the deepest reaches of hell itself, taunted by Ian Astbury, possibly brandishing a tomahawk. Worksong. Repeat. Must break the cycle but unable to speak. This way madness lies…

What was that ? What the hell was that ? Shit, it’s the phone. It’s… Andy’s answering. How can he still function ? What ? They’re okay ? They’re sitting behind a curtain in A&E on a bed laughing their heads off whilst we’ve been here in despair with Ian Astbury and REM and The Boo Radleys ? If I had any pieces of my mind left I’d be giving them one now. But they’re alright. And that means we’ll be alright.

The moon and shadow

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Just Write (belated catchup): June 9th

I have been somewhat slack in typing up any and all output from recent writing group classes so back to the meeting from the 9th. We spun together a story based on a three stage trigger – a set of three top-of-mind nouns, an imagined landscape, and a character we’d never really thought about before. So, here’s what came of that:

……

Lana jumped on the the back of the mech-bus as it began to move, her umbrella pulling itself shut automatically behind her. She didn’t much notice as the mirco evaporators briefly flared, harvesting and stray water molecules from the umbrella’s surface. Damn pilots she thought. Since they put through that AI upgrade you might as well forget the timetables. Behaving like those real drivers she’d read about from the past, coming and going as they pleased.

She sat. It was only five minutes to the University but she’d been out in that downpour for a while and the seats had the same tech as her umbrella. Weather was getting worse. More extreme even here. God knows how people coped near the equator now, those that were left anyway.

The windows facing her were all running ads. She realised that she’d forgotten to turn her pers-com to private and her presence had been registered. A sequence of commercials tailored to her began to run, isolated on the window in front of her. A set of texts for her study to be sent direct to her personal logs. A bag that matched her umbrella. So far, so predictable she thought, remembering why she ordinarily held her settings as private. Then the window filled with a desolate, grey expanse of rock. A voice: “ever think of starting again ?”. You’re not selling this, she thought. The shot panned to a solitary footprint in the dust, then up and away from the print to an American flag, firmly planted in the ground. With a start she realised this place to start again wasn’t here. It was the moon. They were trailing the colony program again. But why her ? She knew, or thought she knew, enough about the algorithms in the ads that tailored content and messages to individuals. Why did they think she would want to go there ?

……

In case you’re wondering my three nouns were umbrella, bus and University. I had intended to write about the moon but it somehow turned into a pre colonisation story (or the start of one at least). I enjoyed putting it together in the class and could have quite happily spent much longer in 2100 or thereabouts although I’m not sure there’s much new in the final result. Anyway, homework was a stripped back version of the exercise in the class in that each of us gave the person to our left a single word as the trigger for a story. Mine was “shadow” which resulted in this:

……

“Your father lives in shadow.”

“But he lives ?”

The question echoed around the chamber, bouncing back from unfurnished stone. The tomb was cool and still, the question remaining unanswered by the dead. Varane asked it again of the living.

“He lives ?”

“Aye, he lives boy. If dwelling in the shadow can be called living.”

Varane turned. Only Zamar would dare address him as boy, especially in this place amongst generations of his line. Zamar met the boy’s questioning look, narrowed his eyes as if silently appraising him, before speaking again more softly.

“When a man crosses to the shadow Varane he is lost to us. None has ever been reached, none returned. He may dwell there a day, a week, a year – your father is a strong man – but eventually we will lay him here.”

As Zamar spoke Varane paced the tomb, every couple of strides taking him past another generation, names from the past, names and deeds he’d been learning since he could read. He paused at the far end of the room and brushed dust from a name etched into the largest and oldest stone coffin: Ombrager. He lowered his head and whispered:

“How many ?”

“My liege ?” asked Zamar.

Varane lifted his head but did not turn. “How many Zamar ? How many of them…” he raised his arm gesturing at the row of coffins. “How many of them were lost to shadow ?”

“Varane…” began Zamar advancing towards the boy. “It is not yet time to know. You are still so young my liege.” There was a note of kindness in his voice.

“Not time ?” Now Varane did turn. “Not time ? My father lives in shadow and it is not time ?” He strode towards the older man jabbing a finger accusingly. “It is past time Zamar. For all you call me boy it is well past time. Ten generations lie here. How many Zamar ? How many were lost to it ?”

Zamar didn’t move and the two stood face to face in the middle of the chamber, neither breaking the other’s gaze.

“Ten my liege” he said flatly.

Momentarily Varane’s eyes betrayed his shock; a flicker that spoke of incomprehension and a touch of fear. Just as quickly it was gone and Zamar could discern nothing in his grey eyes beyond implacable resolve.

“All of them. Every Ombrager Varane. Some young, some old but all lost to shadow.”

“And none ever reached ?” asked Varane.

“None” replied Zamar gently. “No man passing to shadow has returned.”

Abruptly both men looked back up the tomb, the door had been shoved open and a slight figure stood silhouetted in its frame, light streaming around it. The figure stepped forwards into the tomb, planted hands on hips and grinned.

“Zamar has you right brother” she said. “No man has lived in shadow and returned. But I have.”

“Aurore ? Is that really you ? How… how can this be ?” Varane stepped tentatively towards his sister.

“It’s me little brother” she said. “I lived in shadow and I have returned.”

……

I may return to this (although that would entail working out actually what the hell the shadow is beyond some vague allegorical ideas) as I quite like it. I would change the names as the first couple were nicked from the French football team as I was watching them play in the World Cup at the same time as writing… the latter ones (Ombrager, Aurore) had more of a point relevant to events when translated. Sacre bleu.