Chapter Two

'No tape recorders.'

The diner was empty. Iker Hernandez was in the corner of the room, by a large bay window, lit by red neon from outside. The establishment was unusually dim; Walker had no experience of the place with the exception of driving past a couple of times. All the same, it appeared odd: Hernandez was the only customer, there was no All-American-aproned girl to take their order. Even the shrill trumpet music in the background seemed displaced somehow. He drew closer to the red-cushioned cubicle where the shadowy figure resided.

'No tape recorders,' he repeated by way of introduction.

'Mr Hernandez, glad to meet you at this ungodly hour'. He held out a welcome hand to the man opposite as Walker sat on his side of the cubicle. Hernandez' hands, held underneath the table, moved slightly and then stopped, as though remembering something. He wore an unkempt beige puffer jacket. His Latino face looked gaunt and hollowed out, a shade of the healthy face Walker had seen in the news articles. This was Hernandez, all right, the ghost of his former self, but it was him for sure. He knew, only then, that he was not being duped.

'You British people like tea, right? I got you tea,' and he nodded at the mug in front of Walker. 'I'm sorry I'm making your journalism a stretch without a tape recorder... I can't be traced back. I don't want them finding me.'

'That's fine, I'm glad you're here all the same.' He swirled his tea for a bit.

'It was risky for me coming here tonight. Not only do the FBI not want me coming to the sweet old town of Midwesterley due to me passing out the truths of that day, but I'm practically an outcast here.' He smiled wryly. 'The molesting charges they came up with, faked. If the town saw me here I would not put it past them to get the pitchforks and rotten tomatoes out'. He laughed hollowly. It was not a pleasant sound.

'What made you decide  to see me tonight?'

'Ah, now we're getting to the nitty gritty of things, here. I keep in contact with all the Midwesterley key figures, all the people who were there on that day and knew the truth. I try and keep in contact, you see, but the higher forces that be don't want us witnesses spreading heresies, perpetuating the truth, keeping in contact. Nu-uh. Mr Jenkin's, the school's biology teacher back then, smuggled me a letter into my prison-cell. It was sent in code you see, took me a couple years to work out. But I never give up. It said this name: BEN WALKER, accompanied by his name, so I knew it were from him. Well, I didn't know the fuck that name was, this was round 2008, but eventually it clicked- the library.'

Ben Walker sighed and a took a sip of the lukewarm tea. 'You found my book in the prison library?'

'Ha, that autobiography was a hoot,' he said sardonically. 'You grovelled so bad for your high-flying career at the Times. But, man, you were bad: the way you lied-'

'I know what I've done!' Walker shouted. 'A disgraced investigative journalism who did some pretty shitty things in his time, yeah, that's the one, that's me.' He took a breath. Perhaps it was the moral judgement being passed by this bum sitting across from him that caused the sudden outburst. He pounded his finger on the table. 'I'm sorry. It's just, this book, this book about the school is going to be my redemption. Get my career back on track. I know the truth, I know what the government is hiding-'

'You don't need to talk to me about knowing truth from false! Look, as soon as I got the clue I needed to talk to you.  See, the network of people at Midwesterley that day who saw everything, that understood what really happened, we call ourselves the Candour's- wait, you must have come across that term in your journalism-'

'Yes',

'The firefighters, police, teachers, the kids-grown-up',

'I've interviewed many of them',

'Ah, but you haven't interviewed an interviewee worth his salt actually in Midwesterley, have you? Because you know the FBI, by hook or by crook, have separated the Candour's up, put them in different states, different countries even, to keep them from rebelling',

'I, too, have also come to that conclusion',

'Then, evidently, you don't believe in the Government-asserted lies, you don't believe Lee Mason had anything to do with it.' He paused, dramatically. 'You don't believe there was even a gun involved at the Midwesterley Grammar 'shootings', do you?' 

'No, I don't. I do believe it was a bloody good cover-up, though'.

They stopped talking for a moment. A sense of recognition, of kinsmanship, dwelled.  

Hernandez spoke up, and this time seemed less focused, perhaps more contemplative. 'You know, I've been looking for someone like you for a while. A voice. I spent years in that prison cell waiting for somebody to blow the whistle. But I've got to ask you, why did you pick this case? Why move out to Midwesterley? It's a dangerous place you know,' he said implicitly.

Suddenly, the pair in the diner heard the roaring on engines. Sundown diner was placed on an cross-section of roads that in the daytime would be busy, but surely not this busy at 3AM? A huge collective roar of motor engines sounded all at once and- was that a helicopter engine? The blinding overhead light that slanted through the blinds seemed to answer Walker's questioning.

'You have to leave,' stated a voice. Her head peered through a crack in the kitchen door, silhouetted by pale yellow light. The chopping sound of the helicopter reverberated the entire diner, shook them. The engine roars grew louder still. 'There were men here earlier... you have to leave now.' Iker Hernandez searched under the table, for what, Walker didn't know, and then Hernandez showed it to him. a tiny black mark in the palm of his hand. They had been bugged. They, whoever 'they' were, had heard everything.

Walker now saw them. Legions of black sedans, stretching as far back as the streetlights on all four sides of the intersection. A sleek-looking Mercedes led the inner-most cavalcade of vehicles. Walker stood up and drew back from the helicopter-light. He clasped his hand to his forehead. Hernandez was the twelfth Midwesterley Candour he had spoken to, and yet he had already started the book. Even if he was written from the records, he might needn't have required his input. But that wasn't true. Iker had promised new information, something that was worth risking life and limb for. 'What did you need to tell me?' Walker said in a quiet voice, just audible above the chopping and the engine and now the speakerphone telling them to 'Stop where you are' in a tinny voice. 'What did you need to tell me?'

Iker hadn't moved at all. He still had the hidden-mike held out in his hands, fragmented light spilling through the blinds, onto his face. He furrowed his eyebrows, searching for a means to condense what he had to say. The bay window smashed loudly and his thoughtful features suddenly emptied. His face fell forward onto the table, blood pooling around his slumped body. 'Mr Hernandez! Mr Hernandez!' Walker yelled, uncaring, reaching out to him. 

But the only voice that replied to him, with the exception of the waitresses uninhibited screams, was the monotone of the loudspeaker: 'PUT YOUR HANDS UP!'

Chapter One

There were a few odd goings-on in the town of Midwesterley on the 12th July, 2004, and I don't just mean the school shooting. I wonder, and I suspect its the case, that those twelve gunshots at Midwesterley Grammar, bang,bang,bang, were the cataclysm not only for those unfortunate deaths but for the prevarication of the collective mind: the forgetting of the immediate past, the unsurety of the immediate future. Bang,bang,bang, and the townsfolk forgot everything that was appeared not to be in direct relation to those gunshots. For you see, reader, for the past ten years I have investigated those odd-goings on, those mind-wiped events that paled into obscurity once the shots were underway, I have looked beyond the police dossier's, I've interviewed Lee Mason, the so-called perpetrator and I know, I know. I know this: everything you think you know, everything you think you've been told, everything is a lie-

The phone went. 'Shit!' He looked up from the down-trodden type-writer, temporarily broken from reverie, and set back down again to write. Couldn't a phone-call wait for the truth? The man, middle-aged yet matured by a ruffled look, let it ring, in the knowledge that because it wasn't the secret phone, the phone he had set up for witnesses and victims for the book, that the ringing was from his work mobile, which by denomination wasn't going to be important. Resting his fingers on the keytop, the man awaited the next flurry of words: I can already envision those naysayer's who claim this book as conspiratorial rubbish. Perhaps the police, and particularly the Republican government, will be of this view. I have not portrayed these authorities in the best of lights. The phone went off again- he ignored, irritable yet anxious to get words to paper. But conspiracy is thought founded on no foundation, merely prospective. However, when I visited Midwesterley for the first time, Autumn '04, and on subsequent, intermittent trips over the next ten years to investigate the Grammar school shootings, I found those pillars of fact. I found- inevitably? surprisingly? I am not sure- the pedestal unto which my theorizing could become interminable, immortal truth. This is what this book is- truth.

The phone rang for a third time. Whoever it was was desperate. It rang a fourth, fifth, sixth time, echoing around the attic in which he had begun the book. He instinctively pulled the opening page out of the typewriter, and locked it up in the safe, with all the diagrams, statements, charts and leaked documents he had stored up. Ringringring. Unsure why, for a few minutes ago the man was happy to ignore it, the persistence of the person on the other line suddenly suggested to him that this call was significant. 

The man picked up.

Unknown number.

'Hello, Ben Walker speak-'

'You're the journalist, aren't you?' He had a gruff voice, muffled somewhat, as though he were speaking right into the receiver. It had an unnerving effect on Walker, that lone voice in his bare attic room. 'The one fired from the Times? Are you still there?'

He paused, tentatively. 'I'm here, I'm here. That's me. Say, how did you get my number?' By way of contrast, Walker was well-spoken and English accented.

'That doesn't matter right now. I have to speak to you- immediately. You're still doing that book on the Midwesterley shootings, right?' Yes, Walker replied. 'Right, well, we need to talk. Sundown diner-'

'But it's nearly 2AM-'

'I know the time, Walker sir. But I cannot stress the importance of our meeting tonight. They're onto me, and when I've told you what I know about the shootings, they'll be onto you too.' The voice on the other line had always been direct, but there was now a certain finality to his tone. His voice then quavered,and Walker couldn't hear his next part. The close sniffling paused, Walker's cue to question, but he wasn't quit sure where to begin.

The silence was filled with a pungent sense of mutual fear.

'What's your name? Who's 'they'?' 

'I was the first police officer on the scene. They wiped my name from the records, I was never there, never came close to the school.'

Walker was mute.

'You can Google my name if you want. Iker Hernandez, spelt I-K-E-R. They got rid of me before I could talk, it's corrupt, man, it's crazy. This Sundown joint's open 24/7 but I can't stay here for long, they'll come looking sure enough'. The line cut.

Walker didn't wait; he climbed down the rungs of the ladder leading to the attic, jogged downstairs and leant over his Apple Mac. 'Iker Hernandez' he slowly breathed as he tapped in the letters. Sure enough, a handful of articles came up, all from September 2004, hust a couple of months after the shootings. Police officer expelled after indecently assaulting women on the job, the Indiana Tribune reported. POLICE OFFICER PERVERT, shouted one of the tabloids. Ben Walker wasn't sure how much he could trust this apparent molester, but, if he did, then it looked as though he had been purged, expelled, stripped of status so that no one would take his word. Hernandez knew something that 'they' didn't want getting out, but what?

Walker picked up a tape recorder, and got into his disheveled Jeep outside. It was deathly quiet on the suburban street, a peace reserved by nighttime destroyed by the roaring motor.  He wildly reversed, headlights penetrating the windows of empty cars, and he kicked into forward gear, speeding down the road. A few seconds later, an expensive-looking Mercedes purred into life. It, too, raced forward in the direction of Sundown in pursuit of the man ahead.

Ben Walker was being followed.

"An Ideal Husband"- Questors Theatre, Review

 

'An Ideal Husband' is perhaps lesser-known in the Oscar Wilde canon, but perhaps one of his most personal works. Courtesy of Wikipedia, it appears that Wilde was arrested during the plays first run in 1895 for 'gross indecency', in a way similar to the downfall of the play's Sir Robert Chiltern, a politician whose career is threatened by youthful mistakes of long ago. The play, asides from its witticisms and social commentary, is, at its core, a story of the male role in society, and the difficulties and complications that can entail.

The play concerns political high-flier's Lord and Lady Chiltern (Iain Stirling and Nina Flitman, respectively), the social types who belong to the higher echelons of society. Equilibrium is disturbed by the arrival of enigmatic Mrs Cheveley (Rahman) who dredges up Lord Chiltern's past with the express aim of blackmailing him for her own financial benefit. The confusions and mishaps this results in are delightfully comic. It's a masterpiece of a play, and I enjoyed this present-day adaptation.

The Questor's production is faithful to Wilde's text with a modern twist. The odd nod to the present day is made every now and then ('I'm going to a party with the Milibands') which brought a lot of laughter whilst not being too intrusive or novel. Paul Collins' did a good job of refreshing the play by putting it in a modern context, and exemplifying how relevant Wilde's story of political scandal is in the modern day. In his notes in the program he says how he doesn't see An Ideal Husband as a 'museum piece', and I absolutely agree. This play exemplifies how universal Wilde's themes and observations really are. Wilde's humour is heavy on riposte and paradox; I imagine him to have been a great conversationalist. In many ways, asides from plot, you could easily such a play on the basis of such clever writing.

So to the performances: as it was the first performance of a play that really is quite wordy and dialogue-heavy (it's Oscar Wilde, people), there were a few slip-ups and miscued lines. Although such mistakes were subtle and professionally rescued, it detach actor from character, and I'm sure such mistakes were rectified in later performances. You can forgive this though- I got my tickets for the bargain price of £6.50 and I appreciate it's quite a tricky play to learn! The Questors' actually has a very high standard for an AmDram theatre: Richard Graylin's performance as the lovably 'idle' Arthur Goring stood out for me, exuding confidence and embracing the quick-witted language, with some of the best lines in the play: 'To love onself is the beginning of a lifelong romance'. Classic. Anne Sawbridge has a brief yet scene-stealing role as Lady Markby, the pre-modern gossip who is both sardonic and pompous. 'Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly', Markby drily delivers, who introduces the salacious villain of the piece, Mrs Chevely, excellently portrayed by Jananne Rahman. The marriage of some of the best lines in contemporary theatre with quality, impassioned acting encapsulates why I thought this an brilliant production. 

A few other subtle directorial choices I appreciated: the stagehands were dressed as servants, a nice touch. Also, the soundtrack was apt (Pink Floyd's 'Money', for instance) in relation to the themes of the play, and added to the contemporary setting for the play. The suitably happy  ending for Robert Chiltern brought the play to a satisfying resolution, which s where the parallel's with Wilde's own supposed 'scandal' end, underpinning the play with a quiet sense of tragedy. This is a well-realised interpretation of 'An Ideal Husband' that was very enjoyable- Oscar Wilde for the iPhone-generation.  

A Book Review: L'Etranger ("The Outsider") by Albert Camus

The Outsider 
Penguin Modern Classics, Published 1942
111pgs

Albert Camus

 The Outsider is famed as one of the great absurdist classics, in the same vein as Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground or any one of Samuel Beckett's plays. It features one of the most interesting protagonists I've come across recently, Mersault, the 'outsider' of the novel's title who seems emotionally detached, disengaged almost. He was like a nihilistic, French Holden Caulfield. His general ambivalence is epitomised in the opening lines, deservedly one of the best known in 20th Century Fiction: 

'My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.' 

Mersault lives in Algeria, in a low-paid job living a routine life. He doesn't much seem perturbed by his elderly 'mama's' death in chapter one; written from his perspective, his recount of the funeral procession centres more on the heat and the dark humour that arises from the sight of one his mother's old-aged friends struggling to keep up with the hearse, trying to take shortcuts to keep up. From this point on, we see Mersault's life meander along, unperturbed by just about everything you would assume would evoke some human emotion. For instance Marie, his 'lover': 'she wanted to know if I loved her. I replied as I had once before that that didn't mean anything, but said I was pretty sure I didn't love her'. He's not even concerned with the fact with the fact that one of his best pal, Raymond, is a mistress-beating pimp, giving him a positive testimony to the police. He's not a likeable character at this point, and is just about detestable when, in a nihilistic, existentially meaningless act of random violence kills a man, we see the Outsider come face-to-face with the justice system. The novel's second part see's Mersault on trial, and, beyond it's easy-to-understand plot, is a fascinating take on the protagonist's view of the absurdity of the trial, the absurdity of religion and death and even the absurdity of life. Mersault's tale is bleak and morally obscure, but I must say it was a downright compelling book.

Camus' craftsmanship as a writer really helps to establish the protagonist's character, this overriding sense within Mersault that he doesn't find meaning or pleasure from conventional sources. An example of this is when Marie proposes to him; the scene has hardly any prevalence even within the paragraph it's featured in, Mersault's thoughts moving onto the next event without much thought. In another subplot, we see elderly Salamano, who lives in the same block of flats, who regualrly beats his dog; we see Raymond's conventional analysis 'It's awful!' countered by Mersault's to almost darkly comic effect ('He asked me if I thought it was disgusting and I said no.' There's no justification to Mersault's reasoning, and we never find out quite why he had the urge to kill at the midpoint of the book; it's an interesting first-person perspective, where things are recounted succintly and almost trivially- as the Outsider, he feels no need to justify himself or persuade us to agree with his ideology, neither to the people judging him in the trial or to us, the reader. Because of his honesty and commitment to his existentialist philosophy, there are just as many reasons to like Mersault as to detest him: he is unfaltering in his honesty, and is resolute in his commitment to the present, uncaring of the past or the distant future. I wonder if written from an objective, third-person perspective, our protagonist's actions would just be plain immoral and unquestionably awful, no doubts about it. However, the genius of Camus is how Mersault's thought commentary makes some sort of abstract sense: he is able to derive empathy from the reader towards a character who is in actual fact a murderer.

The novel- novella I suppose you could call it- has been written in such a way that, for the main part, most of it on the surface is fairly banal and uneventful, apart from two scenes. Take chapter two: all it is is Mersault looking down upon his street from his balcony and analyzing the Algiers nightlife, isolated, physically distant as well as metaphorically. However this lack of event shouldn't put people off; for one thing, it's brilliantly written and well observed, and infused with symbolism. I feel like this inclusion of the banal was another piece of existentialist commentary: the uneventful is just as significant as the eventful, that life often plateau's along an axis of mediocre, with the occasional flashpoint of eventfulness changing the course of our lives, before returning to mediocre once more. In this case, Mersault kills an Arab at the midpoint of the book, on a burning hot beach. This scene (Part One, Chapter 6) is my favourite in the book, the disturbance of equilibrium that changes Mersault's life forever, recounted with a total absence of emotion or attempt at justification. The scene puts you in a trance (I dare you not to feel the heat of the sun yourself when you read that passage) and is as thrilling as you'll ever read. The oppressive heat and the knowledge there's a gun in Mersault's pocket induces an almost-unbearable sense of foreboding. For me, along with the novel's last chapter, this part determines its status as a modern classic. So, why did he call the Arab? He had no reason too, right, so why call him? This is what I like about Camus; he seems to be saying to me, from beyond the grave: 'Why not?' I look at that picture of him puffing on a cigarette and he looks at me as though to say, 'Hah! Gotcha! Why do bad things happen, why do good things happen, why does anything happen?...Why not?' I know this book is taught in a lot of A-Level classes, and I can almost see the perplexed faced: 'Miss, um...what just happened?' Camus is a cheeky so-and-so, this is existentialism, don't you know, there are more questions raised in this book than there are answers. Personally, I loved this ambiguity.

The other scene I'll draw your attention to is the last chapter. By this point, Mersault has been sentenced to the guillotine- I found it interesting how he keeps trying onto hold onto the fantastical notion of escaping the chop by running away from his fate. I found this ironic, given that by this point his life is completely devoid of purpose, merely existing until the guillotine arrives. However, I felt most empathetic towards him at this point, he was at his most vulnerable: perhaps the knowledge of his imminent death stripped back his brash, curmudgeonly outer-self and made him more aware of his human self? The last sentence (you'll know what I mean if you decide to read it) suggests otherwise, that he welcomes death, but I wonder if he's being totally truthful. He meets with the prison chaplain in this chapter, against his will; in many ways these two characters within these confined prison cells, are the total opposite of the other. One finds devout meaning in religion and God, the other Godless and recklessly devoid of a moral compass. They have it out in an argument, that was, frankly, inevitable, and I felt truly sorry for both of them. 

I'm going to leave it there. This was a brilliant book, well-worthy of a lengthy review, it's that sort of book filled with symbolic potential and philosophical questioning. I'm not totally with Mersault's ideology all the way, but the denouement of this book was sort of refreshing: without meaning, there is no burden, no pressure, nothing to live up to. Which is nice, isn't it? Mind, make sure you don't use that freedom to murder someone.

'Nothing. nothing mattered and I knew very well why. He also knew why. From the depths of my future, throughout all this absurd life I had lived, a gathering wind swept toward me, stripping bare along its path everything that had been possible in the years gone by, years that seemed just as unreal as the ones ahead.'

Rating: 4/5

A Short Story: 'Presidential Musings'

In April this year I wrote a thousand-word short story entitled "Presidential Musings" and entered into the Chalfont St Giles Literary Festival writing competition and won fifty pounds out of it! You had to play off of the quote they gave you, 'All's fair in love and war'. A couple of my friends have been asking to read it for a while so here it is, in full, for you to read. Thanks.

I am not what I am.

Under the guise of cameras and flashbulbs, I am your leader. President of the United States, a nation founded upon free-thinking, democracy, and... corruption. Calmly authoritative, I relay the same old shtick my predecessors have fervently promised and fervently reneged on: tax cuts, a decrease in unemployment, and the like.

But, truthfully, politics at the top transcends such menial issues. It’s a chess game, with high stakes and even higher consequences, and I am the Grand Master.

My father, also at the top of this heady pedestal in his day, forewarned me of power and its unscrupulous influence. He’d grip me, a plucky young kid, by the shoulders, his wizened old eyes burning into mine: ‘Power does untold things, son,’ he’d say, a sense of urgency in his tone. I was then ushered out of his office, my office, left to explore some other indistinguishable hall, corridor or office of the Presidential home, never quite sure of his meaning. He was right, by the way. Only now do I now know that, Exhibit A to support his argument.

“No leader wants a war to blight their reign”, said no one ever. That desire for one’s name to be etched into the history books as that President is such that the slightest provocation engendered me into full-throttled battle. There is that chivalrous notion- but then there’s money, the chance to make lots and lots of it.

We were up against some Dictator-ruled hole in the Middle-East. Oil equals money. Money equals power. Remember that.

•  

A distant hand counted down the seconds till transmission...

3

...I straighten my tie, the excitable hush of the production crew noticeably dimming...

2

...A single cough is heard, seemingly miles away, the bright lights blinding...

1

... I prepare to tell a bold-faced lie to billions...

“Our nation is fighting a war on terror”, I uttered gravely into the lens of the camera. The ease of my duplicitousness was almost scary.

I continued, stony-faced, as if there wasn’t some huge chunk of the picture I was purposefully withholding. I obligingly stared ahead, reading off the autocue, clinging onto the words like a child holds a teddy-bear, inwardly scolding myself.

“Annnnnnnd... CUT!” A voice said distantly, but I couldn’t hear, didn’t want to hear.

This was the scene five years ago, when I played first move to this ill-fated game of chess, this war. I had irrevocably, indubitably lied.

But no matter, I told myself as I finally shut the door on the Office, sweat on my brow, on my own again and rid of the outside world. I was President of the United States of America. No one can stop me.

•  

Turns out you can be stopped. Five years on, and I’d been called checkmate: the New York Times had leaked some story, and I was held accountable.

Days blurred, and then there I was: sat before the elders, with whom my fate was held in their hands. Sat before a sea of  faces, it felt strangely comforting that I was utterly powerless. They too, along with the rest of the world, were victims to this scandal I’d instigated- consequently, I would like to think my apology was sincere. But then again, I wasn’t sure.

The decision had been finalised- I was to resign the following morning, as soon as I’d finished my last public engagement, a Charity Ball. ‘Will do you some good, the chance to answer your critics directly’, the oldest one said with a look of revulsion over the top of his half-rims.

I left, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

·          

Tonight, it seems, the novelty of meeting the President has kept the naysayers at bay. It’s like being held in a time vacuum.

The fundraiser’s held every year at the Presidential winter gardens, a gaudy edifice that lets the moonlight through, giving a ghostly pallor to proceedings. Shake hands, ‘Good Evening?’, ‘’How are you?’, move on, repeat. I feel a million miles away.

The party (if you could call it that) had wore on, and I was allowed a brief respite, swilling a half-glass of whisky on the middle of the dancefloor. Winnie appeared.

‘Hey, First Lady,’ I say, deadbeat. It’s a stupid nickname I’d come up with as a young governor with big dreams, back when I’d assumed politics was about democracy and equality and justice and helping others and a whole load of other rubbish.

‘Hey, yourself.’ Winnie’s slow Southern drawl stops time. She’s my muse, and yet I hadn’t told her The Big News, so this weighed heavily on my mind. ‘You’re looking tired, hun...’

The Jazz players start a slow number, so we move slowly, mournfully, whispering in hushed undertones. I looked at her. The comment was meant teasingly, but she’s right. My reflection against the moonlit window nearby conveys heavily-set eyes, skin held taut against cheekbones.

‘What’s wrong?’ She enquires, and I lie of course, because I am a deceiver, corrupt in war and marriage.

‘Nothing, nothing...’ I mumble thickly, clenching the material of her black gown tightly, breathing heavily with all intentions of being truthful, when she’s called away to take a photo.

She leaves, First-Lady-Smile firmly affixed upon her face.

A phrase comes to mind, and I’m not sure where I heard it: All’s fair in love and war.

I’m broken from my reverie by the screaming, and I hear snatches of sound-

“There’s a man with a gun!”

I think.

“Red Alert, Mr. President we have to move!”

I think and I scoff. The phrase suggests that anything goes, that all is “fair”. I think of my late father, Winnie, and the angry elder with the horned-rim glasses. It’s not all fair, it’s not. There are consequences.

I feel what I think is a sharp pang of guilt hit my heart, and then I sink to my knees, catching the dazzling red on my once-white silk scarf.

It’s not all fair.

A Book Review: 'Messenger of Fear' by Michael Grant

Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant; Book Review

Published by Egmont, 2014, 309 pgs

Messenger of Fear

'My eyes opened...a mist pressed close, the color of yellowed teeth and it moved without a breath of breeze, moved as if it had a will'

Michael Grant can certainly write some intense, gruesome action scenes. In his latest book, Messenger of Fear, the first, introductory episode in what I hope becomes a full series a la the Gone novels, our protagonist Mara wakes up knowing nothing, enshrouded in a mysterious mist. With no exposition to get through, with Mara having no memory, Grant gets straight to the action. All I will say is that Mara becomes acquainted with this mysterious, enigmatic boy going by the title of the Messenger of Fear, whose job it is to make evil-doer’s (who’ve gotten away with their sins) atone by making them face their worst nightmare. And by worst nightmare, I mean, things can get pretty gruesome and sadistic, but what can I say, I loved it. Be warned, it can be quite intense.

Messenger opens up some interesting moral dilemma’s regarding good and evil, and how good-hearted people can make ill-made decisions. Is it right to make someone face their fears, irrespective of what they've done? Is it an ‘eye for an eye’, or is one as bad as the other? This moral confusion, as well as action-packed plotting makes this adrenaline-ride of a book a great read.

Go and read it, and then come back and read the rest of the review afterwards *SPOILERS FROM HERE-ON-IN, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED* 

First off, the writing: Michael Grant’s best qualities as a writer is his ability to get the pacing and plotting of his books right. Similarly to the characters at the opening of Gone, Mara's confusion mirrors that of the readers- we, too, don’t what’s going on- whom is the Messenger? How can he warp time and space? What significance to other (intriguing) secondary characters, like Oriax and Daniel have to do with the narrative? I don't read much fantasy, so I'm no expert on world-building, but I sometimes fear that keeping information hidden is just a convenient charade to allow for action scenes whilst hiding a load of plot holes. Not so in Messenger of Fear. As you go along, you build up a trust in Grant as he carefully peels back layer upon layer of information, allowing things to gradually make sense. I found this a sign of a really confident writer, able to hold up an engaging storyline whilst still keeping the reader in the dark.

Sexy black pages; great design!

Messenger of Fear was mainly plot-oriented, but still had a small cast of characters that held my attention. I’ll talk about Mara in more detail later on, but, for me, the Messenger himself was most interesting. I liked that he didn’t remain detached the whole way through- ‘taciturn’, as Grant likes to call him- but his gradual warmth and empathy towards Mara made him more likeable, and a more emotionally complex character. There was sadness to his nature that gives me the impression that there’s a past to him that will be interesting to explore later on in the series. The book is quite introductory and felt quite brief, which meant I would have liked to have learned more about Oriax and Daniel and their significance to the plot. They were sort of on the fringes of the story which was a tad bit frustrating- I think Oriax has the potential to be my favourite character from the series, but again, you get the feeling that more of this is being saved for the next books. Dude, I really need Book Two in my life right now, I'm telling you.

Another aspect of the book was the amalgamation of high fantasy and horror-straight-out-of-Stephen-King with real life issues, particularly bullying and suicide. There's no watering-down for the teenage market in Grant's books; this absence of bullshit is so refreshing in the sparkly-vampire-filled, PG-rated YA genre. Let me share with you my favourite passage from the book, a quaint little passage I'm sure you'll agree: 

'There was little smoke at first, though the burning varnish made an acrid smell. For the first few seconds Derek seemed amazingly unharmed. But then the hair on his legs singed and curled and fell away. The flesh of his legs reddened...Bare flesh went from the red of a sunburn to something purplish and then black as the fat beneath the skin sizzled and popped like eggs on a too-hot grill. The skin burst open, like a time lapse-video of rotting fruit. There was a nightmarish hissing, whistling sound as superheated gases escaped. Steam rose from flesh turned molten, flesh that ran down like rivulets of lava..'

Oh yeah, baby, that is one well-written description. I suppose the fantasy element allowed any sort of horror to happen without any logic other than it being the individual's greatest fear, allowing the horrors that Derek, Emma and Liam to come thick and fast, whilst also being diverse. One minute, sadistic games involving severed limbs, the next minute burnings at the stake. Brilliant stuff. Reminded me, in this way, of Stephen King's It.

I've read other reviews that claim to have spotted the Big Twist involving Mara/Kayla's identity, but I didn't and it really flipped my idea of Mara's character on its head. Yes, I knew she must have done some wrong in the past, but my goodness, she was evil bullying Samantha. Evil. For most of the novel she'd always appeared morally-upstanding, condemning of Messenger. But the twist makes me uncertain of her; how much of her wants to atone, and how much her remains the bully she was? It's an interesting personality dichotomy, good with evil, and in future books I'd hope this inner-conflict of Mara between good and bad continues. Maybe I'm getting too into it but, yeah, I was surprised how much I thought about this book.

Play or Pay

Overall, I'm glad I gave this book a shot. I'm giving it a rating of 4 out of 5, purely because at the moment I feel I've only read one small part of what will ultimately become a much larger tapestry, but, for what it is, an introduction-of-sorts, it was really good. I'm very much looking forward to meeting Michael at his London talk/signing next month and telling him in person how much I enjoyed, along with desperately pleading for the next installment. 

Thanks for reading. 

Rating: 4/5

Diabetes and Me

Today I went for a run. I don’t particularly enjoy the act of running, but what I do enjoy is running’s side effects. It drains you physically, but more importantly to me at least it tires your brain, the cog that churns unnecessary, fragmented thoughts that don’t get you anywhere. It’s as though someone were pressing mute on a really loud television program. Instead, I find running channels my energies into something more focused and directional, and so, this morning whilst I was killing myself panting and puffing in front of the school run crowds like a tracksuit-bottom wearing zombie, I happened to start thinking about myself and Diabetes. Me and my greatest foe. Diabetes, the bastard.

I like to trivialize the illness, not because it makes me feel better, but because that’s the sort of mind I have. I don’t think in a calculated, mathematical manner. People ask me all the time ‘What’s the science behind diabetes?’ They are naturally curious, and they naturally assume I’d know the answer because I am well acquainted with Diabetes, five-years-well-acquainted, and I naturally try and give the best explanation I can, because I do feel obligated to educate people on the matter, to a certain extent. But truthfully, I don’t know much about the Science, not much more than the next person. That’s not entirely true. There was that one time in a GCSE exam with a whole set of questions on the Diabetes, questions which to me equated to the easiness level of ‘what’s one add one?’ I had a lot of fun bragging about that once we’d left the exam hall, I can tell you.

No, what I’d really tell someone about myself and Diabetes is this: ‘it’s a game’. Not a pretty game, not at all: filled with injections and blood sugar testing and glucose tablets and visits to hospital. But it is a game nonetheless, and I suppose it’s this element of Diabetes that I am an expert on. I have to be an expert on. And here’s why…

I am sat in a vacant, bare office at Wycombe hospital, newly diagnosed and being taught the ropes. Across from me is this overtly happy Doctor, a plump woman with gleaming wide eyes like slick fried eggs and a worryingly shrill voice, as though she were on the verge of mental breakdown. I only capture fragments of what she’s saying, so dazed and confused as I am. ‘Now, Finley darling, there are just a few consequences to badly controlled diabetes’, she says with so many up-and-down inflections to her voice it’s like she’s recounting a messed-up fairytale. ‘Here are just a few. Blindness. Amputated feet and legs. Oh, and it can lessen your immune system so you could be more likely to attract illness and infection.’ And so on.

This is why I’m an expert on Diabetes. The game aspect of it, as it was.

As I was running this morning, composing part of what you’re reading now, I saw a bespectacled boy cycling on his way to school. My minds eye turned the bicycle into a broomstick for no particular reason at all, and then suddenly I was distracted by thoughts of Harry Potter. I’m telling you, for the main part running filters out the rubbish, but clearly Harry Potter, boy wizard, had slipped the net. Harry Potter and Diabetes, I thought, that’s a really weird combo. I get thinking about what character Diabetes would be, for no particular reason, and I initially think of Voldemort. No, cancer is Voldemort, I argue, taking swathes of lives for no purpose than pure suffering. And then it comes to me: Peeves the poltergeist, who wrecks havoc around Hogwarts, is Diabetes. He teases, manipulates, deceives, annoys. He doesn’t go so far as to kill, like Voldemort, but nonetheless he is an inevitable pain in the wand.

So there it is, people: Peeves is Diabetes.

I’ve never been to a funeral and had the inappropriate urge to laugh, but I almost did when I was first diagnosed. It’s all a bit like a Hollywood movie, in which you get to be the main protagonist for the day. Very odd. I was around thirteen at the time, I think.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Close-up There’s me with a Doctor bent at the knee, telling you The Big News, looking right into my eyes, cue violin music and then, CUT!, a pan of all the empty beds in the ghastly kids ward, and then there’s me, right at the end.

Nurse 1: You’re underweight I’m afraid and in quite a bad state, but no worries, look on the bright side, you were caught fairly early on, most people wind up here in an ambulance unconscious! 

Voiceover- the character Finley’s internal monologue: So when do I get my medal and certificate, eh?! Plus, don’t ever say ‘no worries’ again.

The end

I do complain a lot about the NHS these days but, to be honest, they were great with me back then. The truth is, though, I wanted to get back to normality. I, as I expect most people do, hate hospitals, despise the places, and I just wanted to get back into the realm of normal, whatever that means. So I have to take injections, so what? I’d tell myself.

And so, with that track of thought in mind, I did something the Doctors weren’t really confident about, which was to go on the Boys’ Brigade Summer Camp. The Boys’ Brigade is fairly similar to the Scouts, a group with a Christian emphasis on it which I’d been a part of since forever. The camp was a week down near the coast somewhere, in a muddy, rainy field with activities and things like that. Perhaps not the best environment to get to grips with Diabetes, without parental supervision, I imagine some Doctor bigwig saying. But I had to go, was going to go, in spite of what any professional advice stipulated. I had a great time. It wasn’t the old normal per se, it wasn’t like previous camps because of course, I didn’t even know what Diabetes was back then, but at least it involved playing football, larking about with friends, laughter. In the fields of Swanage that week, I felt far, far detached from white-washed hospital buildings and knowledge and information being stuffed into my head. I was so glad I’d made the decision to go.

Even now people I’ve known for years come up to me and say, ‘I never knew you had diabetes!’ I laugh, because here’s another thing you learn as someone with diabetes: you can inject yourself, out and about, in a café or in the school library or wherever it may be, and nobody ever notices. Diabetes has never, ever been a secret I’ve had to hold from anybody, but I’ve never made a big song or dance over it either. I don’t like seeking out attention, nor does attention like seeking out me, so it’s a win-win of sorts. So anyway, whenever someone puts two and two together, it’s always quiet amusement rather than fear. And so on.

On my run, I recalled quite a particular moment in time. I refer to Diabetes as a game, and what that really infers is the balancing act someone with Diabetes has to perform, all the time, 24/7: the level of sugar in your bloodstream has to constantly be within 4% and 6%. If you go any lower or much higher, then that spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E, but it can still have rather amusing effects. You see, I remember this time for a while after the initial diagnosis, up until the point of Sixth Form, when I hung out with this group of guys at school. Testosterone-riddled adolescents, nobody escaped humiliation and mockery, it was all a part of the fun and games. For instance, they’d see me head off to the medical room one lunchtime and call out, ‘Off to go and take a hit of heroine?’ and I’d change my walk, acting all stoner-like, stumbling about and breathing heavily. That description still doesn’t sound too far off how I was like running this morning. Ha. Anyway, they’d laugh. I’d laugh. I definitely believe in finding the humour in the subjects you wouldn’t assume to be a humour goldmine. Take Joan Rivers, the comedian, a master of black humour, who has only recently passed on. I think, since I’ve known Diabetes, I have definitely learnt not to take matters to seriously, and to sometimes point and laugh at yourself. It’s healthy, try it.

‘That stuff is too good!’ I’d shout out, walking back toward the group.

There’s a pleasant breeze as I write this, and the dogs have given up yapping at some invisible entity they can detect through the front window. I have even recovered from my run, thank goodness. I wonder how the game will evolve later on in life. I feel like currently I have a good grasp of things, but I know fate often takes pleasure in chucking a few curveballs. Some unwanted surprises, here and there. Maybe a wanted surprise will come along; one of these miracle treatments they’re always purporting on the News will actually come to fruition, and call time on our acquaintance, me and Diabetes. That would be pleasant, but for now I feel as though Diabetes has very little precedence on my life and the things I’m able to do.

I hope that continues. And so on.