Category: Dead Men Don’t Drown
-
29.09: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown: #8 (catch-up with all episodes here) Episode number 08: Dead Men Don’t Drown That night I sleep badly, pitching from one side of the bed to the other as though the cottage has come loose from its foundations and we’d gone to sea. At dawn I give up, pad barefoot downstairs,…
-
28.09: The Liturgy

Liturgy for the Answers That Yield More Questions(for the pacing, the waking, the silent photographs) I. The Floor That Knows Your FootstepsYou have worn a path in the carpet.Back and forth,as if the fibres might rearrange themselvesinto a confessionif you walk them long enough. But they do not. The carpet only holds the shape of…
-
2209: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown: #7 (catch-up with all episodes here) Dead Men Don’t Drown When I tell the volunteer that Jacob Macleod was my grandfather, her face changes by the smallest degree, not surprise exactly, but the expression of a woman who has just heard a floorboard answer back. She does not ask whether I…
-
2209: The Liturgy

Liturgy number 07 Dead Men Don’t Drown “Liturgy for the Sea That Refused”(for the man who became paper, and the wave that said no) I. The Reduction of a Man to PaperThey gave you a file.Not a body.Not a burial.Not the salt-scoured bonesthe sea should have surrenderedafter the proper amount of grieving. They gave you…
-
1609: Dead Men Don’t Drown

Dead Men Don’t Drown: #6 (catch-up with all episodes here) The next morning I take the spaniels’ silence in hand to the local history room above the museum, not because I have never heard of Love Dogs, but because family knowledge is a slippery thing and I want paper beneath it. A volunteer with hair…
-
1509: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Proof in the Photograph(for the moment the past confirms what you thought) I. The Search Through the Silent FacesYou spread them out like evidence;photographs that have waited in drawers,their corners curled, their colours fading,their smiles fixed in a time you never lived. You are not looking for memories,but proof.A face. A shadow…
-
0809: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: #5 (catch-up with all episodes here) “Hi Mum, it’s me — ay’okay, well, sort of, because I popped up the shops for milk, bread, and a few bits, and saw two pottery Staffordshire dogs like Gran’s in the antique shop, so I went in to see whether they were worth anything.”…
-
0709: The Liturgy
05 Liturgy for the Unintended(for the moment the ear catches what the heart was not meant to hold) I. The Ear That Catches What Was Not MeantIt begins with a moment,an answer,a voice that carries wordswith informationIt arrivesbefore you can close your ears. You did not seek it.You did not want it,but now it is…
-
0109: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: Episode #4 (catch-up with all episodes here) No. 4, Dead Men Don’t Drown: The Antique Shop on Rope Walk I walk into town for bread, milk and a box of wooden matches for the coal fire; inheriting a cottage means inheriting an endless list of small errands. Halfway home, a fleck…
-
3108: The Liturgy Episode 4
Episode 4: Dead Men Don’t Drown — Liturgy for the Antique Shop(where the dead linger in the objects they once loved) I. The Shop That Holds the PastThe antique shop breathes softly,beeswax and dust holding the warmth of roomswhose fires went out years ago. Objects wait for hands that will not be theirs. Silver has…