Category: Dead Men Don’t Drown
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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.”…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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1808: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: #3 (catch-up with all episodes here) Episode #3 The charity van arrives just after ten, driven by a narrow man with a nose sharp enough to open letters and eyes that know the profitable function of grief before I have finished carrying the boxes to the gate. He lifts the flaps…
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1708: The Liturgy
Episode 3 — Liturgy for the Charity Van(for those who sort the belongings of the dead) I. The Van at the Door The charity van pulls up.The driver is kind but level,practised in the art of receivingwhat the living can no longer hold. Fenella watches him load the boxes,each one containing a fragmentof her grandmother’s…
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1108: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown Episode #2 Three months ago this cottage still listened to my grandmother; now it belongs to me, though at times it feels like arriving halfway through a conversation she started with the walls some eighty years ago. I’ve learnt the house wakes early, long before I’ve slept enough, but I manage…
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1008: The Liturgy #2
Liturgy for the Inherited Weight(for those who must sort through the past) I. The Objects That Remember Every object in this house carries a memory,one we pressed into itwith our hands, our habits,our refusal to let go. The chipped mug she dropped at seven,her grandmother kept using,as if the crack were not a flawbut a…
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0408: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown Episode 1 Two ceramic Staffordshire spaniels on my grandmother’s windowsill spent my childhood combing the sea beyond the harbour wall, their glazed eyes fixed beyond a window etched white by salt; one would think they expected the tide to bring somebody back. The sea never stayed outside, its salt creeping into…
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0308: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Dogs on the Windowsill(Rye Harbour, Sussex: where the sea keeps its secrets) I. The Threshold of SaltThe house faces the harbourthrough windows etched with winter’s salt,the brine of decades pressed into glasslike a watermark of all that has been lost. Salt in the hinges.Salt in the frames.Salt in the hems of curtainsthat…
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