Confessions of my Past, Present and Future
by
Darren O. Godfrey
The Past
For me, the love of all things ghastly and bizarre in printed
matter all started with two unjacketed hardcover books; a red one and a blue one. Prior to that find were the usual kid’s material:
a slew of Seuss, a dash of Dahl, along with favorites The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Desmond the Dog Detective, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Story of Ferdinand, as well as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and a host
of other Twain tales, all easily located in the school library.
Those books, though, the red and the blue, were not on the
school’s shelves. Nope. Those babies were right there, in my house, close
enough to bite me, had they been snakes … and this is where I envision a Ghost
of Readings Past (“Long past?” “No, your past”) bringing me, ethereally, to said
house on Dogwood Street, in which I did much of my growing up. A green-carpeted living room, dim even during
midday, with a fireplace taking up much of one wall, and, on either side of the
hearth, built-in bookcases. These
shelves hold a green-and-gold set of encyclopedias, dozens of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, and
various other tomes not often touched by the family’s hands.
[An aside: I wish I could say that I sprung from a family
of voracious readers; alas, I cannot. Mostly
casual readers. Two or three of us,
however became voracious readers. Later. And separately. In fact, nearly everything we did, we did
separately. We were basically five
strangers under one roof. But that’s an
essay for another time.]
The ghost glides me to a spot near the cold fireplace. We hear sounds emanating from the kitchen,
the clink and tink of a bowl and spoon being set in a porcelain sink. A short burst of water from the tap. The succinct footfalls of sneakers on kitchen
tile, then softer pads of the soles on carpet.
We (the spirit and I) see the shadow of a boy, and then the boy himself,
crossing the living room on his way to his bedroom. His eyes flick to the left-hand set of
shelves, then to the hallway before him, and then back to the shelves. He approaches the books, drops to one knee,
and pulls out a bright red volume, and then its partner, a robin’s egg blue one.
The boy sits, folds his legs, and checks out the blue
book. Its spine reads Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories for Late
at Night. Its table of contents bear
many names, among them Ray Bradbury, Jerome Bixby, William Hope Hodgson, M.R. James,
Frank Belknap Long, Henry Slesar, and a funny one, George Langelaan. Langelaan’s contribution is called “The Fly”.
“Cool,” the boy says.
He remembers seeing the film at a Halloween party the year before.
The red book’s title is Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories NOT for the Nervous. Inside: Bradbury (again), Joseph Payne Brennan,
Dorothy L. Sayers, Frederick Brown, Hal Dresner, and Richard Matheson, among
others. A title, “Don’t Look Behind You” jumps out at him. He finds it on page 95 and begins to
read. Momentarily, he defies the story’s
title and looks behind, as well as all around him. He turns himself, carefully, so that his back
is to the bookcase, and reads some more.
Nearing the end of the tale (which is about a man on his way to get YOU,
yes YOU, the reader of the story), the boy checks his surroundings again, his eyes
wide.
“Crap,” he mutters, jumps up, clutching a book in each
hand, and scurries into his bedroom to finish the tale. And start another. And then another.
About a month later, the boy would begin to construct
stories of his own.
The image below is of the actual red and blue books Darren has owned for over forty years. The books were printed in 1965 (red) and 1961 (blue).
The Present
Here, the Ghost of Readings Present smacks me upside the
head with a book (or would it be a Kindle? An I-Pad?), for not reading as many
new writers as I probably should. I’ve
managed a few, here and there, of course – writers who’ve become known to me via
book signings, conventions, internet social sites and message boards, through
the HWA (works up for Stokers, for example), as well as through other writing
projects, and most of those writers are very good – but what I’m mostly doing with
my spare time in the here-and-now is rereading.
I regularly revisit nearly every book and story written by Stephen King,
Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell, Robert McCammon, Dennis Etchison, Richard
Matheson, Joe Lansdale, Charles Grant, Michael McDowell, Dan Simmons, James
Herbert, Clive Barker, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Charles Beaumont, Thomas
Monteleone, Mort Castle, Chet Williamson, John Farris, John Skipp and Craig Spector,
F. Paul Wilson, Robert Bloch, Lawrence Block, John D. MacDonald, Richard Adams,
Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Agatha Christie, and Shirley Jackson. I go back to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and The
Vampire Lestat every few years.
Ditto: Bellefleur, by Joyce
Carol Oates, Tempting Fate, by
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and The Trap,
by Tabitha King.
About every five years, I reread the seminal works of
horror fiction: Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Also, I habitually return to the works of Poe
and Lovecraft, the shorter works of Henry James, M.R. James, and Algernon Blackwood,
and around every six years, I float the Mississippi with Huckleberry Finn.
Oh, and those two books, the red one and the blue one
(which my mother let me take with me when I left home). I reread those, too.
Is it wrong to pore over past readings so much? Is it wrong to dwell so much in the past?
The Future
If family history has any bearing on it, 2045 will likely
find me in a grave. Or in ashes. If I’m still among the living, however, chances
are I will be out of touch with reality – even more than I already am – and the
dark form over my shoulder will be the Grim Reaper rather than the Ghost of Readings
Yet to Come … who, by the way, is here now, pointing not at a hole in the
ground, but at a stack of notebooks (paper, not electronic), large and small
that contain hundreds of hastily scrawled notes (a great many of them penned
while dining in my favorite Chinese restaurant) on various subjects, most of
them to do with short stories and a novel-in-progress. The ghost is ordering me, silently, to get to
work. Time is short.
I will address the two most pressing subjects from those
notes.
An image has pestered me for years, seemingly for the
sake of a story, stemming from a train of thought that has also dogged me for
years: that of the overwhelming emotions felt by passengers in a plane that is
about to crash. (After 9/11, I saw this
scenario in my dreams, again and again.)
Anyway, whenever I allow my thoughts to go there for more than a moment
or two, I try and envision what different things individual passengers might be
doing. Each of us reacts in different
ways so … what is happening to who and why?
Then comes the repeating image: a well-dressed gentleman,
distinguished-looking with his silver hair and expensive suit. While those around him are screaming or
sticking their heads between their legs, or are simply frozen in fear, this guy
is sipping a martini. He doesn’t seem to
be bothered in the least; he’s even smiling a bit.
I want to know why, and I want to write a story
explaining why. Not long ago, I thought
I had it, but (no pun intended) it stalled.
I need to finish that thing, and soon.
Even more pressing is my novel, Jack in the Boxes. I started
the damn thing almost 30 years ago. It’s
about 90% there. It has not died on me –
its key elements, its mysteries, its very tone has stuck with me, never
weakening. Different, if not disparate,
parts of the book have drawn together and dovetailed so neatly that I know it
cannot be lying dormant. It’s too … vigorous. And that ghost’s bony finger is insisting I
get on with it.
And, as to what I might be reading (again, assuming I am
able): I suspect I will be perusing the works of those mentioned above for
about the thousandth time, and the pages and bindings of those two books, the
red and the blue, well-worn now, will no doubt be held together with Scotch
tape, Elmer’s glue, and a heap of hope.
However, anyone out there who feels there are talented new
writers whose work is so entertaining, frightening, and enriching that my life,
its end ever-approaching, will in some way be diminished by missing out on them
… well, feel free to give me a heads-up.
Darren’s short story collection Apathetic Flesh is available to buy as an eBook and just recently
as paperback. You can buy it here.
If you would like to help support Confessions of a
Reviewer then please consider using the links below to buy any of the
books mentioned in this feature or indeed anything at all from
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Thanks.
To see more about Darren, you can find him at the links below.
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