For the record

Today I completed a first draft of a short story. That's the first story since I wrote Acception in 2009 and the first time I've written anything in more than a year.

The last day of April is okay, you know?

The Hair Singularity

BEFORE



AFTER

Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror

Some of you may have noticed the free PDF of Acception was removed from the previous post. This is why.

Ticonderoga Publications is walking on sunshine to announce the contents for its inaugural The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror anthology.

Editors Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene have produced a list of 33 excellent tales by some of Australia's biggest names as well as some emerging writers.

The anthology collects 150,000 words of the best stories published last year from the Antipodes.

"We're pleased with the number of fabulous stories that were published in 2010 that we had to choose from,” Liz Grzyb said.

"You could hold this anthology up against any international collection - Australians rock for diverse voices, imagination, and compelling writing," Talie Helene added.

The stories are (alphabetically by writer):

RJ Astruc: "Johnny and Babushka"
Peter M Ball: "L'esprit de L'escalier"
Alan Baxter: "The King's Accord"
Jenny Blackford: "Mirror"
Gitte Christensen: "A Sweet Story"
Matthew Chrulew: "Schubert By Candlelight"
Bill Congreve: "Ghia Likes Food"
Rjurik Davidson: "Lovers In Caeli-Amur"
Felicity Dowker: "After the Jump"
Dale Elvy: "Night Shift"
Jason Fischer: "The School Bus"
Dirk Flinthart: "Walker"
Bob Franklin: "Children's Story"
Christopher Green: "Where We Go To Be Made Lighter"
Paul Haines: "High Tide At Hot Water Beach"
Lisa L. Hannett: "Soil From My Fingers"
Stephen Irwin: "Hive"
Gary Kemble: "Feast Or Famine"
Pete Kempshall: "Brave Face"
Tessa Kum: "Acception"
Martin Livings: "Home"
Maxine McArthur: "A Pearling Tale"
Kirstyn McDermott: "She Said"
Andrew McKiernan: "The Memory Of Water"
Ben Peek: "White Crocodile Jazz"
Simon Petrie: "Dark Rendezvous"
Lezli Robyn: "Anne-droid of Green Gables"
Angela Rega: "Slow Cookin' "
Angela Slatter: "The Bone Mother"
Angela Slatter & Lisa L Hannett: "The February Dragon"
Grant Stone: "Wood"
Kaaron Warren: "That Girl"
Janeen Webb: "Manifest Destiny"

In addition to the above incredible tales, the volume will include a review of 2010 and a list of recommended stories.

The editors will shortly begin reading for the second volume of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Details are available from the Ticonderoga Publications website http://ticonderogapublications.com.

The anthology is scheduled for publication in June 2011. The anthology will be available in hardcover, ebook and trade editions and may be pre-ordered at http://indiebooksonline.com.

Metaphor much?

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for a black t-shirt in a drawer full of black t-shirts."

"Oh."






"Want to talk about it?"

"Shut up."

"Just trying to be friendly."

"Well, my advice to you is: stick to what you're good at."

Feeling sharky. Feeling shitty.

Some days you're the Great White Muthafuckin' Shark, and some days you're a weeny little diver trapped in a tinfoil cage getting shat upon.

(This week I have not been the shark.)

(Nor the diver.)

(I am shit, and et by fishes.)

The Dead Birds of North Melbourne

BEGIN


Some say he gave his life - kamikaze - to defend them.
Some say he flew too close to the sun.
(We know he saw his reflection on a windscreen.)

BETWEEN


"It's not agoraphobia!" she wailed. "The sky has no point of reference!" And so saying she buried her head in the footpath and never moved again.

END


We are not dead.

We were never birds.

Acception: quietly having a little insurrection in the Ditmars

It has been brought to my attention that "Acception" has squirmed its way in among the cool kids and is currently shortlisted for the 2011 Ditmar Awards.

The 2011 ballot is as follows:

Best Novel
————————————————————————
* Death Most Definite, Trent Jamieson (Hachette)
* Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott (Pan Macmillan)
* Power and Majesty, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Voyager)
* Stormlord Rising, Glenda Larke (Voyager)
* Walking the Tree, Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot Books)

Best Novella or Novelette
————————————————————————
* “Acception”, Tessa Kum (Eneit Press)
* “All the Clowns in Clowntown”, Andrew J. McKiernan (Brimstone Press)
* “Bleed”, Peter M. Ball (Twelfth Planet Press)
* “Her Gallant Needs”, Paul Haines (Twelfth Planet Press)
* “The Company Articles of Edward Teach”, Thoraiya Dyer (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Short Story
————————————————————————
* “All the Love in the World”, Cat Sparks (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press)
* “Bread and Circuses”, Felicity Dowker (Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)
* “One Saturday Night With Angel”, Peter M. Ball (Sprawl, Twelfth Planet Press)
* “She Said”, Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes From the Second Storey, Morrigan Books)
* “The House of the Nameless”, Jason Fischer (Writers of the Future XXVI)
* “The February Dragon”, Angela Slatter and Lisa L. Hannett (Scary Kisses, Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Collected Work
————————————————————————
* Baggage, edited by Gillian Polack (Eneit Press)
* Macabre: A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young (Brimstone Press)
* Scenes from the Second Storey, edited by Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall (Morrigan Books)
* Sprawl, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
* Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely (FableCroft Publishing)

Best Artwork
————————————————————————
* Cover art, The Angaelien Apocalypse/The Company Articles of Edward Teach (Twelfth Planet Press), Dion Hamill
* Cover art, Australis Imaginarium (FableCroft Publishing), Shaun Tan
* Cover art, Dead Sea Fruit (Ticonderoga Publications), Olga Read
* Cover art, The Girl With No Hands (Ticonderoga Publications), Lisa L. Hannett
* “The Lost Thing” short film (Passion Pictures), Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan

Best Fan Writer
————————————————————————
* Robert Hood, for Undead Backbrain
* Chuck McKenzie, for work in Horrorscope
* Alexandra Pierce, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
* Tehani Wessely, for body of work including reviews at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus

Best Fan Artist
————————————————————————
* Rachel Holkner, for Continuum 6 props
* Dick Jenssen, for cover art of Interstellar Ramjet Scoop
* Amanda Rainey, for Swancon 36 logo

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
————————————————————————
* Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, edited by Alisa Krasnostein et al.
* Bad Film Diaries podcast, Grant Watson
* Galactic Suburbia podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
* Terra Incognita podcast, Keith Stevenson
* The Coode Street podcast, Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan
* The Writer and the Critic podcast, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

Best Achievement
————————————————————————
* Helen Merrick and Andrew Milner, Academic Stream for Aussiecon 4
* Amanda Rainey, cover design for Scary Kisses
* Kyla Ward, Horror Stream and The Nightmare Ball for Aussiecon 4
* Grant Watson and Sue Ann Barber, Media Stream for Aussiecon4
* Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, Rachel Holkner, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, Snapshot 2010

Best New Talent
————————————————————————
* Thoraiya Dyer
* Lisa L. Hannett
* Patty Jansen
* Kathleen Jennings
* Pete Kempshall

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
————————————————————————
* Leigh Blackmore, for Marvels and Horrors: Terry Dowling’s Clowns at Midnight
* Damien Broderick, for editing Skiffy and Mimesis: More Best of Australian Science Fiction Review
* Ross Murray, for The Australian Dream Becomes Nightmare
* Tansy Rayner Roberts, for A Modern Woman’s Guide to Classic Who

To those who nominated, thanks. I am well sheepish, bemused and ego-fat.

More importantly, Baggage itself is up for a Ditmar as well. Huzzah! This is a brilliant thing, and not just because the book itself is a devious little collection.

As was announced a couple of weeks back, Eneit Press is closing.

I've been grappling with the problems created by the RedGroup's collapse for the last few weeks, but the lead up to that collapse was, for Eneit Press, the most disasterous. You see, last year Borders hosted the launch for Baggage, and at their prompting I bought the biggest print run for any anthology I'd yet done.

The launch, just prior to Aussicon 4 was a huge success, and the store took half the print run, keeping some boxes of books on consignment for selling at this year's Supanova. I duly invoiced them for the books they sold at Worldcon. And re-sent 8 weeks later.

...I was just about to ring again when the news of them entering voluntary adminstration broke.

Nothing short of a miracle can save Eneit Press now.

The ending of Eneit Press is nothing to do with quality of books, having printed a collection by Kaaron Warren and Gillian Polack's latest Ditmar-nominated novel, there is nothing but quality in that back catalogue. The conduct of Borders has left me with a churning gutful of bitter froth, and left Sharyn with a financial debt that she did not bring about and has slain her dream.

Normally, I would offer to send "Acception" for free to anyone who wishes to read it before voting. In this case, however, I urge you to buy the few remaining copies of the anthology from Eneit Press direct, and alleviate some of that debt.

It has always been said that the Australian speculative fiction scene is a supportive community. Please, don't just talk the talk. Buy the book, read the book, stick it to the goddamn man.

Baggage may be purchased here. For international orders drop Sharyn an email to query shipping.

Details on how to vote in the Ditmars may be found here.

If you could retweet, reblog, facebook, tumbl(r), share this and spread the word around, please do. This isn't about awards.

Undoing One of Many Mistakes; Triptych

"Well, this is the end. There isn't anymore. Now what do we do?"

"The only thing we can do: evolve."

"I think you mean 'devolve'."

"That is a matter of perspective. Anyway. Onward?"

"Onward."



"................Okay so the siphonophore thing didn't really work out."

"I won't say I told you so."

"Well if you're so clever why haven't I seen you in the sea? What did you devolve into?"



"A Golden Ray of course."

Travellers and Escapists

"We have to go, we have to get out," he said. "Everything is fucked."

She shook her head. "There is nowhere to go," she said. "'Everything is fucked'."

Then she smiled, opened the window and let the end in.

The ghost lingers by the tracks with the reminder of flight, stilled.

In September, 13 Years

"This isn't brought on by any specific event," he said. "It's more a general reminder that we know a lot of the stuff that lands on our desks is confronting, to say the least, and if you don't want to work on something, then say no. That's okay, no one will have any issues with that. Along the same lines, if you feel that perhaps you need to talk to someone about dealing with the material, whatever that material may be, approach your team leader, a member of the leadership team, whoever you feel comfortable with, and we'll organise a counseling session for you."

:::

The photos I see and documents I read in a single day are more than most of you would be comfortable with even skimming. The confrontation is gone. It is all just so much paper now.

:::

"There is someone down at corporate reception wanting information on making an application, do you want to take it?"

No.
I went down.

He was in his eighties, with grey-blue eyes that were milky with age. He was a couple of days unshaven, with sparse white bristles on his jowls and hanging from the wattle at his throat. Hands that had been firm and strong, but had a little tremor in them now, the skin slack around his knuckles. His mouth always a little open, breathing being now task enough that the nose was not enough for his aging lungs. His mouth moved a certain way when he spoke. A hearing aid in his ear, so I was careful to speak clear steady.

They all want to share their life story, circling around and down until finally reaching the matter at hand. "I'll tell you this, back in Tasmania-" and I settled in with my best listening face, prepared to endure waffle.

He didn't waffle, or talk in circles. Events were explained in chronological order with cause and effect in place, until the end, where he was now, with a tangled mess of bureaucracy. Oral story-telling came naturally to him, with the right pauses and no stumbling over his words. He didn't over-dramatise, but didn't attempt to hide his emotional investment in the events either. The mind was well sharp, perhaps lost in the events around him, but sharp.

It took a little teasing on my part to pluck out exactly what he sought, most of which was not in our possession. Still, I called the other organisation and got enough information to set him on the right course, and figured out what we could do for him.

I let him wander afterward. The story he had told me was a sad one. Those old eyes had brimmed more than a few times, although he never broke down. I would not stop him from indulging in happier reminiscences. It was never just a smile or grin, he could do no less than chuckle when mirth took him. His eyes near disappeared the few times this happened, as his sagging cheeks rose with cheer.

"Thank you," he said, an hour and a half later. "You've been incredibly helpful, and I've taken so much of your time."

I gave him a smile and told him to go get a cup of tea.

:::

It's all just so much paper, except when it isn't.

:::

Fencing with red tape, paper, bureaucracy and legalese is tough if you're not already familiar with the illogical, seemingly-petty and idiosyncratic rules of this alternate but co-habited dimension. He was frustrated with the brick walls he'd run against, and although he was far from settled, having someone actually listen to him brought some calmness about him.

It isn't the first time I've snuck in some ninja therapy on a member of the public. Just to be listened to is all a lot of stricken hearts need to rest themselves enough, just enough. It is no great tax, although time that I'm sure my boss would rather I put to better use. All it requires is patience.

:::

It isn't the content that gets beneath my skin. These years of exposure have led to a forced evolution. I have an empathy-off switch, and a different perspective on humanity.

:::

I couldn't not listen to this man, and I couldn't not empathise with him.

He reminded me of my grandfather.

Even smelt like him.

Checking In

Move: Completed.
Unpacking: Not completed.



This: New webcam shots location. No longer facing the window, so lighting shall be a bugger. Must remove that tiger.

I have an ulcer, coldsores, shadows and bags, cough, cold, shakes and my arms are killing me, but the birdsong here is surprisingly thick and lively, the shower is decadent, and that's my boy Sam on sentry duty at the perimeter.

Mattress on floor,
Me on mattress,
Blinds pulled back,
Bats gone,
And one satellite flares, then dims, and crosses into the shadow of the Earth.

This is the last night in the home I made.

A Life's Punctuation; the Full Stop.

That is the last cup of tea.

It, more than anything else, signals the End of an Era. That's the last of the milk. Once it's drunk I'm going to turn the fridge off, and that will be it.





I feel I should say something about the importance of true and vigorous independence, what it means to call time and space your own without compromise, and, I don't know, stuff, but I am tired in many different ways. My heart is sore, my mind is confused, and I have nothing in me.

So, I will drink my last cup of tea as I have done on many evenings.



And watch the flying foxes come out at dusk.



One last time.

Domestic Archaeology

Having finally emptied my bookshelves (books, CDs and DVDs filling a total of 30 boxes), I've moved onto that part of packing involving rummaging around in boxes and cupboards that haven't seen the light of day since the last move.

It started with the discovery of an 'easter egg' in the packaging of my copy of MS Office 2004 for Mac, as blogged here. All that came to pass afterward was recorded on twitter, and by recorded on twitter I mean I spammed the crap out of my follower's timelines. Extracted and provided below, for your perusal;

• What day is it? #bewildered
• You've had your banana, back into the breach, maggot.
• Yes, you just smashed your head. Sit the fuck down.
• OMG, Apple made the packaging on MS Office hipster and cool; toad town hall terraium?! - http://tinyurl.com/4pqxggy
• That felt good.
• I just found another tooth, and I know this one didn't come from me. #packing
• And a spent bullet casing.
  
• Found my Red vs Blue stickers yesssssssssss!
• Shit, nearly dropped the water buffalo.
• Found mask from Buenos Aires. Shall not be taking it off for the rest of the day. Badass warrior packing FIGHT! http://twitpic.com/41pdbb

• Required: Masquerade Ball, STAT.
• Found: story books made in Prep. This one is about poo. Not the honey-eating bear kind.
• Found: old diary.........................................................................yeah, I'mma stop reading and shove it in a box NOW.
• I have hunger. Feed me.
• What's this? A WHOLE BOX OF OLD DIARIES. HAVE AT THEE, MAGGOT.
• My twitter feed is full of anti-old-diary activists. I defy you! Now hush, I'm reading 16 year old angst, hot damn it's bad.
• OLD DIARY FROM HIGH SCHOOL. CHECK THAT INSANITY, DEDICATION AND MASSIVE FUCKING BOOK - http://twitpic.com/41r1v9

• Primary school diaries!
• Found: letter I wrote to myself when 11 years old because no one else would write to me. It is very short.
• In primary school, I made stories about explorers and yetis, sharks, dinosaurs, and magic ants. And dinosaurs. Also, dinosaurs.
• 6 year old Tessa illustrated her grade prep work book with drawings of...Asterix.
• My freaking darlings, sheepish apologies for spamming the crap out of twitter today. I go now to make my fortune/find dinner. As you were.

I also found old letters and post cards from people who weren't me (seriously!), and picture story books I'd made in school, and old school projects, and photos, and had myself a gay old time.

With various blogs, diaries and journals, I have an account of my life going back to 11 years old. Reading them is both hard, humiliating and hilarious, and in many instances, surprisingly dull for the drama being written about. Some find this dedication to documentation alarming, especially the fact that I keep it all. These are external memory devices. Just as you carry a USB stick about with all your photos and important documents on, I take cart these old books from home to home. One day my memory will start to fade, and I will have these as the back up of my mind.

That said, if ever I go into politics? They're going up in a bonfire.

Then I chatted to Ben Peek for a bit, and when the opportunity was presented I gleefully pointed out to him that I am not 32, 33, no, I am 29 years old. There's nothing quite so brattishly satisfying as pointing out to your older friends that you're not just younger than them, you're younger than them.

Having recorded my life since 11, that means I have 18 years worth of documentation. That's more than half my life.

Most of it has nothing to do with pants, either. How odd.

The Saint Has A Sense of Humour

While pruning packaging I have retained and accumulated over time, I came across this doozy of an 'easter egg' hiding under the fold the sleeve of my Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac carton.







Apple's power is so great they even made a plastic box for the product of a competitor coyly hipster.

The Offerings the Saint Returned

It is inevitable that when moving house and delving into boxes and drawers that haven't been disturbed for years you will discover (or, more accurately, rediscover) items that you weren't exactly expecting.

See Exhibit A:



These teeth belong to me.

About whether they came from my mouth, however, I shall offer no comment.

The Mona Lisa is lining up her approach vector!

A long, long, long, long time ago, secret channels indicated to Jeff VanderMeer and I that our megasaurusodonohugearama collaboration for Halo: Evolutions, The Mona Lisa, was going to be made into a motion comic. You know, animated. Like wow.



This was officially announced at San Diego Comic Con, with a "COMING THIS FALL" slapped on the end of the video, and a more official release date given of November. November came and went, so did December, January and we're now half way through February, and we hear the slavering hordes cry, "WHERE THE HELL IS TEH MONA LISA?!"

The answer is still: on its way, with tentative hopes for the Northern Hemispherian summer.

Also: Jeff and I? Happen to have the first two episodes in entirety. What was that? We've seen the first not one but two episodes? Really? No. Really. I can rub it in if you like, just in case you have any doubts. In fact I will. How's about a couple of screenshots?







And pardon me for stating the bleeding obvious but they look OARSUM. Yeah, that's a lil' peek o' the second episode, none of which features in the teaser trailer. Introducing, Rebecca, the UNSC Red Horse's AI, and her Commander, Tobias Foucault.

The peeps at 343 are clearly awesome. I didn't think it was possible for them to get any more awesome. Surely they've broken some universal awesome limitation. Ha! LIMIT BREAK! We've specifically been told the later action sequences are hot, and that they can't wait for us to see Henry and Rimmer.

Henry FTW!

Pyramid have also done a gorgeous job with the voice acting, effects and music. Seriously gorgeous voices happening in there (I luuuuv Mama Lopez's growl!), and well matched by One's gorgeous artwork.

Dudes? This is going to rock like an asteroid.

When you look for signs, you find them.

There is nothing about moving that isn't horrible, and there is nothing about packing that isn't horrible, but, oh, well, if you insist, the time spent pulling my books from the shelves and handling them and running my palms along their spines and fanning the pages and remember what it was to succumb to this book or licking my lips in anticipation of one I have not had the pleasure of yet, well, yes, okay, that's not "horrible" as such, possibly more of a delightful agony in knowing I possess all these fine works of art and may only ever read one at a time and there just never seems to be enough time.

I do love my library. That's what I have you know, all walls in the lounge room covered in shelves and full of books. My library. Mmm. One day, I will have a proper room dedicated to only to being the home of books, and I'll have a fine deep armchair perfect for curling up in, and it will be a quiet place.

I just picked up the special edition of Shriek: An Afterword and flicked through the first few pages, and came across a page of four short quotes;

No one makes it out.
--Songs: Ohia

If you live a life of desperation,
at least lead a life of loud desparation.
--Dorothy Parker

We dwell in fragile, temporary shelters.
--Jewish Prayer Book

The dead have pictures of you.
--Robyn Hitchcock

And they resonated, in much the same way the impact of an icepick to the left temple has resonance. Parker made me laugh. Oh, I aspire to such philosophy. This blog is nothing but amplification, now, dance with me.

The Songs:Ohia line is not entirely accurate. We all make it out, in the end.

Schrödinger's Tessa

Music that is loud, unrepentant and live, no, alive, and awesomely alive at that, music so loud it fills your mind and leaves no space for you to think even the smallest of thoughts, music that makes your hair shiver and your ribs ache and for which you cannot help but grin manically, shout incoherently, and be saturated by it, no, not saturated, by absorbed by the music until you are nothing and it is everything. That is catharsis. That is clensing, purging, hell, an enema for the mind as all the shit gets blasted out and lost in the bass line.

That's what I expect of live music, and perhaps sadly what I need of it as well.

I was standing in the Corner Hotel last week. It was a Tuesday night, and I was alone in the crush of bodies before the stage, too hot but armed with water, mindful of those around me, resigned to tall people in front of me, and the band was good, they were fantastic at what they did, an incredibly tight and smooth performance with unebbing energy, but-

But.




How to say this. My grip on my voice is uncertain of late, voice being such a slippery thing and I no longer have gentle confidant hands, I'm clutching and snatching too quick too tight and it's getting away from me.

How to say; I did not go away. How to say; I was neither saturated nor absorbed. How to say; I stood in the music, and apart from it.

I was waiting to be filled and full of something other than me, and so have some brief respite from the self-absorbed burden of being me. The spaces inside me were near quivering with anticipation of that storm of sound to come in and blow all the detritus of doubt and fear away and sweep all clean and clear, and those spaces waited, and waited, as the music beat in my bones and blood and came nowhere near me.

It's hard to control that little upwell of panic when one of your crutches breaks.

I kept moving. You can't help but respond to such volume when those around you answer the same call, but my hands were in fists and my teeth were clenched and I was already writing this post over and over, trying to define what it was that...what it was, what any of it was.

The invasion of living music into the mind serves not only as a clensing and purging process, it presents also the opportunity for a controlled instance of recognition. That is, the loss of self is defined as being the loss of the conscious and self-aware self, which in turns allows the unconscious and instinctive self a moment to rise to the surface and free of conscious oppression, be heard.

When the idea of Tessa is put aside, even for a moment, then foundations upon which that idea is constructed are bared.

That is my howling heart, resonating with the roar in my blood and bones, roaring free and uninhibited and anonymous in the roar of a hundred other voices.

I could almost feel it, almost, thrashing and gnashing and trying to get out get out get free. Here and there, in snatched moments, the music echoed something inside, for a moment there was synchronicity, but only for a moment. The show ended, and my howling heart had not surfaced.

This is perhaps an extreme example of the state of affairs of late. I find that I am fine, yes, I am fine. I feel solid and whole and well, and there are no undercurrents I am actively monitoring. But this being okay is, is, it isn't an illusion, it isn't a sham but it is. It is. It takes so little to rip everything out from beneath me, everything, with such swiftness and thoroughness and savagery I'm left gasping not only from the sting of whatever the world saw fit to slash me with, but with the seeming betrayal of my own self that it should collapse so easily, without even the semblance of resistance.

It is hard to trust myself, knowing that my limits are very much changed, yet still not being familiar with them, having as yet developed no understanding of how they lie and what weaknesses they possess, being now wary of anything and everything, for I do not know what will prove to be a fatal blow and set me back again and again and again.

Not knowing myself is a strange thing. It frightens me. A thorough understanding of myself and all my whys is the only certainty I've had, the only map and compass by which to navigate.

But it, I, it, that howling heart, it is still there. I felt it distant but straining in the music. I will feel it when looking at the carpet in my lounge room, or opening the fridge cabinet in the supermarket, or reaching for the phone at work. It is still there. It is still howling.

It is as though it is in a glass box. Double-glazed to keep the sound out in, of course. I'm sitting here at my desk, typing gingerly with my nerves sawing in my wrists, and this glass box sitting before me. It has no seams. Inside, my heart is a snarling, furious thing, all peeled lip and broken teeth. Thrashing and throwing itself against the glass when I fold my arms on the desk and rest my chin on them, trying to break that glass and have at me. It is so upset. There is such hurt, distress and rage in that wild mean little heart.

As it has always been, I suppose.

But.

I can't hear you, and so I don't know how to sooth you.

I've been trawling through my music trying to find something that will, without volume, let you out. Even just for a moment, even now, at 12.17 on a Monday with the sun out and lawnmowers in the distance. I think that, if I find the right music, if I find the right emotive harmonic that is the same frequency at which you howl, with combined resonance from inside and out we may shatter that glass box and set you free.

But that is wrong. It is old habit for me to assume that which is within me is mine to change. The glass box is an alien intervention. To remove it, I need only stop taking the medication.

I am afraid, my howling heart, of not being able to read you and interpret you, I'm afraid that not having that understanding and thus not having that control over you means you will find ways out over which I have no power. I am afraid of not knowing myself.

I am certain, if I were to remove the glass box, that the understanding would not help me at all. I am certain I would not be able to contain you by mere force of will alone. I am certain you would devour me.

Who is in the box, you or me? Are we dead when you are in the box, or when you are free?

I wanted the anguish to be gone, yes. I couldn't carry it any more. But not like this.

I didn't want you cut out. I wanted you to feel better.