Caposcripti
A novel about shrunken heads and dropouts, language and voyeurism, set in London and the Amazon basin.
Modern London. The photographer is a man ruled by two obseessions. First, to take photographs that speak for him. Second, to make the subjects of his photographs speak to him alone. 

Rewind to Peru in 1851. An explorer is battling to survive in a claustrophobic and unknown world, in flight from modernity and seeking older truths, which he finds in the customs of the Caposcripti.

How these secrets survive, and how the photographer uses them in his terrifying experiments is only the beginning of the journey with these intriguing characters.


praise for Caposcripti:

“Beautifully constructed” ....“immaculate prose” ... “John Grisham meets Carlos Castaneda”
BOOKMONGERS LONDON

“I loved the way the dialogue builds and builds, but is very subtle...a different way of looking.”
Anna Druka

“It's a great read!”
Rod McLaren

“I was hungry for more, each of my busy days, to induldge myself in this book. Each time I opened the pages I was there, with the characters, my six senses working the pages, sitting on the edge of my seat throughout my Caposcripti experience. This is an incredible book! Zelda Rhiando's first novel reads as if she is already a seasoned writer...a natural talent like hers is undeniable and hats off for a superior first novel. Highly recommend reading!”
Lisa Billson of The Loose Salute

“It's really good. Very accomplished for a first novel.”
Patrick Kelly

“Just finished Caposcripti and what a cracking good read it is too. Genuine sense of menace throughout.”
Ron Meerbeck

“Finished!! Favourite bits: the ending, nina cleaning up after murder, taypi's daguerreotype. I'm spreading the word!”
Emily Foges

“I saw one of your stickers in the toilet and wanted to scrawl 'beware the photographer!' - but I'd lost my pen.”
Julia Roberts

“Can't put down. Betty leaves you on such a nervous edge. Love it.”
Julia Roberts

Author interview on Scott Pack's blog:
meandmybigmouth.blogspot.com/   http://t.co/7NZUpjWd

More about the book:
http://www.caposcripti.com

Caposcripti

In 2011 a devastating tsunami hit the North-eastern coast of Japan causing a major meltdown at Fukushima - the worst nuclear disaster in the world to date. 16,000 people died that day, and tens of thousands more were displaced - their homes destroyed, their villages contaminated.
Fukushima Dreams is set against the backdrop of this event. Sachiko lives with her husband and infant son Tashi in a small coastal village. They are both struggling to adapt to life with their new son. When Sachiko’s village is hit, she awakes to find her family are missing. After a fruitless search she, like many others, is forced to leave the area due to radiation fallout. She moves to Tokyo, and a different life.
Harry had already planned to leave. Harry had already planned to leave. He uses the disaster as cover, and flees to a mountain refuge. He lives there, hovering on the border of sanity and haunted by the spirit of their son. Winter sets in. Eventually he is forced to return. They must both confront the ghosts of the past.

Buy the book

Fukushima Dreams

Brixton BookJam
Set List - 2nd December 2013

Set 1- 8-8.30
Tom Watson
Marianne Hyatt
Anna Mazzola
Dave McGowan

Set 2- 8.45-9.15
Martin Millar
Caspar Addyman
Tessa Ditner
Miranda Miller

Set 3- 9.30-10
Sally Harris
Keith Lewis
Jill Moffat

Compered by Doc Williams


The Brixton BookJam is a free quarterly literary event, held at the Hootananny in Brixton. Find out more at http://www.brixtonbookjam.com

Set 3 - Sally Harris, Keith Lewis, Jill Moffat

Listen to our BookJam on Monday 3rd October, at our regular venue the Hootananny in Brixton. We heard from:Deserter, Roșie Wilby, Ivy Ngeow, CJ Schuler, Ned Beauman, Kwaku Osei-Afrifa, Graham Buchan, Zelda Rhiando, and Celine Hispiche …presented by Mik Artistik, with music from Rebecca Hollweg.

Brixton BookJam - 3 Oct 2022

Two imaginary podcasters discuss my forthcoming novel 'Night Shift'

Night Shift podcast

An imaginary podcast about my novel Fukushima Dreams, which came out in 2018.

Fukushima Dreams - podcast

a-deep-dive-zelda-rhiando

Set 3: 9.30pm 
Martin Millar 
Belle de Neige 
Montague Kobbé 
Robert Eaglestone

BookJam Set 3

Set 2: 8.45pm 
Jenny Stallard 
Rosie Wilby 
Courttia Newland 
Susie Cornfield

Music by DJ Andy

BookJam Set 2

Set 1: 8pm 
Angela Wilson 
Lucy Ribchester 
Paul McVeigh 
Ben Byrne 

Music by Raleigh Rye

BookJam Set 1

The Brixton BookJam is a FREE quarterly literary event that is unpredictable, eclectic, and aims to curate the very best in South London writing. Appearing on this recording are: Jim Bob, Ruth Ware, Marc Nash, Tamim Sadikali, Frances Mensah Williams, Chris Chalmers, Dominick Reyntiens, Toby Downton, Zelda Rhiando and Yana Stajno. See more at: http://www.brixtonbookjam.com/

Set 3

zelda-reading-magpies-eva-brixton

Recorded live at the Brixton BookJam, a free quarterly literary event. Including readings from: Jenny Stallard, Eleanore Etienne, Jacqueline Crooks, Richard Skinner, Fraser McAlpine, Tom Pollock, Yolanda Zappaterra and Jan Fuscoe, Kevin MacNeil, Kit Fraser, Nikesh Shukla, Matthew Redford and Shazea Quraishi, and music from Ese Music Experience. 

See more at: http://www.brixtonbookjam.com/readersspeakers/#sthash.TOChqIQp.dpuf 

BookJam - 07/12/15 Set - 2

Stevan Alcock is a writer, editor and translator. A born and raised Yorkshireman, his debut novel Blood Relatives has received widespread critical acclaim. The Guardian described it as ‘refreshing, even radical’, The Times said it is ‘written with a daring and assurance’. Blood Relatives was longlisted for the 2015 Green Carnation Prize and is currently shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize.
@StevanAlcock


Irenosen Okojie has been named by writer Ben Okri as an exciting talent to watch. In 2016, she published her short story collection Speak Gigantular and won a Betty Trask Award for her novel Butterfly Fish. Her writing has been published in literary journal Kwani?, magazine Phati’tude and newspapers The Guardian and The Observer.
Irenosenokojie.com  / @IrenosenOkojie


David Kessler is a writer of thrillers and other books, published by Hodder, HarperCollins and more recently for the Kindle. His most recent books - written under the pen-name Adam Palmer - are conspiracy thrillers, linking history with modern events. He also writes legal thrillers under his own name. His most recent book COLD TURKEY - written under the pen-name "Dave" - is about a pair of drug-addicts who kidnap a right-wing shock-jock and get him addicted to heroin in revenge for disparaging comments he made about drug addicts on his radio programme.
http://davidkesslerauthor.com/


Tom Tomaszewski grew up in south London and works as a psychotherapist specialising in addiction. His father came from a family of dissenting Polish patriots. His aunt died in Auschwitz and his grandfather was regularly prosecuted for writing an anti-Prussian column ‘Polish Fire’. The Eleventh Letter is a story about desire, ghosts and trying to change the past.
tomtomaszewski.com  / @tbt_tom

Brixton BookJam 03.10.16 - Set2

The Brixton BookJam is a free quarterly literary event, featuring an eclectic list of writers and readers. This edition features:

SET 1: 8-8.30 
Tom Tomaszewski
Zoe Howe
Anna Maconochie
Douggie John 

SET 2: 8.45-9.15 
Jon Newman
Asher Senator 
Howard Cunnell
Rabiah Hussain

SET 3: 9.30-10 
Zelda Rhiando
Robyn Travis
Lydia Syson
Cynthia Roomes

Brixton BookJam Dec 16 Set 1

The Brixton BookJam is a FREE quarterly literary event that is unpredictable, eclectic, and aims to curate the very best in South London writing. Playlist includes:
 Set 1: 8-8.30 - Carla Valentine Chris Jackson Nazima Kadir Jim Gleeson
Set 2: 8.45-9.15 - Irenosen Okojie Jo Clayton Jacqueline Crooks Dzifa Benson
Set 3: 9.30-10 - Desiree Reynolds Richard Skinner Zelda Rhiando Sherbaan V. Valean

BookJam - Mar6 - 17 - Set2

BookJam - Mar6 - 17 - Set1

A gripping literary thriller set in post-tsunami Japan, where a missing child continues to haunt his parents long after the waves have receded. The secrets will out...

Now funding on Unbound: 
https://unbound.com/books/fukushima-dreams

Fukushima Dreams - Chapter 1

picture credit: http://skeptikai.com/2011/03/16/living-in-a-radioactive-japan/

This book is currently funding on Unbound at https://unbound.com/books/fukushima-dreams  If you'd like to see it in print, please support it!

Fukushima - Dreams - Chapter - 2

This book is currently funding at unbound: https://unbound.com/books/fukushima-dreams Please show your support if you want to see it published!

Fukushima - Dreams - Chapter - 3

This book is currently funding at unbound: http://unbound.com/books/fukushima-dreams
Please show your support if you want to see it published!

Fukushima Dreams - Chapter 4

This book is currently funding at unbound: unbound.com/books/fukushima-dreams Please show your support if you want to see it published!

picture credit: Author's own

Fukushima Dreams - Chapter 5

SET 1: 8-8.30
Zelda Rhiando is a Dublin writer who has spent most of her life in London. Her first novel Caposcripti came out in 2012. Zelda travelled to Japan to research her second novel Fukushima Dreams and is currently working on a third Good Morning Mr Magpie. When not writing she can be found child-wrangling and making digital products. @badzelda / www.badzelda.com
The only child of two writers, Merlin Sinclair grew up in a world that revolved around literature. Breaking the family tradition, he rebelled and joined the corporate world, where he worked as a copywriter and
marketer. However, unable to escape the inevitable, he has now completed his debut, a historical novel inspired by a trip to the Prado in Madrid.
Paula Lennon is the sixth and last child in a family of boys, born to Jamaican parents in the West Midlands, England. Paula lived in Jamaica during her teens and attended high school in Chapelton. She currently resides in Jamaica, where she is always actively plotting, writing, and being distracted by the Caribbean Sea. Murder in Montego Bay is her debut novel released on 9th June 2017 by publisher Jacaranda Books, London. @PaulaDL16
Leila Segal was born in London. Breathe: Stories from Cuba (Flipped Eye, 2016) is her debut short story collection, and originates in the time she lived in Havana and the Pinar del Río province of Cuba. Leila is director of Voice of Freedom, a project with formerly trafficked women, enabling women who have escaped their captors to use text and photography to talk about their lives. @leilasegal / http://www.leilasegal.com
Robert 'Hacker' Jessett writes Urban-Country, a genre that could loosely be defined as a lyrical blend of rock, electro, folk and alt-country. He has recorded six studio albums with his band Morton Valence, one of which (Bob & Veronica Ride Again) was accompanied by a 110-page novella of the same name, and another, Europa was recorded in seven different languages.

BrixtonBookJam - Jun17 - Set1

An unpredictable, eclectic and inspiring literary night - “Brainfood for a Monday night”. Featuring:
Set 1:Miranda Gold, Alex Cristofi, Barry Stewart Hunter, Alyssa Warren
Set 2: Erinna Metler,  Rosie Wilby, Nick Harkaway, Bonnie MacBird
Set 3: Dave McGowan, Hamja Ahsan, Josh Winning, Jack Blackburn

BookJam Oct 17 Set 3

BookJam Oct 17 Set 2

Visit Caposcripti.com to buy print or digital copies of this book, or https://www.amazon.com/Caposcripti/dp/B07M5HQFVK for the full audio version.

Caposcripti

A novel about shrunken heads and dropouts, language and voyeurism, set in London and the Amazon basin.
Modern London. The photographer is a man ruled by two obseessions. First, to take photographs that speak for him. Second, to make the subjects of his photographs speak to him alone. 

Rewind to Peru in 1851. An explorer is battling to survive in a claustrophobic and unknown world, in flight from modernity and seeking older truths, which he finds in the customs of the Caposcripti.

How these secrets survive, and how the photographer uses them in his terrifying experiments is only the beginning of the journey with these intriguing characters.


praise for Caposcripti:

“Beautifully constructed” ....“immaculate prose” ... “John Grisham meets Carlos Castaneda”
BOOKMONGERS LONDON

“I loved the way the dialogue builds and builds, but is very subtle...a different way of looking.”
Anna Druka

“It's a great read!”
Rod McLaren

“I was hungry for more, each of my busy days, to induldge myself in this book. Each time I opened the pages I was there, with the characters, my six senses working the pages, sitting on the edge of my seat throughout my Caposcripti experience. This is an incredible book! Zelda Rhiando's first novel reads as if she is already a seasoned writer...a natural talent like hers is undeniable and hats off for a superior first novel. Highly recommend reading!”
Lisa Billson of The Loose Salute

“It's really good. Very accomplished for a first novel.”
Patrick Kelly

“Just finished Caposcripti and what a cracking good read it is too. Genuine sense of menace throughout.”
Ron Meerbeck

“Finished!! Favourite bits: the ending, nina cleaning up after murder, taypi's daguerreotype. I'm spreading the word!”
Emily Foges

“I saw one of your stickers in the toilet and wanted to scrawl 'beware the photographer!' - but I'd lost my pen.”
Julia Roberts

“Can't put down. Betty leaves you on such a nervous edge. Love it.”
Julia Roberts

Author interview on Scott Pack's blog:
meandmybigmouth.blogspot.com/   http://t.co/7NZUpjWd

More about the book:
http://www.caposcripti.com

Chapter 1: Personae

An excerpt from the spoken word version of Caposcripti - visit http://www.caposcripti.com to buy print and digital copies of this book.

2. Scouting
The Photographer is out looking to score with his callipers and cameras. All around, he feels the pulse of the city; the grumble of traffic, the constant near contact with other pedestrians on the pavement. He is edgy, taut. Controlled precision and a certain detachment are evident in his posture. He has chosen that uncertain hour between daylight and dusk when the puddles in the gutter start to reflect darkness and the stark outlines of cornices, aerials, and fire escapes. Today, however, the Photographer is not particularly interested in puddles – although once upon a time he took pictures of them, as well as street scenes, barrow markets, smiling children, obscure buildings.

Back then the urban landscape had inspired him with its complexity – awed him with the continual juxtaposition of the unexpected. He would go to Liverpool Street station to attune himself to the city’s rhythms, wheels within wheels, natives interacting with one another like cogs turning, clockwork and unvarying measures; contrapuntal movement. Nine-to-fivers in from the suburbs every day; the swarms of black suits fleeing the city at five-fifteen; soaring buildings, park-sized atriums, giant tropical plants belying their sterility and dwarfing the scurrying workers below; skyscrapers suspended from great steel arches, glistening pyramids of glass – all invited the Photographer’s lens, demanded interpretation.

But now in the gathering dusk he ignores these and other possibilities. He is conducting a dialogue of one: with himself and his camera, the method and the goal, the Cartesian dichotomy. He believes in dualism.

“In the beginning was the word: and the word was with God. Who can we believe? The priests and the philosophers, these lovers of wisdom? Should have been a camera there. Black and white. Never lies.”

“Seven planets, God and the Devil, and man travelling a known path one way or the other. Someone is up there with their CCTV, filming inside the mind, no lies. Camera never lies.”

The Photographer doesn’t own a television: he had a black- and-white one once, but the dull eye watching him from across the room unnerved him. God and his eye piercing his very soul, pinning him insect-like under the solar microscope, caught in the panopticon. No escape. Sometimes he thinks he is Lucifer – he too carries his hell inside him.

And so he is outside as the dusk falls, while the sun is too engaged in its struggle with the moon to keep an eye on him. Eyes scan the faces of passers-by for the one whose head fits his specifications: he has it down to a fine art now. The callipers are just a prop, part of the mythos. These days the only genre that interests him is portraiture, and he has no time for clouds, solar eclipses, or the bottom of the ocean. Motion photography he flirted with briefly, in his youth, but lately he’s been after the freeze frame, the moment of truth.

Camera and callipers; callipers and camera. The others on
the pavement give him a wide berth: his gaze is discomfiting – measuring them from head to foot as they near him. He has chosen a busy time and the roads are at capacity. The city’s dwellers are displaying a refinement of evolution: the ability to condense population past the point where another species would choose to selectively cull their own kind. Evolution has a part to play in this narrative. The Photographer has more respect for it than for the scurrying pedestrians in his path.

Still they serve their purpose.


An excerpt from the spoken word version of Caposcripti - visit http://www.caposcripti.com to buy print and digital copies of this book.


Chapter 2: Scouting

Chapter 3: Amazonas 1851

4. Betty
Night-time in London – or rather the electric dusk that passes for night in the city, where the sky develops a perpetual orange glow that conceals all but the brightest stars, and a thin haze softens everything into indistinctness.
Patches of light from the street lamps intensify the areas of shadow under the long landbridge supporting the railway line, and cast doorways and corners into obscurity. Beneath the overhang arches curve along the pavement. The shops and offices are shuttered against the night, rendered uniform by the dark outlines of graffiti etched into them. The street is littered with the debris of daytime and has that peculiar sense of isolation of the shuttered outdoor market.
Save for the dim glimmer of reflection thrown from his lens, the Photographer is near invisible in his hiding place, black coat melting into the dark stone, dark eyes dim hollows in his pale face, camouflaged in stillness, checking for cameras.
His quarry, an old drunk entering the final stages of dipsomania, is about half-way down the street bedded down for the night in the entrance to the station. Like the market and the shops it’s closed now, quiet and deserted, and she
is only just visible through the metal cage that forms the stairwell. A near shapeless bundle in the darkness, even the filth and the stink of piss and stale cider have not been enough to dissuade her from the shelter that the stairwell affords in coldest hour before dawn. Shelter, the Photographer reflects, that will provide his activities with some cover too.
Everywhere these days there are cameras watching; cameras, hidden by them, tricks and feints. Even the concealed ones might be dummies, double bluffs, no escape. Watching me? He marks her and bides his time; there’s no need to rush. Does anybody really see such people? Maybe not, but the camera catches everything.
The Photographer pictures a grand controller, seated in front of a giant switchboard, wired into a chamber studded with monitors in obscene symbiosis: a monstrous eye. Images flash on the screens, zoom shots, wide pans – from the grainy black and white of CCTV to the lurid polychrome of cheap porn.
Suddenly everything vanishes, every screen switches to a single shot, a magnified view of the very street, the very doorway where he is hiding, camera lens glinting in the streetlight, sight and senses straining. But what would
they see? Nothing. For how can they see what they’re not looking for? Blind. Blind leading the blind. Eyes closed to the patterns in the noise, fragments of the lost language. He’s been watching this one for some time now, saving her up like a banquet, waiting for the moment of significance, the confluence of signs.
Even in the dark he can form a perfect mental picture of every contour of her person – from the filthy and crusted layers of petticoats, and blouses, and skirts, and coats, and cardigans, to the bloated feet wrapped in layers of plastic; conjunctival eyes squinting from the lined and bloodshot face. He is impervious to the decay, for this face still
holds a promise of beauty for him, hints given in the high cheekbones, weathered cheeks, sockets spaced wide and eyes of an extraordinary colour.
He’s observed her in all weathers: panhandling for change or drinking Tennent’s Super on a bench by the library with
the other regulars; shouting and spitting at the pigeons, at the government, at the rain, and at the great confusing conspiracy of it all; sleeping it off on the pavement, as oblivious to the passers-by as they are to her.
How many times has he asked himself: does anybody see such people? Really see them or just register their presence
as they pass in the morning as an annoyance or obstacle or object of sudden pity, quickly forgotten? How many hundreds of pairs of eyes glance at this woman on a daily basis without ever seeing her at all? And if challenged to describe even
one small aspect of her appearance, what would they recall? Naturally this last is an important consideration.
It’s different for him, for them; he’s intimate with her, close as no other. Who else could describe, as the Photographer can describe, the colour of her eyes, the moles on her face, the deep lines carved down to the mouth? Who knows the precise number of her teeth, and which are crowns? Who traces the lines on her hands, the varicose veins marbling the back of her calves, measures the tone and tenor of her voice, when she wakes, when she sleeps, where she goes?
Who had last touched her emaciated body – as he would – filled with a kind of awe before the microcosm of humanity; the machinery of natural language latent in her cells, like some complex DNA strand waiting to unfold? She will be more than the sum of her parts, society’s discard, nameless and invisible. She exists for this, fragment of an equation
that embodies that primary relationship between the identity of the individual, and the millions of dim reflections of the original form that people the universe, the fragments of Babel that she carries within her.
And all this contingent on the cameras, the CCTV, his present concealment and his long observation of her habits: Will anybody miss her? Will anyone register her absence, and having registered it, ask questions, instigate a trace, compile footage of her haunts to establish just when and where and how she disappeared? Will they delve into the black economy of the nameless and unrecorded to discover her true identity, that long-forgotten National Insurance number, the place on the Electoral roll surely lapsed?
So much easier to suppose that she has moved on, succumbed quietly to the maw of the streets, been rescued to rot her days away in institutionalised peace....
All potential truths, all possibilities, all made concrete to confuse the pursuer – a paper trail laid for those who might be looking.
“Black and white. Clear-cut. No, there is nothing preventing this: she is nothing. Camera never lies. People do. I must remember as life is art, she is symbolism. Nearly time now: woo her with the camera; always works, black and white: Camera never lies. Fool the eye. Time. Now.”
When he was younger he relished these opportunities. Anticipation and the quick strike, snap, run. But this is only the first step in the process. Each element is deliberate, each a part of the ritual.
Above all there must be no haste in his actions.
As with each of his victims there’s an element of the lover’s nervousness in this first contact. Despite all his observation, even having seen inside them with the eye of his lens, clear
as the cross-section of a cell on a microscope, even then first contact is a shock, recognising in each of them a fragment
of the true language. Whilst others dismiss their drunken ravings, he rejoices in their deafness to the language of Babel, the speakers of tongues – Have they no ears to hear? Here, in
this dark and filthy street, shuttered for the night and watched by the blind lens of a score of CCTV cameras, here, would he hear the voice of God? Her cries could be the only remedy for the lost symmetry of his soul.
Not all of his subjects have been women: although there
have certainly been a few. Outwardly they differ from each other, but linked by a common theme; the shibboleth latent in their musculature, in the juxtaposition of cheekbone and eye socket, the grammar of the sacred language encoded in each like a cipher. Each of these individuals could be prepared and reduced to their essence, the barest equation. Each would become an elegant notation in the vast and complex calculation, the answer to which is the original word, the knowledge the first humans stole from the Garden of Eden, which was lost in the destruction of the Tower of Babel.
It was time now, painfully, to reconstruct that language
to unpick the myths and conspiracy theories of society’s remnants, living on the borders of its conscience, and rework them into his own private mythology.
Time. Strike. Thrill of fear or is it anticipation? He feels himself becoming hard, the street silent enough to hear her gently snoring in the stairwell, his measured tread as he approaches.
Softly he speaks her name, all reassurance – Betty come now dear, come with me, calming her with his mild voice and gentle hands, talking to her all the time as he gathers her up from her den. Somehow it’s easier than expected to convince her that he poses no threat. She comes quietly, holding his hand in hers, grasping his fingers like a child, despite the illusion of bulk created by her many layers. She is so light and frail she seems barely anchored to the ground.
Her hand: cracked and slightly crusted – is it exposure, or some skin complaint worsened by dirt and lack of washing? The contact is uncomfortable but necessary to reassure her; the last thing he needs is a scene in front of the cameras. He glances at her profile in the darkness, walking head-down, one foot in front of the other, and the next gets you where you’re going; how many years of the same round? Deliverer.
The rented car is around the corner, but it feels like miles, like they’re crawling, open targets on the battlefield. Finally they reach it. He opens the passenger door.
“It’s all right Betty, I’m going to help you, can’t have you sleeping on the cold street at night. Got a nice warm bed and a few ciders for you at home, come along now, in you get.”
Slow, slow talking in a gentle monotone, reassuring smile, no sudden movements; in his pocket, the solution – just in case.
Once she’s in he closes the passenger door gently and walks slowly around to the other side of the car, settling his large frame into the seat. Turns the ignition and starts the car; turns to look at Betty, already dozing, head on her chest in the comfortable seat. Good. They can drive for a while.
After half an hour or so, sure that she is deep in slumber, he slowly brings the car to a halt in a residential street beneath a large tree. What infinite patience it requires to wait for a couple more minutes. The street is quiet and dark, and she has not stirred at all. Time. Now.

Chapter 4: Betty

Excerpt from the spoken word version of Caposcripti

5. Wanderings

March 24th
82 degrees on the Thermometer. Another hard march today. I am traversing dense Jungle; huge tree trunks litter the landscape & where once they shaded a sparse Jungle floor, now are grown up every type of vegetation & the whole wrapped around by Lianas & mosses grown over the rotting boles so that it makes for very treacherous footing & much machete work. Birds of a brilliant plumage, in shades of gold, green & ochre occasionally flit across my path & the air is strongly aromatic.

In this region grow many of the douradinha; it has a yellow flower & looks something like our dandelion. The Indians use it as a powerful emetic, the which I have no need for just now.

It is only the thought of all the invisible Jungle, the lure of the empty spaces on my map that keeps me going. It is solely the promise of an Eden, a place of purity & simplicity utterly foreign to the Babel of London, the insensate progress of the Western world that drives me on. It is not my first such journey. Other journals now stored safely in London (where one day this volume too, shall rest, God willing) contain passages describing mandalas built up painstakingly from sand by Tibetan lamas, only to be brushed away on the instant
they are finished with yak’s hair brooms. I have illustrated first- hand locust plagues in Africa & passed on recipes for aphrodisiacs, philtres & near untraceable poisons, learnt from the medicine men of Haiti & the Congo, to my descendants – in the journals that lie safely back in London.

Sometimes I have used guides to take me to those distant & unrecorded tribes, to traverse areas so remote & strange that none of my race has ever ventured there to map their valleys & hills & secret places. Each sentence clawed out of painful ascents into the mountains, to the rocky heights where nothing grows, surviving on a few dried-out grains of corn, goat’s milk, edible lichens, melting snow water in my mouth, staggering through blizzards over high mountain passes, eyes slitted behind wooden goggles.

But none of it has prepared me for the Amazon, for the rich & hungry Jungle, for the river, its life-blood & for the unseen & unrecorded interiors, where life superabounds.

Night falls suddenly, the Jungle becoming a negative of itself, deepening shadows where the palms & saplings & vines & trees grow into & around each other. The dark is almost complete – apart from the spark of fireflies & the occasional star pricked out against the ink of the sky where the Jungle breaks.

March 25th
This morning I stumbled across a clearing that looked as though it may have once been cultivated – perhaps with maize or manioc – but the Jungle grows back so fast that it’s impossible to be sure, or to tell how recently the ground was used. It could be a clue or a chimera. I have come to the conclusion that I will almost certainly be the last to know when I encounter the people of this Jungle.
Despite the rumours of bloodshed & war between tribes, an almost pathological distrust of outsiders, dark hints of cannibalism & the practice of head shrinking, I have made no attempt at concealment as I hack my way through this Jungle. For one, the sheer density of vegetation seems to insulate against all sound, even the crunch of branches beneath my feet are strangely muted, so that I feel the urge to scream bubbling up within me, if only to reassure myself that I
am not forgetting language, losing my voice & the habit of shaping words. Then, too, concealment would be pointless. These people know the Jungle so much better than I.

There have been reports of whole expeditions killed & tortured by Indians, angry & terrified at the strangers invading their territory; people who have learned the hard way to associate the white man with death, with slavery, with the loss of land & children. The Chaman that I hired back at Iquitos has long deserted me. I awoke one morning to find that the rogue had left & taken the canoe & himself & returned to more familiar lands. I had no hint of what had frightened him so & little warning of his intended defection except for mutterings about bad magic & death.

These people are too superstitious; As a humanist I am tainted neither by religion nor fear of unknown spirits. I have no intention of being a missionary; nor am I a tourist. I have looked death in the face; we are old friends now. It is knowledge I am after – a thirst that will never be quenched until I am in my grave.

March 26th
Another hard day’s walking through impenetrable terrain. Only my compass assures me that I am travelling in my intended direction through this matted felted Jungle, knitted together by cabled creepers. The plant life is excessively abundant, characterised by prodigious variety and creates a terrible & wonderful landscape, yet I find myself almost blind to its strangeness & occupy my mind chiefly with imagining the tribes who have had, as yet, no contact with Western man. In this Jungle dwell people who have never heard of steam, glass, Faraday or gunpowder. Their customs could be the strangest I have ever encountered; their religion incomprehensible, pantheistic, sublime. How do they imagine the heavenly bodies, who can only catch glimpses of the firmament between the lowering trees?

According to the rumours that I was able to glean in Iquitos, there is one Tribe in this area that writes & what is more they have reportedly been doing so since ‘the beginning time’. The rumours suggest that they are unlike the other tribes in these lands, the Jivaro & Shuar & Machichuenga, who are one & all bloodthirsty & savage in the extreme. This Tribe is rumoured to be peaceful; a nomadic people who nevertheless have magic powerful enough to protect them from their more warlike neighbours.

It is my dream, put simply, to make First Contact with this people, isolated from the world outside their Jungle home. That world feels as distant as the moon here, with the great walls of green rising on all sides, the tangled vegetation, warring for space & light.

Here the possibility of creating multiple worlds exists, the real far away & half-forgotten.

All my life I have been in flight from society, in search of a greater truth, the answer to a single question. What knowledge did Man lose when God destroyed the tower of Babel? What had so terrified Him that he cast Man back into the chaos before speech? It has been the chief labour of my existence to find an enlightened people who have the answers to these questions that plague me so. I can never rest until I do. When I find them they will take me in, teach me their customs & their language & through me will discover & come to know their fellow man. I will be their sole interpreter; their unique point of contact. Alone in the world I will understand their ways & a grateful humanity will thank me for revealing the secrets that they have discovered. Secrets of medicine, levitation, magic & divination. Who knows what boundaries of the Mind they have conquered, untainted by blundering Science? All of this will be mine to interpret; to add to my chronicles, to augment the pattern I am creating of the world.

But now the light fades & it is time to sleep. I write to drive away the demons of loneliness, but neither pen nor paper is limitless. To sleep, perchance to dream...

March 27th
Over the years I have become less & less convinced of the efficacy of language in recording, correlating & explaining the customs & tongues that I have uncovered & chronicled. Thus have I have developed a system of Mathematical Notation combining that of the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians & Sumerians, as well as those of Mesmer – & including symbols & constructions previously undreamed of in any Western or Eastern lexicon. This system functions as a kind of shorthand, allowing me to cross-reference these elements from so many different cultures. It has the additional advantage of requiring far less space than longhand.
My hands, wrists, forearms are covered in notes that I have made whilst travelling through the Jungle. They overlay themselves & with my fading vision & the guttering of the tallow, it is a struggle to transcribe them all before darkness or sleep claims me. I dare not expose the notebooks to the continual dripping of moisture from the high canopy, so I try to memorise & reproduce – in detail as faithful as is possible – poor sketches of the marvels that surround me.

Decades of squinting at tiny characters have all but destroyed my vision. My greatest fear is not death, so much as the loss of my spectacles! I preserve these against the damp & dirt of the Jungle by keeping them in an inside pocket wrapped in silk. Sadly it is now slowly rotting away like the rest of my equipment. The humidity here is well nigh total.

Night is falling now; at last it is getting a little cooler. The tallow is holding out, so I shall permit myself the leisure of writing a little more than usual in here; sometimes it is the only way to combat the solitude.

In the background always I hear the sounds of the Jungle. No longer do the chorus of calls, whistles, barks & shrieks that start up at dusk terrify me. At first sleeplessness hollowed my cheeks & lent a grey pallor to my skin. I experienced delusions & imagined horrors – waking with a jaguar or a puma snarling on my chest, vampire bats sucking my blood at night, giant snakes crushing me & swallowing me whole.

So far, none of these terrors have come to pass. I have seen monkeys, lizards, tree sloths, giant rodents, capybaras & porcupines, but evidently the fanged predators of the Jungle have sought easier meat for their tea. Still, when the firewood situation permits, I build a fire before I camp & trust that the hammock will protect me from the depredations of ground-dwelling creatures. The merest inch of flesh uncovered is a virtual invitation to the bites of bloodsucking bats & insects alike.

I must remember not to leave anything on the Jungle floor, for it does not stay there for long; a good piece of biscuit was carried away this morning, and my food stocks are very low. There seem to be a limitless number of ants & all determined to purloin every scrap of anything left unsecured, as if the Jungle is intent on gradually assimilating me.

March 29th
The sun is rarely visible & direction further confused by the variety & monotony of the landscape, the murmur & lap & drip of water, millions of leaves brushing against each other, parrots calling to each other, monkeys screaming in protest, packs leaping through the trees, cicadas whirring. At dusk the daytime sounds segue into
those of the night; the Jungle is at its loudest for the brief period of semi-darkness when then sky is a riot of flame & the stars have not yet begun to emerge. At this time the frogs begin to sing & join their voices to the spider monkeys calling for rain.

Thus far have I seen little sign of the people for whom I am searching – only the barest traces of settlements, tools or fires. According to the fragments of information that I have been able to gather, they should be somewhere around this area – always assuming that I have not lost my way or become confused by recurring bouts of Fever. The unwholesomeness of this place may well be the death of me, but I refuse to entertain the possibility.

The journey through this inimical yet beautiful landscape can only create in me the most perfect rapport with the invisible people. Hard fought-for, my experiences become the tools with which to decipher their language. I will find them & when I do I will be the first & only of my race to discover their unique world, to create a bridge between their reality & our own.

From my earliest youth I conceived a fascination for language. Just as we cannot exist save for our thought, so language defines people & ideas. Language is grown from environment as the flower grows on the vine. Thus, one can make no serious study of a language in isolation of both the people & the place that has shaped its lexicon; & it follows that it is only through a minute & careful study of the life around me that I can have any hope of understanding the detail of their existence.

If I am fortunate enough to be able to talk with the Tribe & so stumble through mutual discovery to a sense of language, it will be solely because I have learned in the very lineaments of my body the shape of their experiences. The World is in its essence made of words; for how can we have any concept of that which we cannot describe? Descartes understood this.

I have interpreted & catalogued innumerable languages the world over & although sounds repeat, the meaning is never the same; the words are never repeated. It is as if the shattering of language created a million million tiny echoes of the first word; each corresponding to a facet of the consciousness of the earth, in potentially infinite variety.

visit http://www.caposcripti.com if you'd like to buy a print or digital copy of this book.

Chapter 5: Wanderings

Audio from the Brixton BookJam, December 2017

Set 1	0:00.000
JM O Sullivan	1:40.097
Zelda Rhiando	16:15.448
Jon Newman	25:54.859

Set 2	35:59.871
James Benmore	36:26
Martin Millar	45:06
Sophie Sparham	54:59
Damon L Wakes	1:02:53

Set 3	1:08:03.611
Mark Bowsher	1:08:13
Sarah Jane Stratford	1:18:10
Dominic Canty	1:29:27

BookJam December 4th 2017

30. Headshrinking: 2
The Photographer’s kitchen was one of the smallest rooms in the apartment, more reminiscent of a laboratory or a surgery than a place for the preparation of food. It was inhumanly clean and glittering, with surfaces and cupboards sheathed in antiseptic stainless steel. Along one wall he had installed
a giant Aga some years before, modified according to his own specifications. Along the other was an unusually long drainer with deep round sinks set flush in the metal.

Hidden away behind the immaculate surface, in a myriad of drawers and cupboards, was the accumulation of several years of research, minutely organised and tucked away, catalogued and sorted, so that if you opened one of the cupboards you would find racks of glass tubes and jars filled with mysterious substances, rather than the expected ketchup, tinned soup and tea. This drawer contained
rare substances procured from his South American and Caribbean agents, this a selection of knives and scalpels, forceps and catgut; that one notes; and in yet another hanks of hair, desiccated skin layered like tissue paper with sheaves of intricately drawn designs for tattoos.

The refrigerator would not, at first glance, give you any clues as to the purpose to which he sometimes put it – its usual contents a bottle of wine, a pint of milk, a few camera films, and the inevitable gentleman’s relish, relic of some ancient hamper. The sole clue, perhaps, is the lack of a central shelf, leaving enough room to store a polythene-wrapped head in each of its stages of preparation.

The Photographer was half-way through the process that
would reduce the head to the size of an orange, and provide him with another fine piece to add to his collection. Naked of hair and minutely inscribed with characters, it rested on the stainless steel worktop in readiness for the next stage. On the Aga was a large pot that had been filled with water, and simmered for hours with roots and dried plants until it had reduced to a watery paste.

The latest subject had proved problematic, and provided little for the Photographer to work from. He had starved himself rather than eat the food prepared by the Photographer – food that had been mixed with drugs designed to intensify the effect of the dark padded chamber, of 24-hour-a-day silence and isolation, of timeless incarceration.

He had proved resistant to all these methods: the relationship stillborn, holding his secrets inside. Perhaps it had been a mistake to take him – but it was too late to go back now. There had never been any question of his release. For 28 days they had carried on an invisible battle, and finally the Photographer had won, had heard on his tapes the pleas for release gradually giving way to an endless mumbling, a litany of life whose vocabulary had become diffused until nothing but a long susurration had issued from the spinning reels. When he had opened the room he had found only Gerard’s emaciated corpse, his feather-light form, the smell of fear and faeces. In some essential way he had escaped, had stolen away, and left the Photographer no closer to the solution.

Still, they all went in the end – and perhaps even Gerard who had clung so hard to the lie had something to add to the pattern. The Photographer smiled with grim satisfaction at the thought that if nothing else he would contribute his energy to the apartment, flesh to kilowatts, body becoming a shape in ashes in the hot coals of the Aga. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes – dirt we are and to dirt will we return. The body is nothing – the mind is the temple of the self. His head will hold all that there is of him, all there already, his life
his knowledge – just waiting for the needles to bring it out. Done now.

He’s fed enough now to the hungry Aga to keep the temperature constant for a few hours under the giant cauldron that had once been used for boiling puddings. A visit to one of the catering shops in the Edgware road, armed with a set of precise instructions, had furnished his cooker with the necessary modifications, the Aga equipped with a large deep hotplate which he uses to heat black sand whilst the head is simmering on the other ring. Flesh falling from the bone. Tender as a well-broiled ham.

The Photographer lays Sabbatier knives, medical scalpels and long pins ready on the sideboard. Rolls of absorbent cotton and lint are lined precisely in front of him, behind a tripod that has been modified so that he can use it to support a head. All is ready now. Right tools for the job. Ritual observed but modernised. And why not? Is this not after all the twenty-first century? He had a feeling the old man would have approved – well, possibly.

Deftly he lifts the head out of the pot with a set of long shining tongs, and stands it on the tripod. His critical eye notes that it has survived the first stage of the process remarkably well.

Surgeon’s gloves and surgeon’s grace – the neat incision from crown to nape, the scalp rolls back easy as the skin on a Sunday joint. He lays it out on the pile of sand, which moulds to the shape of the face and supports it whilst he deftly trims the fat, razors the attachments to the bones. Gently now for the bridge of the nose, fingers trace eye
sockets, and the sharp blade follows them almost lovingly, teasing, pinching, rolling, rubbing the recalcitrant flesh. Quickly now before it cools too much. The skull comes away clean and blanched. Stack it on the shelf with the others – he’ll deal with that later.
Trim the neck, remove the flesh inside with a sharp scraper, preferably with rounded edges. Remove the fatty excess, the slight jowls. Smooth and cauterise slightly with a hot stone. He imagines describing this process. What had the old man felt the first time he watched it? The black sand packs in smoothly, hot and dry, moulding to every hollow.

Sutures prepared, butterfly stitches hold the flaps together, quick tacking ready for the neat seam. Lovely bit of needlework there. Practice makes perfect.
Standing back he admires his handiwork – but only for a moment. Turning and smoothing the hot skin, flat stones heated on the back shelf of the Aga. From here on he’s entirely faithful to the ritual – even if the stones are from the beach at Brighton rather than some Amazonian riverbed, they’re suitably smooth and rounded. Soft pads of cotton absorb the sebum leaking from the shrinking pores. Lips sewn shut. Fine needles hold eyes and brows and nose in shape; redundant acupuncture. There’s a symbolism to where they’re placed. He’s done some research on Chakras. Always struck by the parallels between these ancient cultures.

The first batch of sand has already cooled, compacted and cemented slightly with the fatty juices that it has absorbed. Gently he scoops it from the shell, delicate and flexible as a deflated balloon. The head has already become somewhat smaller, but retains its shape. It’s going well so far. He gathers up more hot sand and pours it through the neck hole.

The rhythmic motion of hot stones smoothing the planes of the face, sculpting the death mask, the shibboleth. The tattoos become a black tracery of etching on the dark skin, taking a shine like mahogany, upon which rich beads of grease appear as the head desiccates, and are wiped away.

The Photographer has great faith in processes, carrying
out the most intricate plans, step by step, performing each necessary element with care, and attention – the pleasure of watching as all the elements come together to form the perfect pattern. Ideally he would like to control everything, pinpoint everything in existence with omniscient accuracy, fix it in its place in the divine order. From this perspective every situation becomes a weighing of the odds, a balancing of all parameters – a Euclidean curve of potential and possibility.

In the journals, in the Explorer’s meticulous recording of the Caposcripti’s practices and beliefs, he can sense a kindred spirit. What are the Caposcriptan tattoos if not graphs mapping the individuals’ journey from birth to death; forking lines suggesting avenues of possibility to be explored? Playing with life, and playing with patterns. Language, Logos, the word, creates and destroys. Say something and make it so. The grand author. The architect. What was there for God to fear in the tower of Babel?

And so he measures and marks, describes and makes so, weighs the odds and continues his grim business – each addition to his gallery a strategic pruning of the messy tree of life.

Within the Photographer’s plans there is no room for deviation. Because if the word is fact, is a making, it is also logic; the hard truth of the percentage. And how can it be that the Caposcripti, with their thorns and berry juice, drugged visions and wandering descriptions of the moon, the stars whose children gallop across the sky – can have grasped so complex a pattern?

Chapter 30: Headshrinking - 2

An unpredictable, eclectic and inspiring literary night "Speed dating with books"! 

Featuring:

Set 1
Stevie Russell as Glenda Read	0:14.088	
Vicky Grut	7:06.880	
Tamsin Gray	12:59.128	
Deserter	19:27.010	


Set 2
Rebecca Hollweg	29:21.120	
William Ryan	39:06.335	
Martin Millar	46:06.344	
Anna Mazzola	55:04.448	
Marianne Kavanagh	1:02:57.441	

Set 3
SK Perry	1:10:23.007	
Jill Johnson	1:17:50.823	
Stefan Clarke	1:24:16.160	
Yolanda Christian	1:33:30.729

Brixton BookJam - Oct 18 - Set 2

Jack Blackburn	12:41.469
Chris McCrudden	20:18.254
Jack Dowd	28:15.266

The evening was compered by crack librarian Glenda Read.

BookJam December 18 - Set 3

Listen to the Brixton BookJam on Monday 3rd December 2018 at our regular venue Hootananny Brixton. 

SET 1: 8-8.30 
Toni Scott
Barry Stewart Hunter
Ivy Ngeow
Padraic Walsh
Dave McGowan
	
SET 2: 8.45-9.15 
Stephen Leslie
Lucy George
Zelda Rhiando
Alice Fitzgerald
	
SET 3: 9.30-10 
Jack Blackburn
Chris McCrudden
Jack Dowd

The evening was compered by crack librarian Glenda Read.

BookJam December 18 - Set 2

Listen to the Brixton BookJam on Monday 3rd December 2018 at our regular venue Hootananny Brixton. 

SET 1: 8-8.30 
Toni Scott	0:00.755
Barry Stewart Hunter	7:54.509
Ivy Ngeow	15:18.613
Padraig Walsh	23:43.612
Dave McGowan	29:45.184

with compere, crack librarian Glenda Read.

BookJam December 18 - Set 1

Zelda Rhiando reads Good Morning Mr Magpie at Brixton BookJam, December 2018.

Night Shift - Brixton BookJam

BookJam returns on the 6th May 2019, when we’ll be hearing from Joshua Idehen, Jim Bob, Greg Chivers, Naomi Foyle, Ian Maleney, Hanna Jameson, Emma Grae, Maximilian Hawker, Zelda Rhiando, Mark Bowsher, Will Eaves and Gaar Adams …presented by crack librarian Glenda Read.

Brixton  BookJam - May 2019

Set 2

Set 1

A podcast from the December 2019 BookJam, including words and memories from: Jordan Mooney, Gail Thibert, Martin Millar,  Garth Cartwright, Kevin Cummins, Chris Roberts, Eamon Somers,  Zelda Rhiando, Chrissie Cromer and music from Adelie. Compered by Glenda Read, Crack Librarian!

Brixton - BookJam - Dec19 - Set - 3

Brixton - BookJam - Dec19 - Set - 1

Claire Collison is the winner of the inaugural Women Poet's Prize, and her work is widely published in print and online. She's been performing her life modelling monologue 'Truth Is Beauty' in venues across the country for the past 2 years, and a series of posters, 'All The Single Breasted Ladies' featuring words and images from her performances are currently fly posted on the streets of Liverpool.


Desmond Coy - Author, Gentleman and the Original Accidental Outlaw. @descoy

Zelda Rhiando is a Dublin writer who has spent most of her life in London. Her first novel, Caposcripti was self-published in 2012, and went on to win the Kidwell eBook award. She travelled to Japan to research her second novel, Fukushima Dreams, and is currently working on a third, Good Morning Mr Magpie.

Bookjam - Mar - 2020 - Set - 3

West Camel was born and bred in South London, and has worked as a book and arts journalist, and as editor at Dalkey Archive Press, where he edited the Best European Fiction 2015 anthology.  He currently combines his work as editor at Orenda Books with writing and editing for arts organisations, including editing The Riveter magazine for the European Literature Network. He has written several short scripts and was longlisted for the Old Vic’s 12 playwrights project. 
Attend is his first novel and was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. 
@west_camel | westcamel.net

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Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a writer from South London. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was published in 2019. It was recently long listed for Dylan Thomas Prize 2020 and last year Yara was nominated for various other prizes including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019.  She’s writing her second novel now.
Yara is also a trustee of Latin American Women’s Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe for and by Latin American women.
@yazzarf | yararodriguesfowler.com

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Annabel Banks is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose. Her work can be found in such places as The Manchester Review, Litro, The Stockholm Review, Under the Radar and 3:AM, with recent commissions by the BBC and the University of Cambridge. Her writing has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize, with further nominations for the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Short Fictions, Blazevox’s Bettering American Poetry, Best News Poets [US] and the Derringer Awards and was longlisted for the Royal Academy/Pindrop Short Story Award. Exercises in Control (Influx) is her first short story collection.
@Annabelwrites | www.annabelbanks.com

Bookjam - Mar - 2020 - Set - 2

Simon Rumley is one of the most successful and prolific UK directors of his generation, and has directed 9 feature films and 2 anthology films, including Red White & Blue, Fashionista and a segment from the ABCs of Death,  His films have played at festivals around the world including Toronto, Rotterdam, SXSW, Sarajevo, Tallin, Transilvania, Buenos Aires, Sydney, London, Rio and Stockholm, and won almost 50 awards collectively including best films or director at Sitges, Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, Frightfest, Lund, Fantaspoa, Ravenna and Boston Underground amongst others.  His latest film Once Upon A Time In London peaked at No3 on Netflix. He’ll be reading from his first novel.
simonrumley.com

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Andrew Leach writes novels, short stories and the occasional poem. He has had work published in a number of anthologies and collections, most recently The Mechanics' Institute Review issue 16 (the Climate Issue), and he was also Highly Commended in the 2019 Seán O'Faoláin International Short Story Prize. Other publishing destinations include Reflex Fiction, Magma Poetry, Strix Magazine, STORGY, Ellipsis Zine and two volumes of Stories for Homes for charity Shelter. His novel Boom Babies, a book which follows a group of characters coming to terms with the climate emergency and the lack of action taken to address its causes and consequences during the past 30 years, is currently being pitched to publishers by his agent.

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Rosanna Amaka was born to African and Caribbean parents. She began writing The Book of Echoes twenty years ago to give voice to the Brixton community in which she grew up. Her community was fast disappearing – as a result of gentrification, emigration back to the Caribbean and Africa, or simply with the passing away of the older generation. Its depiction of the unimaginable pain redeemed by love and hope was also inspired by a wish to understand the impact of history on present-day lives. 
@RosannaAmaka | https://rosannaamaka.com

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Lenny Hayden has worked as an actor and director in Dublin for over 25 years And has only recently made the move to London.
Most recently he played Lear in King Lear for Mill Productions Dublin and Directed a devised play Savage Love by Sam Shepard for Imagine Arts Festival in Waterford. He has also written some short stories, short film scripts and a one man stage Show which he performed for an Exquisite Corpse night in Waterford.
Having not written poetry or songs for many years, Lenny wrote
There’s No one at the Wheel to fulfill an artistic pledge made 6 months ago, and will be performing it at BookJam!

Bookjam - Mar - 2020 - Set - 1

An excerpt from my new work....enjoy!

"Vanity, vanity – all is vanity."
Another Brixton preacher, doing his daily rounds in Brixton Market. She can hear him in the distance. It's the same sermon every day, and perhaps he's right. She had long thought Christians were vain, if it came to it: a religion based on shame, not honour, not self-reliance. A culture ruled by men.
Don't fool yourself – you're still ruled by men. 
Every time Eva put on her make-up, her battle-paint, prepared herself for another 'date' with a stranger, she reaffirmed their hold over her. How could they be expected to respect a woman they had paid for? Chattel; her life in their hands.
"Hold on loosely to the things that are of this world. Hold on tightly to the spirit. Eternal life will be yours if you submit to His will."
Charlie said he had once been a famous boxer. He holds himself erect. His skin is ebony; his clothes immaculate. He is courteous; she's seen him pause his preaching for a sleeping baby.
"The road to hell is wide. The road to Heaven is narrow, and takes many twists. Yet, take ye the narrow path, for it leads to righteousness. Only the righteous are pure."
If he knew what I was he would label me Jezebel. There's no room in his liturgy for me, or the likes of me. It's not vanity, it is power; taking back control. I will not surrender to a vengeful God. I choose to send these souls to Satan. A small service...
As she walked down Brixton High Street his voice faded into the distance. By the time she reached Coldharbour Lane she couldn't hear him any more; his words drowned out by the traffic, the shouts of other preachers. 
From the corner of her eye she caught a flutter of motion, almost out of range. She turned her head, tracking it, and spied the magpie as it perched on the cast iron railings across the road. Catching her gaze the magpie stared at her steadily, head cocked. Then it hopped down off the railings and sidled along the pavement, still watching her. Eva paused and then continued along the pavement. The magpie tracked her on the other side of the street, fluttering from perch to perch until she was halfway down the road, and then flew up to the rooftops, the better to get an angle on her movements. 
The magpie was in the North quarter, associated with air, and signifying sleep, death, winter. She waited to see if it would land. 'If you come leftwise, and it calls before you, he is a doomed man on whom it calls thus.' 
Back home they signified death. If you saw one on a house it was considered very unlucky.
Eva quickened her pace. She didn't want to think what it might portend; what she might be required to do next. She needed to see Charlie.

Zelda reading Night shift with Magpies

Habit

Novelist, Brixton BookJam founder, and maker. I hope you enjoy my work :)

All of these books are available to buy. If you can't afford to, please consider sharing my work, or leaving a like or review. Thanks!

badzelda

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