{"id":17134,"date":"2024-12-17T16:52:15","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T16:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=17134"},"modified":"2024-12-17T16:52:15","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T16:52:15","slug":"fiction-everything-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2024\/12\/17\/fiction-everything-human\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiction: Everything Human"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHave you ever been alone in an old theatre at night? There are no places on earth more haunted than theatres. An old theatre houses the ghosts of all things, at least, all things human. Cemeteries are where bodies go, not lives. Not like,\u2019 he paused and looked up at the ceiling, \u2018the theatre. We must use the imagination gifted to us. I mean, use the spectre of the performance, the trace of bygone acts. I don\u2019t mean the supernatural. I mean the real ghosts, the people who really did live and die. Odd, that the supernatural would create the natural and then stay hidden within it. Anyway, I\u2019m losing my train of thought, where was I? Ah yes, I remember. Think! Of all the actors and musicians of bygone centuries who have been forgotten, left to the wind whispering. And what goes for actors goes a thousandfold for humankind. I\u2019m talking about the ones who made the theatre from nothing. The ones who brought the whole thing into existence. Most have been forgotten certainly, but have they been forgotten without trace? Hardly. We are actors because we want to make the thing last. What dreams they must have had! Yes, what dreams.\u201d He turned his head away, fighting tears. \u201cThink to when they were back stage on their opening nights, those sacred nights. Butterflies turning into eagles, soaring high to the Gods.\u201d Fenwick made a quick flitting gesture with his hand accompanied by a half whistle through his teeth. \u201cI remember that night better than any night of my life. With my fellow students. There on the stage we bowed on the final night of the run. It was a beautiful thing.\u201d Now tears showed. \u201cThe faces of the audience were partially obscured in the dark, but we heard them. And how. How we wept with happiness. Joy swept into our souls, and kept.\u201d His eyes glazed in the light of time\u2019s memory. \u201cAnd in that moment, everything was possible. To be loved, by strangers, and have evidence of it, to really feel it, that was their dream. And ours. To win and to be loved. To become a part of a dream, and know it. The most beautiful thing in the world, to save a life out there somewhere. That is our hope. That is us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother used to say you can tell the goodness of a person in their eyes.\u201d Said Mary, who was one of the young actors.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid she?\u201d Replied Fenwick, after deliberating for a moment or two.<\/p>\n

Fenwick reclined in the tattered leather-bound chair and craved for the tobacco he had recently prohibited, knowing that he would likely soon succumb. He planned to keep going until all the hairs on his head were white, and then, and only then, give up. Fenwick was sitting with the young actors in one of the dressing rooms of an old London theatre, the mirror bordered with lightbulbs, surrounded by his ghosts, and speaking to the youngsters as if they were an audience that had paid to see him act. He wasn\u2019t officially their teacher; it was more a play of mutual admiration. There they were, the younger ones, just sitting on the cushioned floor looking up at him through their smoke and hanging on his every word. He paused for a moment and took a good drink. He listened carefully to the gentle rattling of the melting ice cubes. It warmed his whole being and in the electric light he suddenly felt at one with the entire universe. No fear at all. His wide-open eyes seemed to be glaring past his surroundings, deep into some other place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a woman I once knew that had the same dream as us.\u201d His face became suddenly melancholy. \u201cIn her small hometown by the sea in the north of England her beauty was infamous. It had driven at least one young man to take his own life and sent four more completely mad, and they are only the ones that are known of. She was a legacy of the Viking shield maidens, a daughter of Freya, marooned in the twentieth century\u2019. They waited for him to continue and glanced at each other before looking back up at him, cajoling him into revealing some secret worth knowing. They thought, perhaps because of the way he held his age, that he possessed wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, she was beautiful.\u201d He looked back in time. \u201cBeautiful in an other-worldly, divine way. She had that thing that is impossible to describe in words, one of the things in this world that are beyond language. She possessed the genius of evolution. How it affected her I can\u2019t really tell, but whatever it was, it became a desire to escape her little home town by the sea. That\u2019s what she told me. She had walked alone on rainy northern nights, through the empty streets, thinking her beauty and talent were being wasted with every passing day. So, when the opportunity came to retake all those lost moments she grasped them in her fist, put them in her mouth and breathed them back into her soul. No one could ever take that away from her. And no-one ever did. Her moment of first success was her first true love. When the crowd cheered her for the first time, that night in the theatre in Manchester, she changed, because her soul had been satisfied. That\u2019s what happens when you get what you want. You change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to her?\u201d His melancholy expression turned even more grave.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose I will never know.\u201d He said and returned to his whiskey.<\/p>\n

The two young actors had just graduated from drama school and were at the theatre to audition for a new play about a man who had gone rogue through music. For the last two years they had both been players in an immersive theatre company, which is where they had met. They were eager and anxious to learn. Spending time around Fenwick gave them solace, and occasionally invigorated their ambition. He reminded them that inspiration is only a part of the thing. They both imagined the woman he spoke about in their minds and wondered who she could have been. Mary looked up at Fenwick and said,<\/p>\n

\u201cBut surely as actors it is what is within<\/em> that counts? Soul marks us out, as a profession I mean.\u201d Fenwick smiled. The innocence of the young actor uplifted him. The moment made his own soul glimmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, my dears. Quite right. Quite right.\u201d He said. He went to silent thinking, and then Charles said,<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in our profession, how you look has meaning surely. I mean how you appear, and people prefer beautiful things to look at don\u2019t they? \u00a0Or you put on make-up and prosthetics to make the character look more ugly, more despicable. But the appearance is still there, dictating to the audience thoughts. To engage the audience\u2019s perception, isn\u2019t that our work?\u00a0 I think ours is the shallowest profession of them all, the one most based on appearances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is to tantalise.\u201d Said Fenwick. He rattled the ice cubes among the whiskey. \u201cWe don\u2019t save lives. Like doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh?\u201d Said Mary as her eyebrows raised like they were being winched to her hair. \u201cI\u2019ve seen it happen, oh yes Fenwick I have. Those at the end of their tether with life, inspired by what they have seen, art I mean\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.\u2019 She paused for a draw on her cigarette, \u2018so he could \u2018live on.\u2019 At this Fenwick\u2019s expression flickered between reminiscence and hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happened to me with music.\u201d Said Charles.<\/p>\n

\u201cAesthete\u2019s value image, but that doesn\u2019t make us shallow, necessarily. In the English language at least, image is close to imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs sophistry to sophistication\u201d added Mary. She stood up in search of the next glass of wine. Fenwick wobbled momentarily due to the speed of her response.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d He said before he continued. \u201cIt is soul but then again it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s pretending. We are actors. We pretend. The nurse or the soldier deal with actual misery, actual death. We are pretenders. But that\u2019s alright, it\u2019s not a sin in itself. Real beauty can\u2019t be pretended. So don\u2019t take it for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut surely some performances, on stage, contain real beauty?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell in those moments they are not pretending then. They can\u2019t be. They are acting out real emotions, do you see the trick? Be thankful for the gifts God has bestowed upon you. I wish I had your looks! Things could have been a lot different if I had. I was destined to rely on character more\u2019s the pity, it was \u2018you know who\u2019s decree\u2019 and his eyes reached to the heavens as his index finger joined in the upward.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut isn\u2019t that what theatre is about? Character? If not, aren\u2019t we just models on a cat walk?\u201d Fenwick returned to his Glenlivet as Mary smiled, first at Charles for his remark and then more broadly at Fenwick who seemed to her in momentary retreat.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is to make them gasp. Draw them out from their armchairs. Those pompous in their happiness we must encourage to remember the grave. But, don\u2019t overdo it of course.\u201d He tapped his fingers rapidly on invisible air. \u201cWe must make those that won\u2019t forgive weep. That is our job. Our solemn duty. We must leave the rest to the writers, or do it ourselves, if inspiration takes us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever written anything Fenwick?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yes, but it\u2019s true most of it went on the fire. When it comes to writing I only have one piece of advice. Write what you want to hear. Maybe it\u2019s something no one else will say. And don\u2019t let bitterness guide your pen. I must have thrown a thousand reems on the fire to discover it.\u201d The young actors didn\u2019t understand what he meant. Charles looked up at the clock on the wall. Soon it would be time to mount the stage and nerves were jangling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to go in five minutes, can I ask you, may I be so bold\u2026\u2026. any advice for the audition?\u2019 Charles asked the slumped Fenwick as he stood up and brushed himself down. The reclining actor\u2019s response was immediate.<\/p>\n

\u201cUse your nerves. Let\u2019s not call it fear quite yet. And remember, when you go on that stage, it\u2019s life that you go to honour. Remember those that came before, and those yet to arrive of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall try and remember that. Thank-you Fenwick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA ti.\u201d Said Fenwick as his fellow actors kissed him goodbye and left the dressing room. The door closed and Fenwick\u2019s world fell again into silence. He poured a little water into the ashtray to aid the extinguishing of his cigarette and then gazed into the dressing room mirror. He wondered why it was common in theatrical dressing rooms to have the mirror so well lit. All those light bulbs. He himself always wanted to hide before a performance. \u2018The actor needs to know his own face is why\u2019, he thought again. It was part of his character to keep coming to the same conclusions. He stared at himself unconsciously in the mirror. He didn\u2019t even notice he was doing it until the wrinkled lines of all those long years jumped out at him. He hadn\u2019t always looked like this. So strange how time changes the body, he thought. He could just make out in the reflection his six-year-old face and ten and fifteen and twenty-one and thirty-three and forty-eight and fifty-seven and all the fast times he had spent in between.<\/p>\n

The eyes in his head connected with the eyes in the mirror. They had lost none of their fire. He wondered what happens when dreams are fulfilled and wondered also whether the reward was happiness. The inevitable cannot be avoided. Old age was forcing him to ask certain questions which he didn\u2019t seem to will. Questions that he never asked when he was young. Even though he was on the verge of old age he had the strong feeling that the great adventure always lay ahead. Maybe the great adventure was death. Maybe not. He didn\u2019t know. Perhaps the true nature of things was a ludicrous sort of beauty. Then by accident he detected a flicker of fear in his own eyes. He wasn\u2019t, in his nature, a man that dwelt on death, life provided enough of a preoccupation. When death or the expanding universe arose in his mind, neurons would fire, and his imagination would malfunction, sealing him in the firm grip of reality\u2019s laws. He preferred the primary to the secondary world, unlike Ireton. He didn\u2019t regard his imagination as one of the senses.<\/p>\n

Still the face in the mirror stared back at him in the unwavering light. With each moment the image became less and less familiar until in the silent stupor of the room his mind registered the reflection as an imposter. A stranger yet to be understood, let alone befriended. But the expression in the reflection suggested the image wanted to converse with him. There was something that talking could expose that thinking never could. The image in the mirror dissolved and suddenly reappeared, metamorphosised into a man he used to know. It was an actor he had worked with in a theatre in Bristol when he was young. He saw the image of the face of this man from his distant past and became overawed with a dreadful panicked sense of fear that had within moments brought him to a fevered nausea. \u201cHello again.\u201d Said the face in the mirror silently. Fenwick\u2019s teeth began to peel back over his lips in terror and he put his arm over his eyes as if to protect him from the terrible light. He shouted \u201cGo away!\u201d Trembling with emotion. He rubbed over his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket but when he looked again in the mirror all he saw was his old face looking back at him in astonishment, framed by the glowing lightbulbs.<\/p>\n

Fenwick picked up a handkerchief and dabbed at his sweating face. He recalled beyond doubt that the shocking vision he had seen in the mirror was an actor he once knew. The actor\u2019s name was Joseph. He had committed suicide by throwing himself off the Woolwich ferry into the black soul dark murk of the Thames only one week previously. It had been reported in The Evening Standard in a small clip on the back pages and he had been alerted to the news by one of his colleagues at the theatre. The news had caused a fissure in Fenwick\u2019s mind. He didn\u2019t mean for the man to die, he just wanted the job, that was all. It wasn\u2019t malevolence. Charles and Mary went to lunch the following week and sat by the window of a pub near Holborn as the rain against the window made them both tingle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Fenwick this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is he?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe seemed a bit troubled. A bit distant.\u201d Said Charles.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think so?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething has got to him. He was wan looking. Like he hadn\u2019t slept properly for a while. He looked depressed to me. Like he was suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor Fenwick. I wonder what it could be.\u201d Said Charles. Secretly Mary knew. The summer before she had stayed briefly with Joseph on the Isle of Wight. They soon developed a symbiotic friendship which had fully blossomed within a few long days. When news reached her that Joseph was dead, she fainted in front of the cast of the play, a production of Much Ado About Nothing at the repertory theatre at Frinton-On-Sea. And now as she slowly caressed the edge of her gin and tonic tumbler a look of great sadness came naturally in her eyes, a look that Charles registered. He knew her well enough and for a fleeting moment thought that she might be hiding something, some secret perhaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hoping you might know.\u201d She said.<\/p>\n

That same afternoon Fenwick, (pronounced Fennick to himself and those that knew him and Fen-wick by those who didn\u2019t, postmen, dole officer\u2019s and the like) decided to leave the theatre and go for a walk over the river into the west end. It was an autumn day in England, the perfect conditions for facing depression and for clarifying moods. He walked through the thousand colour park and nature extracted his fear and anxiety. He became calm, like he was a child again on the green leafy sidings on the railway tracks on summers days in south London, where death did not exist.<\/p>\n

He liked to walk alone sometimes. But only sometimes. He would occasionally boast to people how happy he was in his own company, but the reality was since his childhood and all through his life he needed the company of others almost, at times, to the point of craving. That\u2019s why his hermit allusions were myth. But then again, he saw the ability he had to delude himself as a great strength. He walked from his small flat on the council estate where he lived alone, along the busy streets of cars and buses until he came to the bridge that spanned the river and stopped to light a cigarette. He looked over the water and used imagination and memory to envisage Soho in his mind\u2019s eye, an area of the world that was to him in hiatus. He recalled what the man had said to him about the glory days of London in the late 1960\u2019s, the colour and the genius. \u201cThe best place\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.\u2019 he paused for thought \u2018in the world.\u2019 His dreaming continued after the cigarette had singed his fingers. \u201cWhere are they all now?\u201d He wondered. He imagined bodies in graves, decomposed, eaten by millipedes and worms. \u201cThere is a kind of beauty to all truth, even the most melancholic kind\u2019 he thought. The autumn wind picked up and dry, dead leaves began to hit against the lower part of his legs. He walked across the bridge and stopped half way where he turned three hundred and sixty degrees to take in the scene. \u201cGood old London.\u201d He said aloud. Once he had imbibed his fill he carried on his way, concerned if he looked too long, he might break the spell. To Fenwick, London was a country. It was its own entity, its own nation almost, with its own particular history, its own customs, its own laws and above all, its own imagination. It could never be one thing because it was always changing. He would smile inwardly when the claim was made that there were greater cities in the world. He looked at the sunlight dancing on the Thames and saw Blake and Shakespeare in the mortal impermanence of the water. \u2018Even Mozart has played here\u2019 he thought.<\/p>\n

For the thousandth time he got on the escalator at London Bridge station and descended to the bowels. It was, until that day, the place he hated most. The dreary concourse churning out the same old stream. He looked at the crowd like bees in the hive, heads down, eyes fixed and drifting, ignoring each other as they went about their dull games. It was as if everyone\u2019s life was on pause until they got somewhere else. He felt the old rancour conjured up by the soulless place. And then, suddenly, as he glided down the escalator, he saw it all differently. He saw the man with the hands in his pockets on his way out of London to visit his elderly Grandparents. It was kindness extant. He saw a woman carrying a violin case and wondered what music might be played soon. He saw two old friends meeting. What he had loathed, shunned and dreaded for so long, in a moment, became the source of all love.<\/p>\n

When he was away from the river and walking the streets towards the Strand, he retreated into his private thoughts watching the people busying themselves going here and there. His mind turned slowly to his own work. Out of all professions, the aging process is perhaps strangest of all for the actor. There are ways of making a young actor look convincingly old, but not the other way around. That\u2019s how it was, at this time, for Fenwick. He no longer desired to look at his own face, (at least not for long anyway). He felt he had the face the people who rejected him deserved.<\/p>\n

He sometimes walked around London on his own precisely because it made him lonely, or perhaps more accurately, because it made him feel alone<\/em>. As if he were apart and a part from, and of the human race. Once, when he was walking through Victoria Underground Station at rush hour, he saw a man lying on the floor having a heart attack. It\u2019s true there was a ticket guard that worked there crouched over the ailing man calling his colleague for assistance but he never forgot the image of the droves of people that walked by en masse, as if they were a great herd of wildebeest, and a lion had come to take one of them away.<\/p>\n

It was just after midday. Thinking a couple of drinks would underpin the excitement and freedom of the morning he thought he would walk in the direction of one of his favourite London pubs, The Forlorn Hope, to greet midday with a clink. The one thing that could correctly steer his aimless London walks was booze or \u2018the sauce\u2019 or \u2018the source\u2019 as he was sometimes heard saying.<\/p>\n

Fenwick had become an actor at the age of sixteen when he appeared in a local play at the amateur dramatic society. He only had one line \u2018I haven\u2019t seen him today; did you try the Red Lion?\u2019 a line which he never forgot. He was an actor constantly on the cusp, like the vast majority of that said profession, but he had had some good roles, some in west end theatres and a few notable television and film appearances during the 1970\u2019s and 1980\u2019s but by the last decade of the twentieth century his career had waned and, as in his private life, he struggled for even a walk on part. The keen glimmer in his stare remained true however. As he approached his 67th<\/sup> year he had remained remarkedly untouched by a lifetime\u2019s hard living and he expected to keel over any day now, or worse, the thing that he really did secretly fear or let us say did well to keep locked away at the back of his mind was some sort of illness that would gift him a slow, lingering death where his memory would die before his body. A great insult he felt to those who never lingered when they did have life in them.<\/p>\n

Dark clouds appeared overhead and doused Fleet Street in rain so Fenwick made a twenty second walk to the nearest pub whose sign outside seemed to him like two open arms ready for a hug and he ducked in through the door just as two patrons were leaving with their faces contorting to the prospect of getting wet. He thanked them for keeping the door open for him and entered. He thought of what he had said about the ghosts that haunt the theatres and concluded it must also be true of pubs. He pushed his damp white hair to one side and he pressed his handkerchief to dry his face which came alive at its removal at the spectacle of the pub he had overlooked for many years. He used to go to Fleet Street in the great days of the newspaper, when the secrets of Whitehall were disseminated over strong beer and ploughman\u2019s lunches. Now it was no more. Modern technology, or \u2018progress,\u2019 had seen to that.<\/p>\n

It would do until the rain passed, or he found someone to share a cab into Soho with. Hackney carriages had always been a great luxury to Fenwick, when it came to drink and walk or be driven sober, he would without exception opt for the former. He looked around the pub and saw the youngsters in suits on their lunchtime sojourn knowing that every working person there, which was almost the entire clientele, would soon vacate and he could even have the pub to himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I get a large Rioja please?\u201d He spied the assortment of crisps and nuts behind the bar but then decided against eating as it was a Monday and he remembered that was the day he liked to fast. He turned around to see a man hunched at the bar and smiled as they made eye contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the fuck are you looking at. You ain\u2019t fucking Millwall.\u201d The man spiked in an aggressive way. Fenwick turned his head and looked away and remembered the irrefutable logic of an old friend of his that had once said in response to Fenwick\u2019s story about being the victim of a robbery \u2018there\u2019s cunts out there old son.\u2019 Fenwick turned to the aggressive stranger and said \u201cWonderful thing chance. Have a good day.\u201d He smiled at the aggressive young man and absolved himself of spiteful thoughts. The slightly bewildered man had no response. He turned, tutted and absconded, confused at having been forgiven.<\/p>\n

Fenwick had arranged to meet Ireton at the Dog and Bell but the torrential London rain was keeping him ensconced for the duration of the bottle of claret. Paradise. He savoured every mouthful of the elixir, courting the rain and venerating all that grows. He looked out at the people rushing around on fleet street in the rain and realised not only was he alive, but that he had done some good living. \u201cHeaven is dying and knowing you brought at least a little love into the world. If I could write a letter from heaven that is what it would say. Alas, it looks like there is only oblivion out there.\u201d He looked up at the clock on the wall and noticed that he was already late for his meeting with Ireton. They were old friends, different in character but similar in spirit. They had been friends since their early twenties. Fenwick had a dislike of British politics and a liking of England, Ireton had a loathing of Thatcher and her clan, and a strong desire to leave England behind. \u2018Too many memories\u2019 he said in an all-encompassing way. He had never welcomed the thought of a life in one place. He had in fact lived in many places and claimed once to Fenwick that he was only in London for work and it had been \u2018twelve long dark years since\u2019.<\/p>\n

Ireton entered the near empty pub and breathed in the aroma. He swirled it from his nostrils to his senses and then finally his mind as he rolled the smell of the carpet and the dish washed stagnant beer tang around, as if they were at the bottom of a wine glass. He looked around and saw Fenwick in the corner reading the racing post. This meant he was skint until payday. He always gambled when he was down to his last. It had always been like that. Resting by his glass of mild was a collection of Heaney\u2019s poems. He was like that too.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ah. There you are. I thought you were getting the bus,\u2019 said Fenwick.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolvitur ambulando.\u201d Replied Ireton.<\/p>\n

\u2018On the sauce already?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The source?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The sauce.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The source of the sauce?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018No, I mean the sauce of the source.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What is this sorcery? I can assure you I am in no way indebted to the black arts.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Glad to hear it, I had my doubts.\u2019 Unglazed, the eyes of Ireton made their way to the bar where he ordered two Glenfiddich\u2019s, a pint of Guiness and a pint of amber ale from a landlord in a shirt and tie.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, how have you been? Any work on the horizon? I see you\u2019re reading the racing post. You\u2019ve been thespianing.\u2019 It was their euphemism for unemployment. To the two old friend\u2019s unemployment was nothing to be ashamed of. In their own ways they had had the best times of their lives when unemployed, poor by choice, and free, with the constant support of sunshine and music. It was much harder psychologically to have nothing when it was cold. This, explained Fenwick, was the motivating factor of western history. \u201cThere\u2019s an audition next week for an advert for a gin company. They want someone to play the waiter in some restaurant or other. Worth getting out of bed for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen are you going to try and do some serious work?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean the comedy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour guess is as good as mine. Cheers.\u201d And they lifted their glasses and clinked. Before he downed the drink, he took a moment to notice the light shining through the amber gold liquid which made him think of the universe and evolution at almost the same moment, as he had done the night before. The whiskey rolled down his throat leaving the afterburn of the Scots in its wake.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about you. Still at the same place?<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you mean have I been sacked since last week?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018No.\u201d<\/p>\n

They sat in silence in the corner of the pub both having the simultaneous thought that work was becoming more relevant and less interesting the older they got.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go outside for a smoke.\u201d They bemoaned the smoking ban as they walked outside into the cold day but although they missed the freedom of the old days, they both accepted it was probably for the best. The thought of cancer always invigorated Fenwick, but never enough to ever make him give up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read this today.\u201d Said Ireton and he produced a piece of paper from his pocket. \u2018The highest goal of art is not to show the world as it really is but to show it what it could be.\u2019<\/p>\n

He looked at his friend long and hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the worst thing in this world is to live in fear. Or should I say, devote yourself to comfort? Did you have the chance to do different things with your life but worried always about the loss of what you have. When you die you lose everything, and die we must. We only have our adventures, in the end.\u201d Said Fenwick, in a failed attempt at a direct response.<\/p>\n

The next day Fenwick received the news he had failed the audition. In the moment of rejection his mind turned to Joseph, and to her. Her memory becoming more distant and vivid as each season changed. He looked into the shaving mirror, splashed the razor around in the foamy sink and wondered to himself whether enough books had been written, or was there still room for more. Should there be a new literature for this century, or should we just borrow from the past from now on. He felt a flex of guilt at even thinking the thought. He thought about Ireton\u2019s note. \u2018Of course there should be new art\u2019 he said to himself.<\/p>\n

Feature Image: Donald Tong<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHave you ever been alone in an old theatre at night? There are no places on earth more haunted than theatres. An old theatre houses the ghosts of all things, at least, all things human. Cemeteries are where bodies go, not lives. Not like,\u2019 he paused and looked up at the ceiling, \u2018the theatre. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2547,2549,2551,2552,2560,2566,3078,3262,3280,4233],"class_list":["post-17134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-dominic-mallen","tag-dominic-mallen-cassandra-voices","tag-dominic-mallen-everything-human","tag-dominic-mallen-fiction","tag-dominic-mallen-short-story","tag-dominic-mallen-writer","tag-everything","tag-fiction","tag-fiction-everything-human","tag-human"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}