The sky was white above me as I walked home the day after leaving the book-letter for Tainn. The air was cold and moving with a steady breeze that cut through my jacket and numbed my face. Each time I stopped while waiting to cross an intersection, I stood shaking. My mind was a mess of fears and worries, and the roar of traffic was not helping.

Work had been a bit easier than in previous days, but I was always startled by the slightest flicker of the old lights in the bookstore. I feared it would be the final outage each time, and my paranoia flared. My shakiness died down for long periods of time, and I was able to act somewhat normally.

My head was filled with a sooty flood that was drowning my spirit. I hadn’t been able to feel anything other than that grey depression for too long, and I was ready to give up. Going back to my apartment meant only returning to loneliness and eventual nightmares about the city. I was walking a helpless path home, and wishing I had somewhere else to go.

I veered from that path so that I could visit the park. The light was failing, and I knew there would be a few minutes of dusk before the street lamps would turn on. As I walked down the path toward the bench where I had left the book, I felt suddenly apprehensive about what was around the next bend, who the person sitting on the bench would be. I didn’t want to raise my hope, but I felt deep down that she would be waiting for me.

I walked around an old maple and the bench came into view. It was vacant. I felt a sense of defeat, that I tried to rationalize with thoughts that made sense, that she had left another letter in the book, or hadn’t been back to check on it. I couldn’t push aside the disappointment that my intuition had been wrong.

I reached the bench and sat down under the big oak that shaded it. I reached under the bench to retrieve the book, but my hand didn’t find it. I kneeled before the bench and felt around on the ground under it, finding mud and grass, but not the book. This frightened me and made my eyes swell with tears. Someone else had taken the book before Tainn had come back. Could I get another message to her?

“Berit, I have your pages here,” a near-whisper broke into my desperation. I looked around, not spinning, but glancing over everything around me as quickly as I could. I still didn’t see anyone or any sign of life at all. I counted it as losing my fucking mind, because that made the most sense, with all things considered.

I looked along the path and appreciated the darkening of the park. In my dreams the previous night I had seen the park on fire, lit up with the rage of an arsonist. I had watched the molotov cocktail streak through the air as it left his hand and saw it burst, filling the park with fire and smoke. It had been violent and senseless, and reminded me of the rusted man.

I knew I should get home, and hurry to the street before I was mugged or had worse happen. Even with all the nightmares and impobable terror, I remembered the very real and present dangers. The city dark is no place to be alone.

I felt something tap the crown of my head. It was firm enough to get my attention, but it wasn’t the blow that my imagination had created, filled with warnings of violence. I froze and heard the soft voice say, “Berit, turn around.”

I turned nervously into a blue gaze. The pair of eyes that met mine were a summer sky blue, lit and glowing in stark contrast with the dusk’s grey. There was vitality in those eyes, and a wise clarity as well. There was no doubt that Tainn was there with me.

What should have been the first thing I noticed came quickly after leaving the thrall of her eyes. Her face was upsidedown, and dark hair was streaming towards the ground. A gentle smile was on her lips as she whispered, “Sorry to startle you. I have a habbit of sitting in trees. Well, hanging from them as well, as you can see. It’s nice to meet you Berit.”

I stepped back and looked up at her. She was hanging by her knees from one of the large branches of the oak, disarming and wild in her faded, ragged jeans and brown felt jacket.

I let moments pass in silence before croaking out, “It’s nice to meet you Tainn”

I laughed. My nervous voice, Tainn’s strange perch and the absurdity of the situation as a whole mixed into a final eruption of good humoured releaf. It had been many weeks since my spirits had lifted like this, and the grin on my face matched the wide one hanging in reverse before me. It felt damn good to be laughing, and the momentum carried on irrationally.

Tainn pulled herself back to the branch and climbed down the tree while I was doubled over. She stood beside me patiently until I had composed myself. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Sorry? Laughing’s the least harmful thing you could possibly do,” she joked. “Here’s your book,” she said, handing me the book we’d use to correspond, “It’s getting dark. Do you have time to talk for a while?”

She was right. The street lamps had come on during my laughing fit, and the chill had intensified, cutting through my clothes on a strong wind when I was still again. “Yeah. Can we walk back to my place? It’s not far.”

“That would be fine,” she answered, “You said you wanted me to help. I think I will be able to. I’ll tell you some more about how my nightmares ended, if that’s ok.”

I glanced at her and nodded.

I have peanut butter fudge cooling in the kitchen, a brilliant purple-pink sunset before, and Papina growing in my window. I have my head of words, vanilla coffee and I have a paper from one of my heros sharing the encouragement that “Apollo rules.” A fool once wrote, “Remember that survival is hibernation.” Waking up is slow, but, like the maples around me, I’m growing to live again.

I’ve had a couple nice days today and yesterday. On Tuesday I walked with Cerra downtown as she visited her tattoo artist and picked up a train ticket (of which I am quite jealous, since I have such a love of trains). We continued our tradition of eating ice cream and stopping at Subway (where cookies were consumed). Today I met her at the Walmart (that “high hound of capitalism” itself), where Cerra got various things, and I did my best not to turn red in the underwear section. On the way out and before walking through the drizzle, she loaned me the two volumes of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and Alain de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy, both of which look like promising reads.

Since last week I’ve been piecing away at and completely rewriting the next section of “Whispers” that I intend to share soon. It’s a rather lenthy section filled with dialog, so I find it needs attention that my usual writings do not. I may end up sharing it in sections so that I can continue to work of the developing parts while sharing what I feel works so far.

Poe‘s song “Fingertips” has been looping through my head for several days now. I listened to it during one of my weekend walks and really appreciated it a lot more than I had in the past. Headphones can add a surprising amount to my enjoyment of a song, as can listening to one as I walk the streets of Halifax I have not yet explored.

This evening, my roommate Greg shared with me a paper he had found during his shift last night. On a bulletin board he discovered what appears to be the photocopied rantings of someone of obvious ill mental health and poor spelling skills. In all caps the author spills a vision of Christianity with emphasis on end times and common sense. With the author claiming to be “the devil’s boy” and signing as Styx, it’s an ominous read, but very curious in a disjointed and artful way.

Photos that were once included with this entry have been removed and may now be in my main photo album.

Romance is an afternoon by a river eating dried apple slices and creating stories for the trees on the opposite bank.

Romance is awkward dancing before the end of the world, falling to the grass and laughing at the fullness of life.

Ragnarok in a bubble drifts upon the winds

Delicate destruction poised with tension moves on

Mingling in dandelion seeds it quivers

A balance set for gods, giants, slaves and lovers

We sit along the coastline, sharing future words

Drinking cold into our souls while in the heat cloud

Moments of rare rest in the building of this nest

Walls of sanctuary rising with the windmills

Sunset fire quiets each of our whispers slowly

Dreams and tears of the past fall before real beauty

Our mistakes stand bared and red on the errant rocks

Our futures lie hidden in a far-off bubble

Apprehension is fleeting before the visions

We long to help those trapped within the ending world

Remember that survival is hibernation

Dream of helping when we awake prepared to live

A campfire circle becomes again our chronicle

Nourishment in words and memories preserve now

A way of life lost, missed and held as a charade

Good events and warnings reach high in oaken smoke

Will we be as Lif and Liftrasir, safe within?

The forest holds this kind resting place in her arms

But has she grown from the roots of Hodmimir’s wood?

We dance our awkward dances and await the burst

One of the things I appreciate about my parents is their affinity for science fiction and fantasy literature. I inherited a love for the latter, and I’ve learned to respect some of the former. In my father’s collection of books he had a few issues of Fantasy and Science Fiction that I delved into during my early teen years.

One of these issues held Robert Holdstock’s “Mythago Wood”, a 33 page novella that won various awards and which he later expanded into a novel of the same name. The story hadn’t stayed in my mind during the years after I read it, if indeed I had, but now that I’ve read the novel version’s sequel, Lavondyss, and reread this story that was written and published before I was born, I find it stays clearly in my mind and is a remarkable story.

Like Lavondyss, this is a story concerned with myth and cultural memory. While setting and speculative root remain the same, the theme of the story focuses more on isolation and the fracturing of a family due to obsession. Far from an uplifting tale, “Mythago Wood” still causes contemplation of family, myth, culture and history in a new light. While exploring archetypes, the characters reflect them in their selves. The question must be asked whether we all take on the roles of archetypes, or only characters in fiction and history.

I’m looking forward to reading the remaining books in the Mythago cycle to experience the rest of Holdstock’s exploration in this vein. I highly recommend reading the works by Robert Holdstock if you can find them, especially this gem and Lavondyss.

Cerra and I decided to go for another walk this afternoon. I’m becoming addicted to walking around the city, but I’ve been told it’s not a bad addiction. I’ll have to believe that unless I continue to get sunburns. I must find my bottle of sunscreen.

We met at the corner near her home and walked toward Fairview. We went on in the direction of Clayton Park and explored around a backup watershed for the city. It was far emptier than I would have expected, but interesting despite that.

A little up the road we decided to go to the grocery store. There Cerra and I spent a good deal of time exploring all the junk food options we could. We eventually selected sour cream and onion chips, peanut butter creme cookies, chocolate chip oatmeal cookie dough and beep (a fruit drink that brings back memories of my elementary school days).

We returned to the watershed and I suggested we have our picnic on a fallen tree I spotted that leaned against the fence surrounding the watershed. So we climbed up the bank and into the trees, away from the traffic passing by. The tree proved to be quite an acceptable sitting spot, so we sat down to eat our unusual, but highly enjoyable meal.

It was very amusing to be hidden from the view of passersby while we feasted on the indulgences we had. We got a kick out of the odd situation and vantage we were in and that certainly made the picnic even more enjoyable than the courses would alone.

Eventually, I decided to become more comfortable and tried using the limbs of the dead tree as a back rest. It failed to work well in the few attempts I made, but when I got the brilliant idea to use my shirt as a hammock-like support it worked splendedly.The shirt even survived unharmed.

When we had finished our picnic we cleaned and packed up and headed for home. We shared another nice walk back and I gave Cerra my two issues of Found Magazine (a wonderful magazine filled entirely with found items that I’ve shared with everyone I could) before we hugged and parted paths. I wandered the cemetery before returning here.

I’ve come to enjoy the time I spend with Cerra a great deal. I find I’m at ease around her far more quickly than I would be with most people, and I find that very rewarding and remarkable. It’s definitely nice to have a friend nearby that I can both spend time with frequently and feel able to talk with openly.

My week of extensive walking finally brought me a negative aspect. After the second of my travels today, which filled my afternoon, I realized I had gotten a sunburn on my face. It’s a small price to pay for being outside and exploring the city, but it’s still far from pleasant. Looking up too much can be dangerous.

My grandfather on my father’s side of the family used to make bureaus using a rather odd frame. From what I am told, he would take old televisions, which once were made with wooden casings, clean them out, fashion backs from plywood and create drawers and the front pieces. I didn’t have the chance to get to know him well, but I think this one example of his resourcefulness made him an interesting man.

I love to collect stories. I think there’s something remarkably rewarding in knowing about the lives of others and examining how they relate to you. The events we choose to record, recount and share say a lot about us as individuals, I find. Even more telling is the manner in which we tell stories. I believe the best storytellers combine a sense of empathy with authenticity.

I am most touched by stories in a place where I discover I don’t know any of the stories. In cemeteries I’m always struck by a void in the stories I know. There are markers for passed lives about which I know nothing, and that highlights the value of stories for me and makes me feel even stronger about learning, recording and creating them. There’s no way to save all stories, but to preserve even some can teach us much about the human condition and ourselves through reflection.

In this vein, I’d like to quickly share with you the story of Centralia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. It was a town of 1,100 in 1962 when an underground coal fire began because of an exposed seam in a landfill was lit by a garbage fire. The fire spread through the seams and covered over 350 square miles under and around the town. Gases filled homes, the ground began to collapse, and the town became unfit to live in. Today only 40 people remain in the town, holding out despite the dangers.The fires beneath that town still burn over 40 years later, and smoke can be seen rising from great cracks in the roads, and various other sunken land. It’s a wasteland created because of mankind’s inability to protect our environment. You can find some photos of Centralia here.

Robert Holdstock‘s Lavondyss is an exemplary novel, and one of the great works of fiction of the past century. It delves into the very root of storytelling and myth in a way that is unmatched in all of the writing I’ve been exposed to. It is a landmark in the fantasy genre and for storytelling in general.

Lavondyss initially tells the story of a young girl, Tallis, who develops an appreciation of and life founded on mysticism. Through her creation of masks, creation/discovery of stories and exploration of the land in which she lives (The story takes place in post-World War II England, in and surrounding Ryhope Wood.) she works to discover and rescue her lost half-brother, Harry. This search to reunite with her brother is the central thread of the novel and creates the eventual separation from her parents.

The story becomes increasingly complex and interlaced as it progresses. Much of the telling is non-linear, making it a challenging read, but also much more rewarding than it would otherwise be. Holdstock explores a Jungian-like theory that we all maintain a cultural memory of legends. Through blending story elements in unsuspected ways, exploring archetypes of stories, characters and landscapes, an enthralling mix of mythical and personal history emerges.

Tallis’ search takes her into Ryhope Wood, which houses a mythic forest through which she travels with various companions in the second half of the book. In this section of the book the more enticing imagery emerges and is a testament both to Holdstock’s folkloric knowledge and imaginative invention, which are employed equally well in this novel. The mythic wood embodies the themes of the stories told within it, its facets each intrical to the greater story.

While the theme of this story is prominent, the characters are quite facinating. I found Tallis, her father, and her mother to be the most interesting, likely because of their connection to the real world and their respective acceptance, wariness and denial of the mythical occurances happening around them. While Tallis’ growth may seem limited in maturity, it is very apparant that she has learned more about herself and reality as story closes.

Lavondyss is a superb and deeply satisfying novel. It has few peers in modern fiction, and evokes thought more than most novels. I’m very much looking forward to reading more of Holdstock’s works, and am expecting quality because of this example.

The air was warm, though windy at times, the sky was near-cloudless, and a perfect April day emerged. I awoke to it around nine and prepared for a day of walking. I showered, dressed, opened my window and checked on Papina, my quickly growing ivy.

Before long Cerra came online. After talking for a while we decided we would walk downtown together so that she could take some photos, specifically of the bridge. I had time to finish reading the novel I was winding down before we decided to meet a couple blocks from here.

We had a nice walk in the beautiful weather, ignoring a few rogue clouds and deeming the sky cloudless. We saw some interesting sights, and braved half-dangers. Irony struck in the form of a man on a non-motorized bicycle who wore a Harley shirt and a leather jacket. Cerra atempted to conquer a bridge and face her fear of hights, but we ended up retreating a few dozen feet into our crossing. We ate subs and later both had cream egg flurries again. Photos were taken, a cemetery explored, conversations and warm silence filled.

It was a very pleasant afternoon. I believe it to be one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. I very much enjoy spending time with Cerra, and I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day to be traversing the city.

When we reached my street I decided to walk a while longer with her, since I was not in the mood to end my walking. We parted ways at the cemetery near her home and I wandered through the cemetery while listening to music. Soon I was feeling a strong pull to visit the railroad.

I walked, finding a dead end initially, but eventually making my way to the mall near my home. As I made my way through the parking lot, a man approached me and asked if I could spare any change. I sincerely said I was sorry, but I didn’t have anything to share. He took it well and seemed like a nice enough man. He asked if my hair was naturally curly, and suggested people would pay a lot of money to have hair like my own, while I got it for free. He added jovial envy, pointing out my full head of hair and his hat-hidden baldness. As I passed by, I couldn’t help but smile at such a seemingly-nice fellow.

After these delays I finally made it to a bridge that crosses above the railway. I took some photos of the tracks from several vantages, and noticed that a shopping cart had been placed on the track. I decided my final photo would be of that, so I leaned over to take a photo, with music filling my head.

I was about to press the button when a train suddenly swept through the shot, rolling over and crushing the cart. I hadn’t heard its approach over my music, and I found the long string of boxes and empty cars to be a striking surprise. There was something hypnotic about the endless stream of metal, in the way it seemed ever-changing yet patterned. My love affair with the railway is surely not over.