Tag: ghost

Corpse Road Blues origin stories continued: The Memory of Hannah Babinski

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Welcome back, and if you’re here for the first time, thanks for joining us. The Memory of Hannah Babinski is the sixth story in my collection, Corpse Road Blues from Demain Publishing, and influenced by the coast, kissing gates, and the 2020/21 Lockdown.

I recently did a workshop about Psychogeography and Flow, led by the wonderful Kerry Hadley-Pryce (author of The Black Country) in which she talked about how walking feeds creativity. I often wander through both urban and rural landscapes giving my brain space to digest current projects or find inspiration for new ones. In rural settings, I often come across kissing gates which I find quite charming. As you probaby know, this type of gate doesn’t require a securing latch, and swings back and forth within a framework, gently knocking or ‘kissing’ both sides of the enclosure. And… the awkward navigation of the gate can also provide lovers with an opportunity to kiss.

Like all gates, these weathered, wooden posts are liminal spaces, crossings from one place to another. When The Memory of Hannah Babinski was beginning to form, I considered the consequences of something getting caught in a kissing gate, not a tangible object like a piece of clothing or a limb, but maybe an echo of a kiss, maybe a memory.

The story takes place on a clifftop. The coast has always had a hold over me. I regularly feel the pull of the sea, and often end up riding my motorcycle to greet the waves, or travelling parallel to them throughout the seasons. Standing on the edge of a country, overlooking the vast body of wild and surging water, the howling wind whipping around you, brings with it a sense of wonder and a humbling of the spirit. I hope I’ve captured a little of that in this story.

And Lockdown? That time that means different things to different people: silence, the beauty of it, or its unsettling quality; Nature’s reclamation of the streets; grief, anger; the fear of being trapped at home with a violent partner—a real horror faced by too many people.

If you’d like to read The Memory of Hannah Babinski, you can buy Corpse Road Blues here.

Corpse Road Blues countdown: 2, King of the Hill

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King of the Hill, the next story in my collection, Corpse Road Blues, is a tale of past lives and things lost and found.

One Spring a few years back, I rode over to West Kennet Long Barrow, which is a ceremonial construction dating back to the Early Neolithic era that had often been used as a tomb. For me, this place has an ancient vibe of magic and reverence that almost hums through the earth, the stones, and the air around the site, providing a deeply calming effect. As it’s not far from where I live, I managed an early morning trip in the hope of avoiding other visitors. It paid off. And I was treated to a good hour sitting on top of the burial chamber overlooking a low-level mist shrouding Wiltshire’s rolling landscape, letting the atmosphere seep into my bones, before taking a peek inside the barrow.

When my internal mystic fuel tank was topped up, I followed the long track back to the road. It was here that I passed a group of around ten to fifteen people, some of whom were dressed in robes, with two black dogs padding along beside them. I raced to the assumption that they were a local coven. Who knows? Did they make it into the story? You’ll have to read King of the Hill to find out.

If you’d like to read the story, please pre-order Corpse Road Blues here.