Counterfactual History

This piece is based on counter-factual history, which is described by some lovely person at Wikipedia as this:

'Counterfactual history, also sometimes referred to as virtual history, is a form of historiography that attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals. It seeks to explore history and historical incidents by means of extrapolating a timeline in which certain key historical events did not happen or had an outcome which was different from that which did in fact occur. It has produced a book genre which is variously called alternative history, speculative history, counterfactual history, or hypothetical history.'
 

It is seen in novels such as Resistance by Owen Sheers, or Fatherland by Robert Harris. Both of these texts are focused around the idea of the Allies losing the Second World War, and the Nazis invading Britain.
Fatherland is on my to-read pile, but  I really enjoyed Resistance.

So, reluctantly sticking with the 'Scott of the Antarctic' theme (my lecturer seems to love it), here's my counter-factual take on the disembarking of the Terra Nova.


We built this city on rock and coal.

Evans looked over the edge of the observation platform, they were almost ready to go. The pile of the supplies on the tethering tower had dwindled, been successfully stowed somewhere aboard ship. The ponies had been difficult. As everyone knows, ponies are notoriously malfooted when it comes to ladders. Even the specialised, extra wide rung one which had been gifted to them. They were settled now though, he could hear them beneath deck, contented snuffling and nosing their hay. He wondered if ponies had a fear of heights. He hoped not.

From up here the crowd just looked like a sea of hats, all fancy and colourful with feathers and flowers. The noon sun prevented anyone from looking up for too long, he liked it that way. They’d shield their eyes with one hand, and wave with the other. He didn’t wave back though. He could see Scott down there too, checking the ropes, making the final adjustments, looking over the hydrogen tanks.

He reached out over the railing and hooked his finger over a string of bunting and pulled it back. When released it made a satisfying twanging sound. A seagull at the other end of the rope squawked as it wobbled to a standstill. Evans looked at the seagull, the seagull looked at him. Then, with the slight narrowing of his eyes and a flourish of the tail, the seagull pooped. Evans watched it sail down and then splash onto a lady’s hat. She didn’t even notice.

The crowd roared beneath him and the band struck up. He saw Scott begin to climb the ladder. Evans slipped on his flying goggles and the engine spluttered into life. He cracked a smile and waved disconsolately as the propellers began to turn.

The Terra Nova.

So, Edgar Evans was in fact the first person from Scott's crew to pass away on the expedition. He had cut his hand tending to a sleight and suffered from frostbite and exhaustion. Just before his death, he was described as turning mad - perhaps from the stress, illness or a fall. Here's an exerpt from Scott's diary:

"Saturday, February 17 - A very terrible day. Evans looked a little better after a good sleep, and declared, as he always did, that he was quite well. He started in his place on the traces, but half an hour later worked his ski shoes adrift, and had to leave the sledge. The surface was awful, the soft recently fallen snow clogging the ski and runners at every step, the sledge groaning, the sky overcast, and the land hazy. We stopped after about one hour, and Evans came up again, but very slowly.

Half an hour later he dropped out again on the same plea. He asked Bowers to lend him a piece of string. I cautioned him to come on as quickly as he could, and he answered cheerfully as I thought. We had to push on, and the remainder of us were forced to pull very hard, sweating heavily. Abreast the Monument Rock we stopped, and seeing Evans a long way astern, I camped for lunch. There was no alarm at first, and we prepared tea and our own meal, consuming the latter.

After lunch, and Evans still not appearing, we looked out, to see him still afar off. By this time we were alarmed, and all four started back on ski. I was first to reach the poor man and shocked at his appearance; he was on his knees with clothing disarranged, hands uncovered and frostbitten, and a wild look in his eyes. Asked what was the matter, he replied with a slow speech that he didn't know, but thought he must have fainted. We got him on his feet, but after two or three steps he sank down again. He showed every sign of complete collapse. Wilson, Bowers, and I went back for the sledge, whilst Oates remained with him.

When we returned he was practically unconscious, and when we got him into the tent quite comatose. He died quietly at 12.30 A.M. On discussing the symptoms we think he began to get weaker just before we reached the Pole, and that his downward path was accelerated first by the shock of his frostbitten fingers, and later by falls during rough travelling on the glacier, further by his loss of all confidence in himself. Wilson thinks it certain he must have injured his brain by a fall.

It is a terrible thing to lose a companion in this way, but calm reflection shows that there could not have been a better ending to the terrible anxieties of the past week. Discussion of the situation at lunch yesterday shows us what a desperate pass we were in with a sick man on our hands at such a distance from home."

Taken from: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/scott.htm

The Terra Nova expedition had been gifted many things by wellwishers, including coal, cigars, plum puddings (?) and even a piano. In this piece I am describing a woman being shown around the ship before deperature (as they often were), and standing at the piano. I have used the piano as a metaphor for the declining mental state of Evans, who is with her at that time:


The Piano Man

“The wood will warp, sat out in the elements like this,” she thought, “the moist conditions will wreck it.” It’ll look the same, of course, on the outside but the workings will deform. The ice will work into its belly and fatten the dampeners, and the frost will make the strings creep.

The effect will be gradual of course, changing ever so slightly over time. Getting almost imperceptibly flatter and flatter until one day it’ll sound so horribly out of tune that you’ll wonder how you hadn’t picked up on it before. You don’t notice these things though, not until the string is stretched so tight that it’s likely to snap at any moment.

She felt sorry for this piano.

She took off a glove, ran her hand over the varnished mahogany, before lifting up the fall and pressing a key.

The note sounded out, as clear as a bell. A nearby pony looked up lazily from its hay, regarding her with its listless eyes before returning to his meal.

She looked up at him; a big oaf in a sailor outfit, smiling down at her.

“You like the piano, miss?” he said.

“Yes, very much so,” she answered, before gently shutting its lid.

                                                                    x

'Sick'

So, Creative Writing assessment time has rolled around again and I've decided to be more technically adventurous! I ended up writing two pieces, both of which I'll post up here.


For the piece below, I used third person objective perspective, defined by some random on Yahoo! answers as:


'Third person, is when a story is told by a narrator not involved in the story itself.

Objective third person means the narrator only knows what someone watching would know (so they don't know people's thoughts, but rather actions and words)'


So basically, everything needs to be shown through the characters dialogue and external actions, no inner thought.


Ernest Hemingway was pretty much the dude at this, he described his technique as like an iceberg, ie. only a small part of the story is showing meaning that most of it is hidden:

See what you think...

Sick

“I look sick, do you think I look sick?”

“No, I don’t think you look sick. Why?”

“No reason. Maybe it’s the light in here.”

“Yes dear, maybe.”

She plunged her hands back into the scalding water and groped for the scourer.

“Darling?”

“Yes dear?”

“I was thinking maybe we could take a trip soon, you know, just us. Maybe go to the coast.”

“Yes, maybe.”

“Because my sister said she could have the kids and it’d be nice to have some time for just the two of us. You’ve been working such long hours recently.”

“Uh-huh.” He closed his newspaper momentarily, opening it on the next page.

“Yes, I think that would be nice.” She resumed scrubbing.

“Simon got an A in his maths test, did he tell you?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Good isn’t it? I was never any good at numbers, he must get that from your side.”

“Yes, he must do.”

The water in the bowl was hot enough already, but she added more. Underneath the marigolds her hands were scarlet.

“I was thinking of getting my hair cut short, what do you think?”

“What?”

“My hair, cut short. Do you think it would look nice?”

“Why would you do that?”

“Oh I don’t know, I just fancy a change, freshen myself up a bit. I thought maybe I could get it done like that newsreader you like, what’s her name?”

He let out an exasperated sigh, “I don’t know who you mean, dear.”

“Of course you do, she’s on at 6 o’clock. She’s got glasses, and short brown hair. In her early 30s.”

“Oh yes, I know.”

“Do you think it would suit me? Make me look younger maybe?”

He glanced at her over the top of his reading glasses, “If you want to then do it, but I think your hair is fine as it is.” He went back to his newspaper.

She looked at her reflection in the window in front of her and flicked her head back to hide the lengths of her hair behind her shoulders. The overhead light wasn’t particularly flattering, it pooled on her cheekbones exaggerating the dark circles under her eyes and spotlighted her sagging jowls. She used to have beautiful skin, he used to tell her that all the time, he used to call her ‘luminous’.  It was hard to connect that girl with the middle aged woman who stared back at her from the onyx garden.

She lifted the oven dish out of the bowl and scrutinised it. It sparkled under the overhead lights but if she ran her fingers along the walls she could feel little bumps along the burn line. She pushed it back under the water and resumed rubbing.

She paused.

“Did I tell you?” she said “I saw Hamish on Monday.”

“Oh, yes?” he looked up suddenly, “Did you speak to him?”

“Just briefly, he was in a rush somewhere. Him and Heather are getting a divorce, did you know that?”

“I don’t think so, no. Well, maybe. There are so many rumours flying around the office you don’t know what to believe.”

“I suppose so.”

She inspected the dish again, it still looked greasy. Her arms were aching even though she kept transferring the sponge from one hand to the other. It may look clean but it was important to get all the bits off, if you didn’t get them off properly then they would build up gradually over time and the dish would be ruined.  

“It’s a shame really. I wonder what will happen to the kids, they’re so young”

“It’s not really any of our business.”

“No, I suppose not.” She turned over the dish and began scrubbing the bottom.

“Did you notice I’m wearing the earrings? The ones you bought me on our honeymoon.”

He glanced up “Yes, very pretty.”

“You used to say they made me look beautiful. You said you liked seeing me in them and nothing else. Do you remember?”

“That was a very long time ago.”

“Yes, I suppose it was.”

She turned on the tap and turned the dish beneath it. The suds parted as a curtain revealing the pristine glass beneath. Holding it in both hands she took a moment to view herself in it, her reflection appeared both radiant and distorted under the harsh kitchen lights. She rotated her body as if to place the dish on the drying rack, but then continued a little further. She looked at her husband not looking at her, before letting it tumble to the floor.

x

My first flash fiction piece, extra points if you recognise the song at the end..

The Cabin at the Lake

The lake was silent, the late afternoon sun dripping like honey from the cedars. She watched the bugs drifting lazily between the barcode shadows, illuminated intermittently. She breathed it in, the provocative scent of autumn. She knew there was no one within fifty miles of here, apart from the occasional lost hunter of course. The stillness was occasionally perforated by finches chattering in the canopy above skittish deers and foraging bears.

In her youth she had found solitude galvanising, it had enabled them to skinny dip, sunbathe naked and also experiment with clumsy, alfresco sex over lightning felled trees. Now, she found it stifling. Yet, still he insisted that they make the annual twelve hour drive out here so he could spend a whole silent fortnight fishing. Gone were the days of rug-wrapped, night-long conversations at the lakeside which were kindled by the fat moon, pregnant with best wishes and promises.

Through her soles she could feel the slats of the dock beneath her feet, sturdy and solid. The little jetty has been here since before they bought the cabin all those years ago, during that era of naivety and innocence when he had had a full head of hair and she had been beautiful. They came here every autumn, year upon year, the conclave of oaks gossiping breathlessly about the decay of the nuptials. She could almost see the five-gates scratched into the trunks by an invisible, incarcerated hand.

She untucked her hands from her pockets and toed the edge. The water was crystalline clear, the surface deceptively serene. He had once told her, in his thick Yooper accent, that it is fed from underground springs and it is these that produce not only the glassy transparency but also the deadly undercurrents. One summer they had almost lost their eldest to the lake, but had managed to pluck him free in the nick of time from its siren grasp.

After an hour or so, the sun tilted sufficiently to take the glare off the surface, disrobing it to expose its enticing depths. It is quite shallow around the dock, the bottom strewn with rocks and weeds. She could just about make out the plateau edge as it dropped off sharply into the murky abyss. Who knows what cursed creatures spiralled down there, Dante’s menagerie of the deep.

She watched a white perch dart in between the undulating foliage. When it turned a certain way it caught the light, causing it to flash like a tiny beacon. She regarded it as it experimentally nibbled at his finger, bouncing back and forth cautiously. She wondered idly if the algae had begun to settle on him yet. The perch worked its way past the glinting wedding band and onto the index, flitting in and out of its private mangrove roots.

Claret maple leaves ambled in the breeze, soporific under the heady, afternoon light. A whole year of dutifully swallowing sunshine rewarded with one short flight of fancy. They came to rest on the surface of the lake, as clawed as her husbands’ hands. Beneath the surface, a line of bubbles erupted from between his purple lips and made an erratic dash for the surface. She pondered if that was in fact his last breath, journeyed from the heart or bowel.

He looked like a twisted marionette, his outstretched arms gently rocking as if he himself was conducting the ebbs and flows. She had heard that death looked like sleeping, but he didn’t look like that. His face was gnarled hard with anger, his eyes knotted with hate. It was the same expression he had debuted at the lightning flash of comprehension, that pin point when he had understood that she wasn’t going to save him. That, in fact, she was just going to stand there and watch him drown. He had made his bed, and now he was lying in it. The gentle lake water couldn’t do much to dissolve the loathing.

The slanted light traced his every contour with dappled illumination. With its many fingers it prodded and poked, investigating his bloated frame as it resigned itself to the waters. The light fingered his heavy woollen jacket, it had one side wrenched up, the zip caught from when he frantically tried to claw it open. Desperate attempts to shed his clothes and prise off his boots interspersed with gulps of air and mouthfuls of water.  A product of overwhelming saturation.

He had thrashed for what seemed like an eternity, flitting between frantic pleas of help to screaming profanities. He never really was a strong swimmer. At one point she had almost buckled, but she knew it had already gone too far, saving him then would have meant death for herself. After a while he had stopped shouting and began just gasping, his head bobbing low in the water, his limbs flailing uselessly in his heavy winter clothes. He had sunk not long after that, it was the first time he had taken his eyes off her.

So there she stood, trying to feel what she thought she should be feeling. A mute swan coasted past her before skidding ungracefully to a stop on the water. It then paddled off, its breezy exterior veiling the frenzied underwater propulsion. Its wake drifted right over him, momentarily distorting his face, making it look like he was smiling. She was glad when the surface stilled.

She looked at her watch, 7:30pm. He would have been fishing for at least another hour, right up until the cosmic fistful of roe slipped beneath the trees, eking out the last of the light before trudging back to the cabin for a strained supper. She had until then to decide what to do.

As twilight unfurled, the scenery around her darkened as a maturing bruise. The moon was already watching, it had been for a while. She wrapped her cardigan around her against the evening chill, any warmth had slipped away with the marmalade sun. Venus blinked on, suspended as a distress flare at the arc of its parabola. She peered over the edge, his spectral face stared back. It reflected the creeping moonlight as a dime, punched holes for eyes. Soon she wouldn’t be able to see him at all, even now the inky water was claiming him, weaving his murky death shroud from the watermilfoil.

She took one last look, but she knew that she wouldn’t remember him like this. The years of a loveless marriage weighs far heavier than this image of his capsized mask. It was him who had sunk her, the difference being that his finale had lasted minutes whereas she had been drowning for years. With a final glance she turned, strode along the jetty and headed towards the cabin. Once inside she turned on the lights, shut the door and took off her boots. She put on the kettle and flicked on the stereo, it buoyed her instantly.

She broke down and let me in

She poured the boiling water into the mug and watched the tea steep, reaching tendrils.

Made me see where I've been

She looked at the wall clock. 8:28pm.

Been down one time

Been down two times

She plucked the torch from its hook on the wall and placed it on the counter.

I’m never going back again

She took a deep breath, and picked up the phone.