Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

by Neil Gaiman

There are things that upset us. That’s not quite what we’re talking about here, though. I’m thinking rather about those images or words or ideas that drop like trapdoors beneath us, throwing us out of our safe, sane world into a place much more dark and less welcoming. Our hearts skip a ratatat drumbeat in our chests, and we fight for breath. Blood retreats from our faces and our fingers, leaving us pale and gasping and shocked. And what we learn about ourselves in those moments, where the trigger has been squeezed, is this: the past is not dead. There are things that wait for us, patiently, in the dark corridors of our lives. We think we have moved on, put them out of mind, left them to desiccate and shrivel and blow away; but we are wrong. They have been waiting there in the darkness, working out, practicing their most vicious blows, their sharp hard thoughtless punches into the gut, killing time until we came back that way.

The monsters in our cupboards and our minds are always there in the darkness, like mold beneath the floorboards and behind the wallpaper, and there is so much darkness, an inexhaustible supply of darkness. The universe is amply supplied with night.

What we read as adults should be read, I think, with no warnings or alerts beyond, perhaps: enter at your own risk. We need to find out what fiction is, what it means, to us, an experience that is going to be unlike anyone else’s experience of the story.

There are things in this book, as in life, that might upset you. There is death and pain in here, tears and discomfort, violence of all kinds, cruelty, even abuse. There is kindness, too, I hope, sometimes. Even a handful of happy endings.

We are all wearing masks. That is what makes us interesting. These are stories about those masks, and the people we are underneath them. We authors, who trade in fictions for a living, are a continuum of all that we have seen and heard, and most importantly, all that we have read.

My favorite collections would not just give me short stories but they would also tell me things I didn’t know, about the stories in the book and the craft of writing. I would respect authors who did not write an introduction, but I could not truly love them as I loved the authors who made me realize that each of the stories in the anthology was written, actually made up word by word and written down, by someone human, who thought and breathed and walked and probably even sang in the shower, like me.

The Shadder do not make webs. The world is their web. The Shadder do not dig pits. If you are here you have already fallen.

I have visited many peculiar places in the world, places that can hold your mind and your soul tightly and will not let them go. Some of those places are exotic and unusual, some are mundane. The strangest of all of them, at least for me, is the Isle of Skye, off the west coast of Scotland. I know I am not alone in this. There are people who discover Skye and will not leave, and even for those of us who do leave, the misty island haunts us and holds us in its own way. It is where I am happiest and where I am most alone.

And still I wonder how much of the story I wrote, and how much was simply waiting there for me, like the gray rocks that sit like bones on the low hills of Skye.

My friend Mark Evanier told me that he met Ray Bradbury when he was a boy of eleven or twelve. When Bradbury found out that Mark wanted to be a writer, he invited him to his office and spent half a day telling him the important stuff: If you want to be a writer, you have to write. Every day. Whether you feel like it or not. That you can’t just write one book and stop. That it’s work, but the best kind of work. Mark grew up to be a writer, the kind who writes and supports himself through writing. Ray Bradbury was the kind of person who would give half a day to a kid who wanted to be a writer when he grew up.

He left the world a better place, and left better places in it: the red sands and canals of Mars, the midwestern Hallowe’ens and small towns and dark carnivals. And he kept writing. “Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything,” Ray said once, in an interview.

Children are driven by a sense of injustice, and it sticks around as we age, bury it however we try. It still rankles that, almost forty years ago, when I was fifteen, I wrote a short story for my mock English O level that was graded down from an A to a C with an explanatory comment from the teacher that it “was too original. Must obviously have copied it from somewhere.”

Writers live in houses other people built.

They were giants, the men and the women who made the houses we inhabit. They started with a barren place and they built Speculative Fiction, always leaving the building unfinished so the people who came by after they were gone could put on another room, or another story. Clark Ashton Smith dug the foundations of the Dying Earth stories, and Jack Vance came along and built them high and glorious, as he made so much high and glorious, and built a world in which all science is now magic, at the very end of the world, when the sun is dim and preparing to go out.

I have wholeheartedly and unashamedly loved the television series Doctor Who since I was a three-year-old boy at Mrs. Pepper’s School in Portsmouth, and William Hartnell was the Doctor. Writing actual episodes of the show, almost fifty years later, was one of the most fun things I’ve done. (One of them even won a Hugo Award.) By this time Matt Smith played the eleventh Doctor. Puffin Books asked if I would write a story for their book Doctor Who: 11 Doctors, 11 Stories. I chose to set the story during the first season of Matt’s run.

❤️😭

You might think you need to know a lot about Doctor Who, given that it is a fifty-year-old show, to enjoy this story, but you don’t need to know much. The Doctor is an alien, a Time Lord, the last of his race, who travels through time and space in a blue box that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It sometimes lands where he wanted to go. If there’s something wrong, he may well sort it out. He’s very clever.

I first spent time with the woman who would become my wife because she wanted to make a book of photographs of herself dead, to accompany her album Who Killed Amanda Palmer? She had been taking photographs of herself dead since she was eighteen. She wrote to me and pointed out that nobody was going to buy a book of photos of a dead woman who wasn’t even actually dead, but perhaps if I wrote some captions they might. Photographer Kyle Cassidy and Amanda and I gathered in Boston for a few days of making art. The photographs Kyle took were like stills from lost films, and I would write stories to accompany them. Unfortunately, most of the stories don’t work when separated from their photographs. (My favorite was a murder mystery, involving a woman killed by a typewriter.) I like this one, though, and you do not need the photograph (of young Amanda with her mouth open and a floor covered with costume jewelry) to understand it.

The Return of the Thin White Duke The title is a quote from a David Bowie song, and the story began, some years ago, with a fashion magazine asking the remarkable Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano to do some fashion drawings of Bowie and his wife, Iman. Mr. Amano asked if I would like to write a story to accompany them. I wrote the first half of a story, with plans to conclude it in the next issue of the magazine. But the magazine lost interest before they had published the first part, and the story was forgotten. For this anthology I thought it would be an adventure to finish it, and find out what was going to happen, and where it was all heading. If I had known once (I must have known once), I still found myself reading the story like a stranger, and walking alone into the mist to learn where it was going.

Life imitates art, but clumsily, copying its movements when it thinks it isn’t looking.

In Relig Odhráin This is a true story. Well, as true as any story about a sixth-century Irish saint can be. The churchyard is there, on Iona. You can even visit it. I didn’t mean to write this as a poem, but the meter turned up in my head and after that I simply had no say in the matter. They used to bury people alive in the walls or the foundations, to ensure that buildings remained standing. Even saints.

There are monsters in these pages, but as Ogden Nash pointed out in my first short-story collection, Smoke and Mirrors, where there’s a monster, there’s also a miracle.

There. Consider yourself warned. There are so many little triggers out there, being squeezed in the darkness even as I write this. This book is correctly labeled. Now all we have to worry about is all the other books, and, of course, life, which is huge and complicated and will not warn you before it hurts you.

Thank you for coming. Enjoy the things that never happened. Secure your own mask again after you read these stories, but do not forget to help others.

I had searched for nearly ten years, although the trail was cold. I would say that I found him by accident, but I do not believe in accidents. If you walk the path, eventually you must arrive at the cave.

“Sometimes I think that truth is a place. In my mind, it is like a city: there can be a hundred roads, a thousand paths, that will all take you, eventually, to the same place. It does not matter where you come from. If you walk toward the truth, you will reach it, whatever path you take.”

“You are wrong. The truth is a cave in the black mountains. There is one way there, and one only, and that way is treacherous and hard, and if you choose the wrong path you will die alone, on the mountainside.”

I am old now, or at least, I am no longer young, and everything I see reminds me of something else I’ve seen, such that I see nothing for the first time.

It is the curse of age, that all things are reflections of other things.

“And is that true? Does it make you evil?” “. . . No. The cave feeds on something else. Not good and evil. Not really. You can take your gold, but afterwards, things are”—he paused—“things are flat. There is less beauty in a rainbow, less meaning in a sermon, less joy in a kiss . . .” He looked at the cave mouth and I thought I saw fear in his eyes. “Less.”

This sounds like depression

“Is there a price?” There is always a price. “Then I will pay it.

I don’t have a boyfriend. I did, but we broke up after he went to a Rolling Stones concert with the evil bottle-blond former friend whose name I do not mention. Also, I mean, the Rolling Stones? These little old goat-men hopping around the stage pretending to be all rock-and-roll? Please. So, no.

He pointed to an attic door, in the ceiling above them. The door was askew, and the darkness waited behind it like an eye.

In October I found a notice saying, “Normal Service Will Be Resumed as Soon as Possible. Honest,” taped to the side of the goldfish tank. Two of the goldfish appeared to have been taken and replaced by identical substitutes. In November I received a ransom note telling me exactly what to do if ever I wished to see my uncle Theobald alive again. I do not have an Uncle Theobald, but I wore a pink carnation in my buttonhole and ate nothing but salads for the entire month anyway.

In December I received a Christmas card postmarked THE NORTH POLE, letting me know that, this year, due to a clerical error, I was on neither the Naughty nor the Nice list. It was signed with a name that began with an S. It might have been Santa but it seemed more like Steve.

“That feels good,” I said, and I stretched my neck to get out the last of the cramp. It didn’t just feel good, it felt great, actually. I’d been squashed up inside that lamp for so long. You start to think that nobody’s ever going to rub it again. “You’re a genie,” said the young lady with the polishing cloth in her hand. “I am. You’re a smart girl, toots. What gave me away?” “The appearing in a puff of smoke,” she said. “And you look like a genie. You’ve got the turban and the pointy shoes.”

She thought for a moment. Then she pointed at her front yard. “Can you rake the leaves?” “Is that your wish?” “Nope. Just something you could do while I’m getting our dinner ready.” I raked the leaves into a heap by the hedge, to stop the wind from blowing it apart. After dinner, I washed up the dishes. I spent the night in Hazel’s spare bedroom. It wasn’t that she didn’t want help. She let me help. I ran errands for her, picked up art supplies and groceries. On days she had been painting for a long time, she let me rub her neck and shoulders. I have good, firm hands.

Shortly before Thanksgiving I moved out of the spare bedroom, across the hall, into the main bedroom, and Hazel’s bed. I watched her face this morning as she slept. I stared at the shapes her lips make when she sleeps. The creeping sunlight touched her face, and she opened her eyes and stared at me, and she smiled. “You know what I never asked,” she said, “is what about you? What would you wish for if I asked what your three wishes were?” I thought for a moment. I put my arm around her, and she snuggled her head into my shoulder. “It’s okay,” I told her. “I’m good.”

:,)

THIS IS THE PROBLEM, wrote Holmes in 1899: Ennui. And lack of interest. Or rather, it all becomes too easy. When the joy of solving crimes is the challenge, the possibility that you cannot, why then the crimes have something to hold your attention. But when each crime is soluble, and so easily soluble at that, why then there is no point in solving them.

Old Gao was as sullen and as sharp as his bees. He had had a wife once, but she had died in childbirth. The son who had killed her lived for a week, then died himself. There would be nobody to say the funeral rites for Old Gao, no-one to clean his grave for festivals or to put offerings upon it. He would die unremembered, as unremarkable and as unremarked as his bees.

I said, “Good evening, Mycroft. Doctor Hopkins tells me you have two weeks to live, and stated that I was under no circumstances to inform you of this.” “The man’s a dunderhead,” said Mycroft, his breath coming in huge wheezes between the words. “I will not make it to Friday.” “Saturday at least,” I said. “You always were an optimist. No, Thursday evening and then I shall be nothing more than an exercise in practical geometry for Hopkins and the funeral directors at Snigsby and Malterson, who will have the challenge, given the narrowness of the doors and corridors, of getting my carcass out of this room and out of the building.”

A poor man found himself in a forest as night fell, and he had no prayer book to say his evening prayers. So he said, “God who knows all things, I have no prayer book and I do not know any prayers by heart. But you know all the prayers. You are God. So this is what I am going to do. I am going to say the alphabet, and I will let you put the words together.”

“So. Um. Are you married?” “I lost my husband.” “Was it a bomb?” “What?” “How you lost your husband?” “An American tourist. From Seattle.” “Oh.”

“I’m really lonely. I work at a job I don’t enjoy and come home to a wife who loves me but doesn’t much like me, and some days it feels like I can’t move and that all I want is for the whole world to go away.” She nodded. “Yes, but you don’t live in Jerusalem.”

Life is life, and it is infinitely better than the alternative, or so we presume, for nobody returns to dispute it. Such is my motto.”

THE TIME LORDS BUILT a prison. They built it in a time and place that are equally as unimaginable to any entity who has never left the solar system in which it was spawned, or who has only experienced the journey into the future one second at a time, and that going forward.

The lady in the cat mask crouched down. “I’m Mrs. Cat. Ask me what time it is, Polly.” Polly nodded. “What’s the time, Mrs. Cat?” “Time for you and your family to leave this place and never look back,” said Mrs. Cat, but she said it kindly.

They were in the TARDIS control room, going home. “I still don’t understand,” Amy was saying. “Why were the Skeleton People so angry with you in the first place? I thought they wanted to get free from the rule of the Toad-King.” “They weren’t angry with me about that,” said the young man in the tweed jacket and the bow tie. He pushed a hand through his hair. “I think they were quite pleased to be free, actually.” He ran his hands across the TARDIS control panel, patting levers, stroking dials. “They were just a bit upset with me because I’d walked off with their squiggly whatsit.” “Squiggly whatsit?” “It’s on the . . .” He gestured vaguely with arms that seemed to be mostly elbows and joints. “The tabley thing over there. I confiscated it.” Amy looked irritated. She wasn’t irritated, but she sometimes liked to give him the impression she was, just to show him who was boss. “Why don’t you ever call things by their proper names? The tabley thing over there? It’s called ‘a table.’” She walked over to the table. The squiggly whatsit was glittery and elegant: it was the size and general shape of a bracelet, but it twisted in ways that made it hard for the eye to follow. “Really? Oh good.” He seemed pleased. “I’ll remember that.”

“There’s something familiar about all this.” “What?” “Don’t know. Hmm. Kin. Kin. Kin. I keep thinking of masks. Who wears masks?” “Bank robbers?” “No.” “Really ugly people?” “No.” “Hallowe’en? People wear masks at Hallowe’en.” “Yes! They do!” “So that’s important?” “Not even a little bit.

Right. Big divergence in time stream. And it’s not actually possible to take over a Level 5 planet in a way that would satisfy the Shadow Proclamation unless . . .” “Unless what?” The Doctor stopped moving. He bit his lower lip. Then: “Oh. They wouldn’t.” “Wouldn’t what?” “They couldn’t. I mean, that would be completely . . .” Amy tossed her hair, and did her best to keep her temper. Shouting at the Doctor never worked, unless it did. “Completely what?” “Completely impossible. You can’t take over a Level 5 planet. Unless you do it legitimately.” On the TARDIS control panel something whirled and something else went ding. “We’re here. It’s the nexus. Come on! Let’s explore 1984.” “You’re enjoying this,” said Amy. “My whole world has been taken over by a mysterious voice. All the people are extinct. Rory’s gone. And you’re enjoying this.” “No, I’m not,” said the Doctor, trying hard not to show how much he was enjoying it.

“Easy. We’re looking for something that shouldn’t be here. Or we’re looking for something that should be here but isn’t.” “What kind of thing?” “Not sure,” said the Doctor. He rubbed his chin. “Gazpacho, maybe.” “What’s gazpacho?” “Cold soup. But it’s meant to be cold. So if we looked all over 1984 and couldn’t find any gazpacho, that would be a clue.” “Were you always like this?” “Like what?” “A madman. With a time machine.” “Oh, no. It took ages until I got the time machine.”