They

by Kay Dick

Artists do not have to be blinded or burned to be silenced; their suppression can be as simple as creating or maintaining economic precariousness and allowing books to fade away.

The observation recalls one of H. P. Lovecraft’s, in which he argues that there is no better evidence of the pervasive human dread that energizes the literature of ‘cosmic fear’ than ‘the impulse which now and then drives writers of totally opposite leanings to try their hands at it in isolated tales, as if to discharge from their minds certain phantasmal shapes which would otherwise xiiihaunt them.’

1984 in their own defence, making (you are sure) the opposite point the author himself was making.

Especiallu 1984, perhaps the single most abused book in human history. Also one that no one on the right, and some on the left, understand, as it straddles uneasily between a lurid bit of mccartyite anti communist, libertarian propaganda AND, curiously enough, ultimately supporting communist revolutionaries.

And it is easy – and not wrong, to be clear – to affix the label of ‘they’ onto the people who have specifically made the lives of artists and intellectuals hell: conservative politicians and reactionary pundits and pearl-clutching parents and cowardly institutions.

I remembered how they began, a parody for the newspapers. No one wrote about them now. That was too dangerous. They were an ever-possible encounter. A potential menace one had to live with.

She remembers little, except possibly the fire, which is why she walks into the pond every morning, to extinguish what memory remains. She is no threat to them now.’

‘It’s a matter of survival, not of suicide.’ He smiled. ‘The pockets are increasing. This is passive resistance positively demonstrated. The effect will be accumulative.’ 32

Gulliable naievity of the liberal

‘They look rather small seen from here,’

The January day had the pellucidity of a crystal. Unseasonable sun transformed the landscape. Winter bleakness acquired definition. Following weeks of rain the sharpness was invigorating. Downlands radiated colour. Brownish defoliated areas glinted purple tones. Leafless bramble and thicket sparkled with renewal of bud. Sodden lumps of green turf felt like moss under my tread.

Nice, if not a toutch overought

‘The rites of spring – premature, invoking the old man’s primitive superstitions; thus the fall, a sort of reverential awe,’ Julian said.

‘One starts adding up. Julian’s doing it all the time. Little things, irrelevancies, omissions, contradictions, ambiguities. He’s forever searching for reasons. And the reasons don’t satisfy.

There they were on the ridge. We looked behind us. A similar column in line, each one holding a pole to match his height. They began to move, downwards, with deliberate precision.

They broke formation, in slow motion, gyrated towards us, executing a pattern of zigzagging movements, crossing and recrossing one another’s steps.

We felt them as rank after rank of them moved past us. Pockets of air hit us as their intricate patterns of movement 46slid past us. I stumbled.

Fantastically evocative and creepy - only really Picnic at Hanging Rock has the same feeling of unexplainable unease

never deviating an inch from their rigid exercise.

body: it shone like steel.

them. I caught glimpses of eyes, heads, chests, arms, legs, and, ever, the shining steel poles. I saw the last three of them as they veered towards us.

An old woman was kneeling on one of the graves. She gave us the sign against the evil eye. 51

Two oak trees, giants in circumference, were welded together, a natural union, spanning years of time.

century dignity, once an abode of privilege, now a communal Centre for those who still practised their art – painters, sculptors, potters, weavers.

‘They’ve boarded up the post office. Redundant, they say. We are the only people who write and receive letters.’ 52

‘No, fear. We represent danger. Non-conformity is an illness. We’re possible sources of contagion. We’re offered opportunities to’, he gave a slight chuckle, ‘integrate. Refusal is recorded as hostility.’

with. I grew flowers and fruit. Periodically I left both flowers and fruit near my gate at night, gifts to those brave enough to accept them. Occasionally I put out a book but none dared take it. It was a way of talking.

Strinkingly Lockdown like! But also a vivid depiction of the neoliberal eviscerstion of any sense of community or society, utterly destroyed by the atomistic, indivudalistic, "bowling alone" mentality

‘Gradual abatement of the Art Centres. Operative from midnight. I think this calls for a party.’

‘It’s a legal closure of the Centre and its living quarters. They’ll offer each of us a house, which we can refuse. It’s all very correct in procedure, at this stage. There’s the ambiguity of choice.’

Clever pottayl of how official repression works - not with the crude hammer of the state but with the eradiction of real choice - as Chomsky notes, the way the media works is you have a wide range of opinion but within a structly bound topic. Ditto with political parties. 90% of media owned by 5 billionaries.

They are continually adding clauses to new bills. The closure of post offices indicates the possibility.

Good god its tory britain in 2022. Hatred of art, shutting down of all spaces of indeoendent cultural centers (Sunak - pandemic etc.) abandomebt of post office (albeit for slightly didfferent reasons).

The memory was a spur to imagination. Long time past such freedoms of will were possible.

I scooped about in the sand under the water and fished out a womb-shaped shell. A token for this light-hearted day. It would serve as a symbol to balance against the months of pain.

children, one girl and four boys. They jabbered like savages, indecipherable gang vocabulary. They eyed us with contempt.

One of them held a milk bottle, waving it high like a trophy. One finger acted as a stopper.

Sebastian grabbed it. It was partly filled wi...

The others we...

‘The isolation is getting worse,’ I said. ‘Why did Fiona go to the retreat?’ ‘Taken there,’ Sebastian said. ‘She could no longer sing. She became inactive.

I had forgotten that the world was round. Geometrically precise, the sea’s curve on the horizon stressed a childhood wonder. Sea and sky offered a comfort. I rubbed sea water over my face and arms and swung round with sudden joy.

The sightseers prefer concrete. Think of their passion for marinas, not for the boats, but for the car parks, the amusement arcades, the proliferation of restaurants and blocks of high-tower

tower apartments. They like to see the sea pulverized out of its natural area by concrete. They dislike the beaches for the same reasons; bathing in the sea is too uneasy a freedom, they prefer swimming pools. They like nothing better than to sit in their cars and look at the sea from the safe harbour of a monstrous marina complex.’

‘Hallo love,’ I said, every day to each morning. A greeting to space and time. A ritual. Keeping my hand in.

‘It’s all I have left,’ she said, then almost calmly, ‘I’ll not deny the pain.’

They all talked at the same time. No one listened to anyone else. No one laughed. Only Tim 101and I smiled at each other. They felt uneasy because there was no television set.

Tim gone, I resumed my daily life, using each hour as 102positively as I was able. Summer helped to ease the unattended moments which I filled with gardening, long walks, sunbathing and swimming. Night hours were used for work until, tired, I fell into bed and slept.

Picnic litter was thrown at their windowless walls, and small boys were encouraged to urinate against them.

I allowed myself the luxury of going utterly to pieces for forty-eight hours, moving like one demented through the hours, flooding my mind with old memories, metaphorically wailing at the wall of my loss.

‘a fantasy sprouting from some collective menopausal spasm in the national unconsciousness’.