SUMMER OF HOLLOWS: Week Four

You know those old-timey diarists and letter writers? I can’t think of any of them in particular right now but they’re always saying things like “March 7th. Wrote nothing. Incalculably sad. I have purchased myself a horse” or “September 22nd. Wrote nothing. S visits and tells me of the new exhibition at the Met; sounds interminable, but I agree to visit Wednesday next out of civic duty” and the like.

Well, I’ve had one of those weeks. (Not that I wrote nothing, or bought a horse, but.) After a year of being Basically Fine Almost All The Time, it seems like my depression has once again turned up to make my life harder than it needs to be, and I find myself:

- Unenthused

- Unwashed

- Unshaven

- Forgetful

- Tired

- Malnourished

- Immobile

Etc. It’s a shame; I was really enjoying being functional and happy. In a surprising move, I have decided simply to Not Be Depressed, by which I mean I am attempting to tidy my surroundings, engage in creative endeavours, go for walks in the woods, enjoy myself and connect with those around me. I’ll see how it goes. We’re not there yet but it’s a damn sight more enjoyable than moping around.

In the meantime because I have achieved so little with regards to my main project this week, and that can be disheartening at the best of times, I have written this instalment of the Hollows diary like one of them old-timey diarists. None of it is made up but I used different words and described things weird. I hope you enjoy it.

---

July 10th. I fear I have been once again struck with the doldrums. Dragging oneself out of bed is fraught with peril and three times as arduous as it needs to be. Work today consists of writing sales copy, which you know is nails-on-a-blackboard to my poet’s soul. M’s sister visits; we take dinner at the Rivelin, which was unremarkable.

July 11th. Dragged to Chester for training; taught by an ex-military chap about bandaging arterial bleeds, checking breath, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, and the like. Took lunch, which was rushed, and my companion received a piece of fried fish roughly the size of Wales. We talked of his youth in Egypt and I picked at my fried potatoes.

I am now trained to dispense aspirin to anyone suffering from a heart condition, but I wrote no words. I hope someone starts dying in front of me or this whole day was a waste of time.

July 12th. Weather entirely unable to decide what it wants to do, and keeps barging out of the dressing room in new outfits demanding our opinion; first blustering grey, then garish too-hot sunshine, then rain enough to make one hang out of the back door whilst smoking rather than step foot in the treacherous outdoors.

Go on not one but two walks in an attempt to chivvy myself out of this dumbness; neither have the desired effect. Allotment is fine and potatoes growing well; M weeds while I fuss about with the tomatoes.

The notes from my readers on the upcoming vampire pulp book have returned; all sensible stuff but always heartbreaking to discover that I am not the automatic carefree genius I dream of being. Spend the afternoon excising the most problematic content from a wholly problematic game, tweezering out controversy and cautiously buffing down the more jagged edges.

July 13th. New vests arrive after I ordered them last week; I have been wearing nothing but old clothes for the last year or two. Temporarily buoyed by this - one has an octopus on it, and is printed in gold! - so C and I finish the Shotgun (attached), and I make inroads on the Armour.

What a challenging beast! A Weapon with no attacks. A selfish team player. I recall the sweltering heat of Modena a year previous where, in a panic no doubt caused by dehydration, C grabbed a paper tray and sketched out what would become the Armour right there on the concourse of the fiere as the northern Italian sun beat down upon our brows.

The concept of switching between states is one that has always fascinated him, and I’ll admit more than a passing dalliance with it myself. We settled on Protected and Exposed; one set of abilities for one state, one for another, and how one switched became paramount.

Absolute guff, of course. Looking back upon our work now, I am simultaneously delighted at how far we have come as artisans and dismayed at our initial graceless scratchings. This stuff reads like a lawyer wrote it with their off-hand; bitty, somehow exacting and imprecise, unsatisfying, banal. We throw most of it out.

Armour is switched to one state rather than two - Ready - and it can be held and expended like Focus. It is the currency of not immediately dying, or rather - given how unutterably dull it is to simply not be harmed when one is doing this sort of thing - it is the currency of retributive strikes, of bolsters and boosts, of tricks and gambits.

After work, I smoke and cook dinner for M and I; pork loin, sauteed cabbage, new potatoes. Simple fare. We meet with J and M and play cards until well past the hour we ought to have gone to bed, and then we go to bed.

July 14th. Struck with a dreadful creative numbness. Weather insipid: sky stained grey, thin sheets of rain sliding sideways in the wind. With great umbrage I put on a jumper at 10:30am, covering my new vest (this one has a vampire on it).

C came to visit; we ate sausage hash, smoked cigarettes, drank coffee, talked at length about the latest scandals, and achieved very little with respect to word count. We round out the Armour, finishing it, but all subsequent attempts at writing are fruitless. (The redesign is attached.)

It reaches dinner time and it is only then I realise that I have not made any plans for it; I am cast adrift by this mood. After much arduous thought I make a soda bread with the spelt I purchased last month, and it comes out almost perfect - steaming-hot and soft in the centre, slathered in thick knifefuls of butter, torn into quarters alongside some warmed-over stew. I eat with gusto for the first time in days.

---

- G