Every once in a while, I publish not in limited quantities, but for limited periods. A gimmick to drive sales? Perhaps, but equally, it connects with my obsession with time, and specifically its brevity in terms of life lived.
In 2016, I marked the leap year by publishing a pamphlet containing two short stories – ‘Something Must Break’, which had previously only been available as an e-book on publication in 2014, and ‘Dream of the Flood,’ penned over the 2016 holidays in response to the floods which hit York that Christmas.
Christmas 2018 seemed an appropriate time to republish, partly as a commemoration where the latter story is concerned, and partly because the former is perhaps one of the bleakest, darkest pieces I’ve written to date.
I often say I switch off to write as a means of avoiding self-censorship, and on revisiting the alternating narrative of ‘Something Must Break’, a story of psychological disintegration and separation, parts of it felt quite shocking even to me.
As I continue to work on the follow-up to Retail Island, which should be out some time in 2019, I’m in a rather different headspace, although as we inch toward the final hours of 2018, it’s perhaps an appropriate time to reflect.
Republished – with alternative cover art – on Christmas Eve 2018, to be deleted at midnight on 31 December 2018, ‘Something Must Break / Dream of the Flood’ is available via the link which is the image blow.
Christopher's Headspace 