Sharing a Secret

Character Monologues from "The Secret" (working title)

1. The Medium

[Voicenote from 20th June 2024, 11.38pm]

The reverse mentoring session went well. I think I might maybe learn something from these upstart youngsters telling me what I've forgotten about. I thought it was just PR bull-twaddle. Nice to know something can be trendy and great for my latest profile in the Sunday bloody papers, but also, you know, useful. 

Got home at 8.20. Dinner was a slight disaster - got distracted with… some emails and a panicky text coming in, and let the cassoulet catch just a little. Covered the charcoal tinge with a little more red than usual. A trifle merry on a Thursday night. Mmm, trifle. What would the board say? Probably nothing. Why challenge their lord and saviour, eh? Women aren’t just ladies. They can be lords!

I love trifle.

I used to sum up my day like this every night. When I was fighting for it all. But now, life’s very, well, flowy. Just meanders. Like a depressed snake.

Anyway, I’m rambling. 

Goodnight.

No, I’m doing the thing… I hate it. Not facting up to the face. Facts. Facting up to the facts. Keeping mum under the rug.

I saw one again. When I came home.

Just like before. They’re just like… anyone. But in my lonely hallway.

They don’t ever know who they are. They’re shocked when they surprise me. They don’t know what they are. They’re just floating through. Not literally floating, like bloody Casper. But I know they’re… not alive. 

I don’t need this. I’ve got everything I need. People who do my every bidding, people who challenge me… when I ask.  I don’t need lost souls. With their questions.  

I need pudding… 

[Voicenote ends]

2. The Scientist

20th June 2024

Dear Marie,

What I’m sending over might come as a shock. But you know me: it’s rigorous, within the limitations of working tout seul. I know you will only allow me to call it parascience. But it is GROUNDBREAKING. 

I want to explain why I really moved to this quiet little place. Of course you know why I left. But I chose this village specifically. It’s one of those literal perfect storms of all the elements I thought we required - a large quantity of dispersed and low-level radioactive material, an almost conical valley to focus the constructively interfering gravitational waves and gamma radiation and very little in the way of modern electromagnetic interference, thanks to an ageing and contented population. They seem to love cribbage and knitting scenes to adorn every free public space. They couldn’t care less about the new fangled things, like Facebook or Ask Jeeves. It’s refreshingly 1970s.

It’s taken me decades, but I’ve built up my own collection of equipment to get back to where we were. I’m not trying to move you to my ways of thinking. I failed for long enough. But I have captured irrefutable evidence of something that I think represents a coagulation of energy in a form perceived as physical by our limited consciousness. Before you start throwing around the word ghost and reminding me of 1985 and my episode, please remember that ghost is just a label for something we don’t yet understand. Not to spoil my conclusion, but I have suggested we go with the Homily Anomaly.

If you can find it in your heart to read the paper I’ve attached, you might be interested enough to come and visit. I am willing and able to secure a room at the local inn for you to stay. I wouldn’t want to muddy any now long-clear waters. Your rigorous appraisal and eventual approval for the work I’ve been doing is more important than the anger I expect and deserve. 

Hopefully yours,

Bertie

Professor Bertram Homily PhD, FRCPath, FRSE

3. The Preacher

Sermon for Sunday 23rd June 2024

(admin, admin, prayers, AMEN, etc)

Have you ever actually talked to God? Quite a question from a man whose job it is to be the conduit on earth, your personal lightning rod. I’m essentially delegating my responsibilities. Pah, can’t be bothered any more, bit too busy with my socials for the great one upstairs, I’m sure you’ll do just as good a job as me.

No really, have you ever actually talked to God? I first tried it when I was six. I saw someone praying at their bedside on some terrible crime drama my dear mum was watching, and I asked her “What are they doing?”, and she said “Praying I guess”. Being the first time I’d encountered anything approaching the workings of the universe that didn’t click together neatly and stick to a ridgy board, or go on fire with my magnifying glass, I asked what she meant. And she explained that some people, not her, but some people, like to think there’s someone they can talk to who’ll sort out all of their problems, who isn’t really there but is just in their head.

And that was the start of a twenty year long road, from there to here, right now. Talking to someone who isn’t really there, in that they are not anything we can really comprehend, but who is resolutely and definitely in my head, and all of yours. And in every living thing around us.

That night, I copied what that character did, and kneeled down, slippers falling off at the back, dressing gown cords dangling, and asked (overact here) “Why did Jimmy have to die?”

Jimmy was my pet worm, and he’d stopped his life-filled wriggling that afternoon. I didn’t get an answer. Not directly. But I did think about the crime show and the bags they zipped up. And my dad, and where he’d gone. And I thought, it’s just what happens sometimes. All times, of course.

So I DID get an answer. And I’ve kept getting answers, or at least worked my way towards them. Just by closing my eyes. And concentrating. 

But I think, since I’ve moved here, to this little place full of all of your lives, I think I’ve actually started talking to God.

They sit over there almost every night. Never before 7, and usually by 8. (don’t be too specific)

And we have a chat. They’re a little bit vague. They’re funny. But they seem like they’re exactly like what I speak to in my head. A great mirror. Reflecting me back to myself. So I think I’ve actually talked to God. They call themselves Carol. But that might just have been on the posters from Christmas.

I suppose what I’m saying is, talking is good. And that you must always talk with good intent, and listen with care, and God will be there. Even if it is just you. But other people are better.

(forget the Carol stuff, it works without it. Don’t want to seem mad three weeks in…)

4. The Ghost

I’ve always loved this church. Well, I think I have. I love it now. It often looks beautiful as the sun sets behind it. To be honest, it looks beautiful in the pouring rain, even on the greyest day.

When I’m looking at it, I’m just looking at it, you know. I’m not thinking about me. Who I was.

It’s the same when I talk to Bertie. I don’t always know every word he’s saying, but it sounds like he knows things. The only problem is, he can’t always see me. Too busy with his important work I suppose.

Vicki is even more distracting from my problems but not in a good way. She’s always on edge. Must be her job, she’s in charge of something big. Planes? Whales? Wales? I can’t remember.

I think my best friend is the one who works in that church. Ben. He calls me Carol. I think he said once that it was his mum’s name.

Anyway, it’s a lovely church.