Category Archives: Island News

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Goole, in tribute to a lost genius

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By Reverend Davies

He was a rare and remarkable being, and it may for once be fair to say ‘we shall never see his like again’.

The first time I encountered Goole, I had gone to the sea, feeling a personal need to shout the names of the lost, at the water. There are so many whose fates remain uncertain, and I find those so much harder to bear than the ones I am able to properly bury. I was deep in grief. And then, there came to me a most remarkable sound. A song of hope and aspiration, of determination, underpinned by a willingness to take joy in whatever small goodness this cruel world offers. It stopped me in my tracks.

Goole later told me that this is because I had experienced a ‘showstopper’. I’d not heard the term before, but it will live on with me, and keep me alert to those rare, precious moments when life itself pauses in this way.

That he was some sort of bird never seemed that important. That he spoke with human dignity mattered far more to me. That he was there on those days of grief when all I could do was shout at the sea. There have been many such days. How many times did his generous songs lift my battered soul on its wings?

We lack for beautiful music here. Rare indeed is the voice that can move me, or the song that can penetrate my heart. He had those. I will miss him dreadfully. In the end he died a pointless, foolish death, caught by a gust of wind and dashed against the cliffs. In his final moments I heard him call out ‘oh, here we go again’.  The incoming tide took his body. I will shout his name at the sea.

 

(Goole came to Hopeless from the magical dales of Matlock the Hare. Reverend Davies is the only sentient being ever to have appreciated Goole’s singing. Find out more about Matlock the Hare here – https://www.matlockthehare.com/

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Skye Wilde was not cynical enough

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By Frampton Jones

Longstanding residents of the island know that it pays to be a bit heartless sometimes. You only get to be a longstanding resident if you can protect yourself in this way. It is a sorry truth, and certainly it does not make us the best people imaginable, but we get to continue as people.

As a fairly recent arrival, Skye had not acquired the levels of deliberate apathy most islanders cultivate in self defence. However, there are no doubt others who can and will learn from this, and whose lives may be spared as a consequence. Perhaps this would provide the deceased with some consolation.

I grant you, it did sound very much like a small child. It sounded like a small child in great distress, crying and howling on the far side of the bridge over the River Gaunt. At twilight. I heard it myself on the previous evening, and hurried in the opposite direction.

Onlookers who had taken bottles to the bridge report that they had a brief conversation with Skye about what they were doing. When the wailing began, they reacted like sensible people turning their backs, intent on making a swift getaway. Skye, unused to such things, was understandably horrified. The longstanding islanders (who of course wish to remain anonymous, for there is little glory in this tale) did not want to hang around trying to explain why one does not hang around, much less offer assistance in such circumstances.

And so it was that Skye Wilde crossed the bridge and entered into the ruins of Gaunt Town, in search of a crying child.

We all know there was no crying child. There never was. Those wiser people who had left her to her fate report hearing a brief scream, after which there was no further note of youthful distress, and no further sign of Skye as the lengthening shadows consumed the landscape, and everything in it.

There will be no funeral, for there will be no body to retrieve. As Skye had no family on the island, I have made it my business to add a bottle at the bridge, as an offering, a warning, a small act of defiance.

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Paul Davies has spread himself too thinly

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By Frampton Jones

Come to the firework display, he said. Bring your children, he said. It will be fun.

While for most children this won’t have been the first experience of seeing a person die horribly, it’s always that bit harder to deal with when you’ve promised them an entertaining night out.

Miss Calder, of the Pallid Rock Orphanage was furious after Paul Davies’ firework display turned into a shower of human remains. “He’s done this before, but never exploded himself in the past. It’s just not good enough. If he comes back from the dead, I certainly won’t be taking any more orphans to see his displays.”

As a cousin of Reverend Davies, Paul Davies had a long history of providing amusement to the inmates at the orphanage. His various skills with combustible substances had, in the past, made him popular with children and adults alike. However, his final show left an unpleasant taste in our mouths. In many cases, literally.

Some effort was made after the event to scrape up the remains and collect them, but most of the people covered in bits of Paul Davies were keen to remove the carnage and less concerned about where it ended up. Some of him was definitely licked up by a small dog. A jug of material was gathered.

Reverend Davies said, “It will be rather undignified trying to provide a proper funeral for a jug of goo, but needs must.”

When asked if he would miss his cousin, he thought for a little while and said, “No.”

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Michael Dalloway – lost in time

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By Frampton Jones

Michael Dalloway was always confident that his wife would be along any day now, to collect him. If he told a true tale, and she really was a time traveller, then it may be supposed that his death will be no great barrier to this.

Time is such a troublesome thing that I have no idea why anyone would try to further complicate their relationship with it. Mr Dalloway of course is hardly the first visitor we’ve had for whom the time of departure for the journey that led here is as much a conundrum as the place of it. I can only assume that there is more to time and space than I am able to imagine. This thought does not comfort me.

I find, as I try to write something to mark the passing of Michael Dalloway, that I know far less about him than I do his wife. This is curious, having never met her. Many were the tales he told of her time travelling exploits, her detective work, and a talking dog called Elgie. Was any of it real? We shall never know. I have heard so many fancy and improbable tales from shipwrecked folk that I must either believe that all the world beyond Hopeless is mad, or that shipwrecking here drives people out of their wits. This seems likely, to me.

What we know then, of Michael is that he told a good tale and that perhaps this is more important than whether those tales were objectively true. Perhaps the belief in a time travelling wife who would one day rescue him kept him going in these otherwise bleak circumstances. Perhaps, in our anarchic culture, the idea of solving crime and handing out justice acted as a balm. He certainly kept us entertained, and I think that is how we will remember him.

And not the bit at the end. The messy bit. It is so easy to allow death to define the life before it, especially when writing one of these, but perhaps we should not. Perhaps we should remember the stories, and imagine that she really did come for him in the end, and not dwell too much on the infestation, or what he eventually did with his own entrails.

 

You can find time travelling detective Deirde Dalloway here – http://detectivedalloway.com/ 

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Rachel Patterson will be sorely missed

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By Frampton Jones

Rachel Patterson was always surprising. She brought an end to the longstanding belief that witches had to be born on the island, having shipwrecked here with discernible magical skills. She was the first person to talk openly about keeping agents of change in your kitchen – although I suspect she wasn’t the first person to try that. She talked about cake in a way that made grown men weep.

Her final act on the island will have lasting consequences, no doubt. We may now know what was going on with that series of uncanny cat deaths. I am still trying to make sense of witness reports, personal experiences, surmises and physical evidence, but this is what I currently believe happened.

We know that there had been some kind of conflict between Rachel and some of the island vampires. The details are vague, but there is every reason to believe the O’Stoats were involved. Durosimi O’Stoat is notoriously intolerant of people who will not do his bidding. He is a difficult man to say ‘no’ to and that’s as far as I’m prepared to go reporting my personal experiences.

There is a widespread belief that some kind of magical feud had begun. There is little clear evidence for this, aside from the conclusion itself which certainly points that way. Witnesses in the vicinity of The Crow two nights ago report that Durosimi O’Stoat summoned an enormous and terrifying cat demon to attack Rachel Patterson.

Mrs Ephemery, who has a good eye for things occult, told me, “This one was different from his usual demons. It seemed to be based on living matter rather than a cobbling together of dead things.” She speculated that he had made the cat demon out of a variety of cats and that this is why it had such a robust presence.

A person untroubled about offending O’Stoat might conclude that there could be some kind of connection between this new cat demon, and the recent spate of cat-related deaths.

Rachel put up an impressive fight, by all accounts. The outcome is unclear, other than that we have lost a remarkable islander. Bring your best cooking to the wake.

 

Find out more about Rachel Patterson’s kitchen witchcraft here – https://www.rachelpatterson.co.uk/

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Dr. Corvus Marconi has held his last séance

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By Frampton Jones

 

Mentalist magician and séance conductor Dr Corvus Marconi has died suddenly in confusing circumstances.

Doc Willougby, who was himself present at the fatal séance ascribes the death to Dr Corvus Marconi banging his head repeatedly onto the table. “It was a silly way to go,” he told me. “I don’t know what he was thinking, but these magical types are a funny lot.”

Mithra Stubbs, also present at the séance told me that it was hard to tell whether Corvus was beaten to death by angry ghosts, or having some kind of fit after Doc Willoughby put a little drop of something in his tea, or both.

“There are no ghosts,” Doc Willoughby said. “The man was a charlatan. Definitely no ghosts. He pretended to call up some of my recently deceased patients, which was, frankly, offensive. But not so offensive as to give me a motive for killing him, obviously. He may have reacted badly to the whiskey, people do sometimes.”

Mithra Stubbs said “As far as I could make out, the ghosts were angry at having been called back and afraid they’d be stuck here. They were also pointing at Doc Willoughby a lot and shouting at him but as there were a lot of them, it was hard to make out words.”

Séances have always been a controversial activity – those who are dead and present to us find it preferable if people just visit them to chat. People who have departed, it is often argued, should not be brought back. We do not know why some of the dead remain and others do not, and it does not seem wise to interfere with the process. Currently the question of whether Corvus will return, and whether there should be a séance held to talk to him, is being hotly debated amongst fans of his work.

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Nick could not outrun death

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By Frampton Jones

It is my sorry duty to announce that Nick Rossert has departed this life, and his other life, having failed to get out of the way of a slow moving piece of machinery.

We’ve grown used to werewolves in recent years. We’ve all learned not to go out at full moons – not that many of us go out in the dark anyway. We learned to cope with the more threatening eyebrows, the weird food cravings, the occasional psychotic rampage. Despite that, none of us ever really came to terms with what Nick did in his other skin.

Many of us have known for some time now that Nick transforms. It’s not at the full moon, always. It’s hard to predict. But transform he did, into something slower, hairier and less able to flee from peril. In his were-form, Nick often retreated to the trees and it wasn’t unusual to find him hanging upside down from a branch, waiting for the effects to wear off.

No one seems to know what manner of creature he became, or why he felt so moved to eat leaves when in this state. Why not blood, like the rest of our uncanny citizens? Why shift into the skin of something so slow, so unable to defend itself?

No one knows.

Witnesses at the scene described to me the experience of watching the old, wheeled device crawl slowly towards Nick, while Nick in his transformed state began to lift one limb, clearly unable to make a getaway. The witnesses, who wish to remain anonymous, say that they would have helped him if it hadn’t been so funny, and that by the time they stopped laughing it was too late. They tell me they feel bad about that – and so they should.

One three toed paw remained intact after the machine passed over him. It has been laid to rest. No one will ever know the truth about him now, and we are the poorer for that.

 

On an entirely unrelated note… Nick runs Sloth Comics, which publishes Hopeless Maine.  http://www.slothcomics.co.uk/

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Don’t say you weren’t warned

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By Frampton Jones.

Jasper Horace Ganache should, it turns out, have paid more attention to this year’s horrorscopes. Granted, it’s never easy to tell who exactly will die from these readings of the night sky, but paranoia is your friend. We now know that Jasper was the person for whom the warning about bagpipes were intended all along.

The bagpipes washed ashore all by themselves. I am told that numerous beachcombers saw them, but, mindful of this year’s predictions, did not approach the sodden instrument as it lay at the high tide line. A wise decision for which you can feel rightfully smug.

Jasper not only approached the washed up bagpipes, but went so far as to pick them up and take them home. No one claims to have tried to stop him. And while the horrorscope itself predicted that the squealing of bagpipes would presage death, no one thought to rush in and slash the bag before any harm could occur. Who knows how many people might have suffered if Jasper had made his home in a busier part of town? It has not been a noble day for us.

The noise that came from the bagpipes caused nose and ear bleeds amongst residents in the Silver Street area. There was a great deal of spontaneous wailing as well, but no additional deaths that anyone has noticed. Did Jasper attempt to inflate the unwholesome bag? Or was there something inside the instrument all along, waiting to find a suitable victim.

Having observed the body, Doc Willoughby noted that there is an odd resemblance between the deceased’s skin and the fabric of the bagpipe. “The body often expresses sympathy with the mode of death,” he told me. “I’ve seen this myself when marks in the shape of my own hands have appeared on the bodies of people I was trying to save.”

As there is some concern that Jasper is becoming a set of bagpipes himself, he has been carefully bound ahead of burial and will be weighted down with a substantial cairn just to be on the safe side. There will be no music of any sort at the funeral.

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Lindsay died of hairy coffee

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By Frampton Jones

The Brown Lining coffee shop is usually a quiet place. Few people who drink there once are moved to re-visit. For most of us, a single cup of Master Scutcheon Bugleblower’s infamous brew is more than enough. There is the lure of the novelty, the desire to test one’s robustness against the effects of the hairy coffee. It may be something of a rite of passage to down a cup of the hideous brew.

Lindsay was a recent arrival to the island. I can only assume she came to us from a place where coffee is not a thing to mistrust. Truly, she had a remarkable constitution. Eye-witnesses claim that she has been to The Brown Lining every day since her arrival, often downing more than one cup of the infamous hairy coffee, and showing every signs of enjoying it. Such an unusual occurrence was this, that crowds had started to gather to watch through the window as she smiled at Master Scutcheon and drank cups of the beverage, seemingly oblivious to the hairiness of it.

Consequently there were many witnesses to that final cup. Apparently the hairy coffee reached up towards her face, flowing upwards in a truly disturbing manner and killing her instantly.

Her body remains where she sat in life. The hairy coffee remains active. No one has ventured into The Brown Lining, although Master Scutcheon himself has been out into the street several times. He told me he is hoping that he will be able to harvest fungi from Lindsay, who may, he tells me, be the Goddess Kafeteria herself, manifesting physically so as to bring us even hairier coffee for the future. Thus far, no one has tried to stop this gruesome plan.

Doc Willoughby, having viewed the body through the window told me, “this is what happens when you let women go out by themselves, they never…” but was unable to finish the statement as three Miss Joneses laid into him with assorted blunt weaponry.

 

Islanders who do not properly appreciate the dangers and delights of hairy coffee can find out more here – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2017/05/19/master-scutcheons-hairy-coffee/

Births, Deaths, Marriages, Island News

Christopher Miles had it coming

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By Frampton Jones

Who could have killed Christopher Miles? There are so many people with motives that I fear we shall never know the truth.  It could have been any of us, so let me be first to say… but of course it was not me…

Currency here on the island has always been a simple business. The number on the coin is generally taken to indicate the worth of the coin. Exceptions may be made if the substance of the coin is deemed more valuable than the number suggests, but we’ve always been able to settle that in traditional ways. Bargaining, pleading, shouting, punching, threatening and so forth. On the whole, our systems worked very well.

Then Christopher Miles shipwrecked here, with his notions of exchange rates, relative values, currency fluctuations, market prices and a thousand other terms that were as impressive as they were impenetrable.

As is always the way of it, there are always ears open to ideas here. Always people ready to break with custom for the sake of personal advantage. But none of us really knew what we were doing and so it came down to Christopher himself to determine the relative value of coins, and settle disputes.  It was only natural that anyone on the wrong end of his judgements would hold him personally responsible for the consequences. There were so many of us with grudges.

But now he has dead, and we can stop hitting each other with blunt objects and settle back down to using the numbers on the coins to measure their worth again, and we can all have pies, and pints, and hairy coffee and all the simple joys that make life bearable. And you can all go back to paying what you used to pay for copies of The Hopeless Vendetta, thank you very much.

Doc Willoughby said to me, “Much as I hate to ever accuse anyone of murder, there were an awful lot of stab wounds, more than a chap might do to himself in despair. It’s hard to stab yourself in the back, although you’d be surprised about how many people do that to themselves. I have no idea who did it of course. I never met any of them. I wasn’t there. Someone else might have seen it, but I most certainly did not, he was dead long before I saw his body.”

And for once, I find myself in absolute concurrence with the wisdom of our good Doctor.