Welcome to Nicola's Weblog. Copyright Nicola Batty (c) 2010 - 2012. If you can see html code or can't see the sidebar links please use a different browser. I use Google Chrome now.
I am a writer of novels, plays and film scripts. I live in Manchester England with my partner Andy and our teenage son Jack. Andy and I started my Newsletter Raw Meat and began publishing with Rawprintz in 1999 to showcase my work. Some of you may be confused by my continual references to Ziggy, that’s my wheelchair! Both Andy and I are writers. I’ve recently lost my sight – hence the continual reference to my being confused!
Thanks for visiting.
I can still feel the light behind me fading slowly, casting my shadow across the dining room table. I watched my mum move busily back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, clearing away the dishes… I watched her with a lazy pair of eyes that had seen it all before, many times. Seen it all before, still watching and waiting. All that was twenty five years ago, though I remember it all so clearly. I think I may possible have cleared my plate before I spoke, but it’s only a possibility.
“You know,” I remarked, “I’d be totally lost without my sight.”
Ziggy’s arm creaked slightly as I lent upon it, shifting my weight to get into a more comfortable position. My wheelchair is my friend now - Ziggy it’s called. I still watched my mum even though she had started to move back and forth between the rooms, her attention caught by my words. She dried her hands very slowly and carefully on the tea towel, taking a few tiny steps across the carpet towards me until she was standing right by me, almost leaning against Ziggy.
“Yes,” she agreed, “I think you would be.”
That was it, the sum total of our intimate conversation. But I’ve been thinking of it now, and it feels quite distant even though I remember it all so distinctly. I saw the light fading slowly, and I see it still, the light fading slowly away from me. It won’t ever be diminished completely. I don’t feel frightened any more, for all that has changed… the “I” has become dissipated, fragmented into multiple beings, some living, some dead. They are all me, different facets of me. I have become contained within each self, each being… and every one of them can both see and be seen.
And behind me the light still fades slowly, ever more slowly from the sky… and yet the darkness will never descend and smother me completely.
The entire corridor fell suddenly silent as George’s final question hung in the air. Elvira and Bart exchanged nervous glances, edging slightly closer to each other, wondering what exactly was moving towards them.
”What’s going on ?” demanded George in her most aggressive tone of voice, “What’s that?” she pointed over Elvira’s left shoulder to a strange circle of light which moved with an unnerving grace towards them, closer and closer. It seemed to be almost like a candle, but then it had no substance to it whether it be wax or something else, no substance at all only light. The group of figures became suddenly aware of the presence of Alice, the little illustrated figure with her black and white edges curling as they slightly moved, edging into the limelight, falling to her knees- centre stage all the time. Elvira watched her uneasily.
“What’s going on, Alice? What’s wrong?” She asked quietly, trying to take Alice’s paper thin hand. But the little girl pushed her away.
“Leave me alone!” she cried out in a shrill shaky voice. “This is my moment! You may have thought I was only a Victorian illustration, dead and gone - but that’s where your wrong. I’m still alive, and I’ve seen the light. Here it is, it’s moving towards me - this is my moment, my moment of awakening. Everything else is nothing, it’s all nothing… it doesn’t matter. You all don’t matter… I don’t matter either, in fact nothing matters. We’re all just figures from books.”
For a while nobody said anything - for what could be said in reply to such a statement of truth? Then George took a step towards Alice’s papery edges, reaching out and tentatively feeling them. For a moment Elvira wondered if she would rip them deliberately and she got her wand ready to raise if necessary, but Gorge pulled her hands quickly away from Alice as if the feel of the old paper stung her.
“Well whoever you are, I don’t know what you’re talking about… but it all sounds pretty religious to me… and I certainly don’t go along with all that great spiritual awakening stuff. It ‘s all rubbish and went out with the Victorians - which is maybe where you belong. I don’t know who you are… I’ve never read your book and I must say I’m glad.” Alice wavered slightly as though wondering whether to turn the page. Her voice rose in the air once again, even shriller as though touched with panic.
“How can you speak to me like that? You must have read Alice in Wonderland surely… how can you possible diminish my spiritual awakening, even if it wasn’t made explicit in the book? This is it, it’s happening now.”
The tall man standing behind George suddenly laid his hand on his daughters shoulders and cleared his throat loudly.
“You’ll forgive me for interrupting your little scene… but George, don’t you remember me giving you Alice in Wonderlandwhen you were younger? Surely you remember that?”
George stared at Alice’s illustrated form aggressively.
“Well, maybe… but I don’t remember the story at all, so it can’t have made much impression on me,” she muttered. The strange circle of light still hovered a few feet above their heads, glowing with such an unnatural brightness that its reality seemed very doubtful to all of them. George continued stabbing her forefinger towards Alice, each movement punctuated her words. “All the Victorians were religious - and that’s obviously where you belong back with them, you should never have left them… what are you doing here anyway? We’ve come on quite a long way since those days of great spiritual awakenings… all that crap, all that rubbish - there’s absolutely nothing to awaken to, no truth, no nothing. I’m a real modern boy, don’t you know?”
Behind her Uncle Quentin took his hands away from her shoulders with a marked air of significance.
“Do you mind Georgina? May I remind you that you are not in fact a boy, you… you’re my daughter? Whether you’re religious or not, it doesn’t make any difference.”
