So I just speak? Right, well, I suppose I had better start at the beginning. I think I was about nine years old. My parents were paid nearly £3000 by British Telecom to allow the installation of a telephone pole in our back garden. With two daughters (me being the younger), and the recession leaving them unemployed, it must have been an easy offer for them to accept. I remember my childhood better than most people, and in particular I remember the workmen coming to put up the pole, and my mum telling me to go and ask them if they wanted a cup of tea and a biscuit. It only took a day, and after that we had a new, fascinating addition to the landscape, albeit one that my sister and I were forbidden from going too near.
Our house was set at the top of a hill, and our back garden overlooked a rolling valley, filled with high, swaying grass. You couldn’t even see the nearest house, which was at least a mile away. It was paradisiacal in the summer months, indisputably the most beautiful place I have ever had the fortune of living. I spent hundreds of hours playing in the stream that ran through the lowest point of the valley, turning over rocks and watching the freshwater shrimp wriggle and disappear into the silt a second later. We designated a tall bramble bush as our den. It had such thick overhang that the space below was always dry, and (unlike other, ill-fated den sites) devoid of fox shit. Next to it was ‘Dad’s Rock’, a small mossy boulder sticking out of the ground that my dad used to sit on to watch the birds fish in the stream. It was idyllic. But I’m getting off track. The telephone pole produced a strange fascination in me. We didn’t even have the internet in this part of the country for a few years after this incident occurred, so you can understand how the seemingly endless black wire, stretching off into the distance, was very intriguing. It was a single wooden pole, with a long metal strut attached to it, forking off into footholds at two-foot intervals, to allow access for maintenance. As I said, my mum had told my sister and I repeatedly, and very clearly, to stay away from it, and to never, ever touch the pole itself. Later that summer, after my parents had successfully found work as foresters, my sister and I were often alone in the house. She was eleven (turning twelve in September), and starting to get excited about the idea of going to big school. She was already exercising her newfound independence, and sometimes would make the long walk up the dirt track to the nearby village in order to visit some of her friends. You have to understand, this wasn’t considered absent parenting by any stretch. I think the last violent crime in that parish happened in 1805, when some nobleman was relieved of his gold pocket watch at dagger-point. We always felt completely safe, and anyway, I don’t think my parents ever found out about her little treks (she swore me to secrecy). By contrast, I grew increasingly bored with her absences, and although I tried to satisfy myself with the books that lined our living room walls, there is only so much reading a nine-year-old can do in a day. I started playing pretend in the garden, using bamboo poles as weapons to fight off imaginary swordsmen and pirates. I practised my balance by walking along the fallen tree that we used as a goal post for football matches when our cousins visited, and dragged big logs into our den to act as furniture. I even concocted a few schemes to trap one of the crows that frequented our bird table, using the upturned laundry basket, propped up with a stick, and some cat food as bait. I did catch one eventually, but I immediately felt so cruel and guilty for trapping the crow, which was so distressed by its predicament that it was frantically flapping its wings and cawing loudly. I freed it immediately, but I remember the fear in its dark eyes as I approached. From that day on, I never saw a crow in our garden again. Well, that’s not quite true. I saw three of them together in our garden once, a few months later. But I’ll get to that. Sorry, I don’t mean to take up too much of your time. I know you must be very busy. Anyway, during one of the long afternoons I spent alone, my mind turned, once again, to the telephone pole. It was a hot, humid day, the kind where it feels like you’re breathing in a steamy bathroom, and dark clouds were just starting to form in the sky. I had just finished defeating a pirate queen with my bamboo scimitar, and was catching my breath, when I found my attention caught by the pole. It suddenly seemed arresting, aggressively sticking out from its environment, like a giant spear that had been thrown from the heavens by a wrathful God. I dusted off my knees and wiped my grass-stained hands on my t-shirt as I stared at it. It was absorbing, and my legs begin to carry me towards it almost of their own accord. I yearned to sate my growing curiosity about the telephone pole. After all, if my sister was allowed to disobey our mother and take trips to the village, why shouldn’t I engage in a little rebellion of my own? As I approached it, I felt the strange sensation of the hair on my arms being pricked by what, in hindsight, must have been static electricity. A low buzzing sound filled my ears, and only grew louder as I approached the pole. I felt dread gathering at the back of my mind, but still, somehow I couldn’t stop myself walking closer and closer. It towered over me, seeming more and more vast the longer I stared at it. I reached out my hand and made contact with the warm, metal strut. As I ran my hand up and down the pole, the steel smooth on my palm, my mind calmed. It was meditative. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, transfixed by the sensation of serenity. The only thought I remember having is that all the birds had, for some reason, stopped singing. It was an awkward silence. And then, a blinding light seared my vision and the worst pain I have ever felt shot up my arm and through my body. I don’t remember beyond that—only a few flashes of the ambulance, and my mum stroking my hair as I drifted in and out of consciousness. My sister had been nearly home when she saw the lightning strike the telephone pole, and had sprinted as fast as she could. She found me ten feet away from it, convulsing as my body attempted to rid itself of the effects of the shock. Thank God, the doctor said, that my hands weren’t big enough to get a proper grip on the metal, or I would have been stuck there for a few seconds longer. Those few seconds would have killed me. Electricity causes muscle contraction, so I would have been stuck, unable to let go of the pole, and my heart wouldn’t have taken it. I was in the hospital for ten days. I would say it was the worst time of my life, but honestly, I wasn’t in much pain, and I got attention heaped upon me from family, friends, even my headmistress sent me a card. The doctors were somewhat baffled by how well I was doing—a specialist from London even came down to have a look. Apparently I had mild internal burns, insignificant nerve damage; even my eardrums were fine. I made a full recovery. The only sign anything had happened was a large red scar that had spread from my fingertips all the way up to my shoulder. It was forked, like the lightning that had burned it into me, and twinged regularly. On the day before I came home, my dad brought me a book that showed someone with the same scar. The book called it a ‘Lichtenberg Figure’. In most cases, the Lichtenberg figure fades within a few days, but for me, it appeared to be the only permanent consequence of being struck by 300 million volts of electricity. I wonder now if that’s significant. It seems too coincidental to not be, but I have never found any rational, scientific or even mythological explanation for what happened in the weeks, months, years that followed. There’s a reason I now live here, in Tokyo. Did you know, Tokyo has less than 8% of its land dedicated to public parks, green space, things like that? Even Paris has nearly 10%. It’s awful. But that’s why I’m here. My parents put me on bed rest as soon as I came home. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the toilet without an escort, lest I trip and stick my fingers in a plug socket or something. I told Mum that I hadn’t been touching the pole, only playing near it, but I could tell even then that she didn’t believe me. She and my dad put up a fence around it, nearly six feet high and made from thick concrete pillars and barbed wire. I hated it. It was ugly and imposing, not sleek and clean like the telephone pole was. Maybe it’s because the pole was, essentially, a repurposed tree trunk. It still belonged in the valley, even if it had been wrenched from the earth, stripped of its bark and its branches, and had metal rods jammed into it to make it fit the purpose humans had assigned to it. I feel as though the telephone pole never really forgot that. I got my dad to move my bed so it faced the window, so at least I’d have the opportunity to watch the clouds roll by as my summer holiday drew to a close. It was the week before school started that I saw the crows again. If you aren’t raised in the British countryside, you won’t know that crows can be complete bastards, especially to larger birds of prey, like red kites. If you ever see a big bird with a few smaller birds buzzing around it, what you’re actually witnessing is a glorified mugging, crows victimising any bird of prey that flies too close. But what I saw was… Well. I saw a dark shape smack into my window, and then fall to the ground like a stone. A flurry of black wings followed it, swooping impressively through the air. Of course, I ran to the window, so desperate for any break in the monotony of bed rest that I completely forgot my parent’s orders. And there, among the long grass of our back garden, was a writhing red kite, beautiful flight feathers askew and filthy from the dirt. Around it were three enormous crows, each taking turns to tear out more feathers from the downed hawk. They cawed at each other as they did, like they were laughing. I couldn’t look away, even as the scene grew more and more gruesome. The poor kite’s cries grew weaker as the crows dug their beaks and talons into its body. The largest of the three tore a string of flesh from the kite’s wriggling body and held it up, dripping. As though in triumph. As though it were showing me what it was capable of. Later that afternoon, I snuck out and buried the kite along the hedgerow. Despite my parent’s orders, I couldn’t leave its mutilated corpse there, in the middle of our garden. I felt someone should honour it, at least a little. And that night, I dreamt I was being attacked by a flurry of red kites, tearing at my nose and thrusting their grimy feathered heads into my mouth to peck out my tongue. Like I said, I only saw the crows on that occasion. But whenever I went exploring in the valley from that summer onwards, the valley felt different. The trees, once towering, protective figures, became crooked and wizened. My sister didn’t seem to even notice, but I did. Their fingers grew longer and spindlier, clutching at the air. And those trees began to overshadow my dreams too, as though their unnaturally long branches could creep into my mind. I remember that at the beginning my dreams were quite ordinary, with the exception of the trees, and sometimes the crows. It was only when I fell into the stream that they started to become more sinister. I was calf deep in the water, alone again, in October of the same year, when my sandal strap came undone and caused me to lose my balance. I slipped, and landed flat on my back in what should have been the stream. But instead, it was like I had fallen down through the silty bed and into a deep, black river, with rushing water dragging me downstream. I remember the shock forcing a gasp out of me, which then meant I inhaled some foul-tasting water and lost even more control of myself in panic. I thrashed about for what felt like minutes, desperate for something to cling onto, as I felt the horrific burning of water in my lungs creep its way up my throat. And then, as though someone had ripped a blindfold from my face, I was surrounded by light, coughing and spluttering. If it wasn’t for the deep scrapes in the mud around me that showed I had, in fact, been dragged some thirty feet from my bag and coat, I would have chalked it up to psychosis. I began to avoid the valley, and the stream in particular, but I think the damage had been done already. My dreams got worse—the river bank grew black hands, which would fling themselves out at me as I was dragged past by the flying current. The crows grew larger, their talons and beaks disproportionately so, knifelike and wickedly sharp. They only seemed to lessen when we went to visit my grandparents in London, but when I moved there to attend university, they were back in full force by the time I was in my second year. And there were incidents there too—being stalked home by several foxes which decayed more and more the closer they got, spewing maggots and cockroaches onto the pavement. There was an endless supply of rat problems in my flats, but the landlord could never find where they were coming from. I suppose that could just be how London landlords are, though. I’d had enough by 25, and moved up north, to Leeds, but it only got worse. The only peace I’ve found is in moving from city to city every few months. It’s as though I have a sign over my head, inviting every rotten fox or crow to harass me. But it used to take a year for them to find me—now it’s down to about two months. I’ve only been in Tokyo for six weeks, and yesterday three razor sharp leaves blew in through my door, and caused some quite serious cuts on my legs. It’s getting faster. I worry I only have a little time left before it catches up to me completely. At least now I’ve told someone. Thank you for listening to me. I think I’ll hang up now. It’s a good service you run here, are you all volunteers? Goodnight then. Goodnight. |