Death of the Author

This is published in Permanent Emotion which is a captivating new anthology which highlights the exceptional writing talent currently emerging from the North of England. Edited by SJ Bradley and supported by the Walter Swan Trust, it features graduates of the Northern Short Story Festival Academy programme, which has played a crucial role in nurturing the unique voices of writers based in the North since 2017.



No two of these stories are the same: they range from playful, experimental narratives to folk horror, fantasy and reimagined fairy tales. Writers who received remote mentoring during the pandemic have captured the surreal, transformative nature of those times; others have contemplated the body-altering horrors of motherhood, or the freedom and wildness of nature. Together, their stories offer a map of the rich and varied literary landscape of the North.

You sit down to write. You are in your writing shed surrounded by your favourite things. You open a word document. You minimise ChatGPT with its enticing “send a message…”

You begin to write.

I’m back, back where it all started. Other than a layer of dust, the house hasn’t changed in the past five years. The smell of cigarettes still hangs in the air. I take the stairs two at a time, telling myself it can’t be – I can’t be here. The house was sold years ago. But I’m here. I’m touching the banister and feeling the worn thread of the carpet beneath my feet.

I near the bottom of the stairs and strain to hear. She can’t be there. She’s dead, I know it in my mind, but a lingering swell of hope pushes me around the corner and into the living room. I’m half expecting my mother to be sitting in the corner, one leg tucked under her, smoking a cig, and complaining we don’t visit enough.

Instead, her absence fills the room.

You stop. You have written yourself into a corner. Where is this going? You drown under the unyielding fear of failure. You remember the invitation. Send a message…

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

I stand there, in the middle of the empty living room, feeling a sense of disorientation wash over me. How did I get here? Why did I come back to this house, this place that holds so many painful memories? I take a deep breath, trying to push away the thoughts and emotions that threaten to overwhelm me. I need to focus on the present, on what’s in front of me.

You thank the AI overlord. Of course, it all makes sense now. You think about the room. You need to consider what is out of place. You admonish yourself for giving in to the twinkling dots promising that sweet elixir. Why worry, it asks you, why tie yourself up in knots?

Her black cup filled with tea and a tot of whisky sits beside the sofa. I touch it: cold. Of course it is. I take a deep breath and ask myself if there is any possibility this is real. I look at my hand where a wedding ring has been for the past two years. My finger is naked.

The sound of Rod Stewart drifts into the room. I follow the music and find her varnished wooden rocking chair groaning along to the music from the record player. I move slowly to the sound system, wondering why my senses insist on deceiving me. The plastic is spinning too slowly, the needle jumping back, playing the same circle over and over.

You can almost hear it calling you. “I can finish that for you.” You refuse to listen. You are quite capable of writing this story yourself. You managed it before this infernal AI made everything so easy. You wait, proud of your resolve. You wait longer. Maybe a couple of lines you think, definitely no more than that.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

I frown at the record player, feeling a wave of confusion wash over me. This is impossible. My mother passed away five years ago. I saw her take her last breath, held her hand until it went cold. I know she’s not here. And yet, everything in this room tells me otherwise.

I take a step back, trying to make sense of it all. That’s when I notice something odd about the photograph on the wall. It’s a picture of my mother, my father, and me, taken when I was a child. But there’s someone else in the picture now, someone who wasn’t there before. A young woman, with long brown hair and a bright smile. I don’t recognize her.

“Yes, I see,” you declare and start tapping the keys again.

I pinch myself, like they do in all good scary stories. I watch my skin whiten and then flush pink. I sit in the chair and the house sighs with relief. It hugs me and soaks me back into its bricks.

The music jumps and then stops but I think I can hear humming. The same tune, just out of earshot. I rock gently and close my eyes. Yes, humming low and melodic. Her favourite song. I whisper some of the words to the house and it warms and settles. Is she here? Did the house never let her go?

The sight of her pallid, lifeless face, mouth agape appears unbidden behind my eyelids. That was real, so this can’t be. This house will be filled with the songs of a new family. I open my eyes expecting to see the bedroom I share with my husband. I expect to feel the calming warmth of his skin against mine. I expect to leave this place once and for all.

The humming gets louder, and I see her in the shadows cast by the breach of the morning light.

“Mum?”
She doesn’t move.
I get up from the chair and move towards her.
“Mum, where have you been?”
She steps out into the light, her face still twisted in the throes of dying.
“Here,” she says, “waiting for you to visit.”