Victoria Sees It by Carrie Jenkins (love letters to the dead TXT) 📕

overhanging the edge, while I desperately squeezed the Book open and held it up to my face to blow the ash away. The spine creaked but did not break, and I managed to clear the ash in two puffs. But then, to my horror, I observed the thin line of spittle I had left in place of the previous airborne contaminant.

At that point it did finally occur to me to think: The universe has made a mistake. I am not the kind of person who holds this kind of object. Yet there it was, and here I was, and I’d proved my point by spitting on it, surely thereby failing whatever test the universe might have been administering to me. I laughed out loud, for a second, at the thought that I might apply for an aegrotat if I had failed the universe’s test.

Hearing the laugh gave me a horrible shock, as if I were suddenly realizing I was not alone. The sound reminded me so palpably of Deb’s laughter. Then I heard the sound break apart into broad sobs. There was no body in the room except my own. I was the one weeping. I set the Book down rapidly, not wanting to deface it still further with my tears.

On the open page, now slightly smeared with spit, I read the minutes of a meeting concerning Isaac Newton’s alchemical work, in pursuit of the fifth element and the philosophers’ stone. A substance to turn base materials into gold. I took a tiny reassurance from this, remembering how spectacularly wrong we can all be about so many things.

Beside me, the errant cigarette quietly burned itself out, its offence forgotten.

The nurses watch me incessantly you know. It’s frightening how they watch me. Even when I hide in my bed, under the sheets, they’re still listening in. What is the point of that? I have no idea. It’s none of my business why people do things.

Chapter Eight

There was nobody in The Eleven who became a friend. Then again, there was nobody I hated, and that was worth something. Our conversations in that wood-panelled room were probably not what you’re imagining, if you’re picturing Wittgenstein and Russell in a room with Keynes and the Cambridge Spies. Then again, history’s not what it’s cracked up to be. It’s more Jelly Babies than genius. Only genius makes for a better story, so that’s the one we tell.

There was nobody there I could have talked to about Deb, or about what was happening to me, but if there had been I would have freely admitted that by this point I was becoming worn. My mind was behaving like a kite on a windy day, shooting from one cloudy idea to the next, gently fraying at the edges, insufficiently bound to the earth. It often felt like I was watching my life from the outside. Or from another time. Looking in at something that didn’t really belong to me.

Like my desk, the entire surface of my world had become overcrowded with Deb. It was as if, having been reduced to zero in all the customary dimensions, she was becoming infinite in another. Another plane, overlaid with my own, occupying all the space around me while I detected nothing. Except, perhaps, for a few leaks. Strange sounds or sights that didn’t quite belong, but didn’t quite not belong either. What if Deb was right in front of my face the whole time, invisible, begging me to see her again? It was a chilling thought, one I had to contend with often during that time.

There’s a little passageway behind St. Catherine’s College called Piss Alley. Probably it has a “real” name too, one that nobody uses. Piss Alley was rarely on my way to anywhere, but sometimes when I was upset and needed to walk without having anywhere to walk to, I’d find myself in places I had no reason to be. One day, about three in the afternoon, it had stopped raining long enough to convince me to go outside, and I was shuffling along Piss Alley when some graffiti caught my eye. It was out of the ordinary line of sight, on a door that looked like the back entrance to something. Possibly a college kitchen. There was a huge, dirty extractor fan at the top. From the greasy black grime around its frame, I reasoned that this door might not have been opened in a hundred years or more. It had once been painted dark green, but now more than half of it was spattered with dirt. Gigantic metal hinges secured it to the stone wall to the left. This graffiti was discreetly positioned on the right-hand side, about halfway up, almost hidden behind a heavy chain hanging on a concrete post for no discernable reason. Letters were in stark, new white paint: What’s missing from this picture. No question mark.

No picture.

Perhaps the reason I noticed it was the perfectly formed gothic script, which resembled the lettering above the doors in the College. The artist must have used a stencil to achieve that effect. It was a surprising thing to see in such a place. But it was much less weird, when I thought about it, than the self-rearranging ancient buildings, or the esoteric alchemical tracts secreted away in their libraries.

I looked at the words, head cocked like a puzzled dog, until the stink for which Piss Alley is named intruded unignorably on my awareness, then I held my breath until I emerged onto Trumpington Street.

—

I didn’t think about the writing again for a while. The next day was the start of the Michaelmas term, and that was a distraction. I didn’t stop thinking about Deb, but I had to get myself to lectures most mornings, and put enough hours into reading for my weekly essay to get by each supervision without feeling embarrassed by my poor performance, or—worse—being asked if there was “something wrong.”

It wasn’t until