Day: 01/05/2023

Short Story: Unquiet Jenny

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

There’s something you need to know about magic and about the people who get mixed up in the real stuff. It’s all about the power of stories, and how we get caught up in them and by them. I used to say that all magic was about lying, but that turned out to be too simple a view.

I used to tell people that magic was the art of lying to the universe. I would say that the best liars could do it so well that people and places and events began to believe it. If I was feeling particularly facetious on any given day, I could point to any number of populist politicians to illustrate my point.

It turned out I was doing the universe a grave disservice in doing so, and it pushed back – but that’s a story for another time.

Did you see what I did there? Anyway, I was talking about the power that lies not only in tall tales but also in deep truth – and how both can be transformative. We talk of how people become local legends, if we’re kind, or about people being legends in their own lunchtimes if we’re being less kind.

People begin to be obscured sometimes by the stories we tell. If that sounds odd, go look up the origins of some local legend and see what happens when you dig in to find the person beneath it. Stories expand and embellish people, places, and events. They also simplify and streamline and softly erase the bits that don’t quite fit – like water across stones.

Magic is the art of recognising stories and using them.

There’s an oracle I occasionally call upon when I’m in search of lost things or lost people. They’re a reclusive soul, or at least that’s how I characterise them. Before they became what they are now, they lived a life that became smaller over the years. They were known simply as Jenny.

No one knows where Jenny came from. They’d laid claim to the small side alley between a sports equipment shop and a fried chicken franchise on the High Street for a few years before I came on the scene. The alley led to a rarely used fire escape from the back of a multistory carpark that I’m fairly sure had been all but forgotten by its owners.

Jenny had a stash of blankets, boxes, and assorted scavenged items that marked their spot. It was a hard life, with no end of attempts at intervention by police and social services. Those never came to much. There were ugly encounters with others surviving in the area, and with predators seeking easy meat.

Jenny wasn’t easy meat, and they looked out for newcomers too. Simple thuggery and threats were seen off with razor tongue and a handmade shiv if need be. More unusual things occasionally seeped into the story however – and that’s where we met a few times.

Jenny never talked about where they had come from. Their story was rooted in the simplicity of who they were now. Their magic came from the stability of being unyielding, and how that story cemented expectation on top of reputation and painted it with a veneer of watchfulness.

Jenny was always on the lookout, always watching. They always had a vigilance that underlaid their demeanour. They were always unsettled. They might be steady in the face of fae on the hunt for names or the blood of the guilty, but they were always Unquiet.

I always knew that Jenny could tell me things if they felt I needed to know it, but they always kept things close. Life on the streets is hard, and a diet of scavenged or donated fried chicken rarely helps health bloom. Jenny kept their own counsel even as they faded and wasted in their rough sibylline shelter.

No one knew they were fading. Their legend as a permanent resident and acid-tongued speaker of truths made people’s gaze slip past the real person. They became that person who would tell sudden observations from the shadows of an unlit alley. They would demand food for answers – a tribute for their time.

Over time, the whispered voice grew quieter, but was still there for those who listened. The owner of the voice may not be among the living any more, but Unquiet Jenny was still to be heard, and still offering words of advice to those deemed worthy.

The shrine to whatever resides in that alley now is decorated with old chicken bones and placated with fast food offerings by those in the know. If you’re lost in life, and you see a stack of old cartons by a wall, try to listen for a quiet but defiant voice. It may be looking out for you before you realise how lost you are.

Jenny became a story, like the witches of Pendle Hill or the pirates under black sails. I’m doing my part to keep that story going, and now you’ve heard their story, you’re keeping it alive for as long as you remember it.

And what do I get out of all this? Unquiet Jenny doesn’t want to rest. They still watch and advise, keeping ahead of something they never talked about in life – and I’m curious to find out what that untold story is. When they trust me, they’ll tell me. After that, we’ll see, and perhaps when all is done they won’t be restless any more.

Keep your ears open, believe your eyes, let’s find out what happens next.

Memories – Dungeons and Dragons

Tim Maidment1 Comment

I remember the first time I played Dungeons and Dragons – it was the early eighties and my Dad had a copy of the Basic box set. I must have had sight of it to read before hand and read it through but we didn’t play until one afternoon when my uncle and aunt, and some friends of my parents were round (I think) – and we played through the introductory adventure in the rulebook. It was a simple thing by today’s standards – lights seen in a deserted tower, brave adventurers investigating, bandits (or possibly goblins) lying in wait.

I played as a first level wizard and was killed by a giant spider – which was a bit disappointing as the whole concept of a character that could improve from game to game had me hooked. Barring playing another game where my Dad put on a game for me and some friends for my birthday that was it until I sold my brothers on the idea of playing. It all kind of bubbled along from there.

Going away to boarding school was the time that roleplay games really got their teeth into me – there was a Wargames club that embraced this new phenomenon and suddenly I had a steady roster of fellow misfits to play along with. Dragons were slain, mistakes were made, and a slew of new legends populated our conversations. I may have struggled sometimes to get the hang of economic theory and physics equations, but probablity calculations and mental arithmetic became second nature – and I could recite whole blocks of statistics and rules interpretations.

In retrospect I got a bit fixated on the game systems and the minutiae of the rules and features and how to interpret and present them in a narrative. I also found friends and a camaraderie that insulated me from the wider pressures of not being particularly bothered about sporting activity in a school environment that positively idolised it.

We met to play most days – a few hours here and there as time allowed in the afternoons between rugby, cricket, or cross-country running. The problems of scheduling times to meet didn’t exist because we were at a boarding school – there wasn’t anywhere else to go and this was a form of rebelilon that didn’t require hiding in bushes to avoid teachers, or persuading people to buy things we weren’t old enough to get for ourselves.

As a very closeted baby queer, it also opened my eyes to the concepts of choosing our own selves and values. In the game I could be flamboyant or hidden, a rogue or a paragon – and doing so wasn’t reliant on family or circumstances beyond what we could make for ourselves. It was aspirational and non-judgmental – and most importantly was played by people who banded together against a rigid push to behave in some arbitrary “normal” way that absolutely held no draw for any of us. We were a band of outlaws in our own eyes. We were polite and generally well-mannered rebels who each had our own peculiarities and just wanted to be left alone to get on with things.

There was no stigma to exploring new personas, gender expression, or sexuality – in some ways that felt like just window dressing to the experience of exploring these fantasy worlds and beating the villains. There may be a degree of rose-tinted spectacles over these memories but it is what has stuck and what has informed my journey onward and my expectations of the tables I play at and the people I play with.

An expectation of openness and acceptance for all at the table became part of my expectation of the people in my life – and perhaps there’s a measure of the valiant knight protecting the land that has come forward in how I try my best to champion and support the people around me at work and in my home life.

Today I went to see the new Dungeons and Dragons film – Honour Among Thieves – and was overjoyed at the energy and acceptance, the humour and the heart, the detail and the warmth that permeated the whole thing. Its been a hot minute since I’ve seen a film, got home, and wanted to go straight back out to watch it again. The found family of imperfect losers scheming and trying their hardest to do the right thing through increasingly over-complicated and morally dubious schemes just chimes with the gaming and life experiences of the boy I was, and the very odd man that I’ve grown to be. That’s no small thing for me.