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bit of a cheat, this one - here's one of the greatest short stories ever written, a gorgeous cameo of sadness and beauty glimpsed and remembered forever as a blessed wound. yes yes yes, i know that blesse means wound in French, that's why I said it, damn it.

Anyway, it reminds me of that sense of sadness and gratitude you get when something fleeting and essential falls into view, and the pain is worth bearing.

Hope you enjoy it...

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this week's diversion is a tete a tete with Crazy Jane, an old folk witch who we can find in a Van Morrison song, a Grant Morrison comic, in poems by W B Yeats and Amiri Baraka, in Nick Cave and Skip James murder ballads and even in modern TV series like the brilliant Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (it's a little more nuanced that that...)

Crazy Jane is the subject of a portrait by a Victorian murderer locked away in a lunatic asylum for most of his life, and is a victim and a confidence trickster both, a temptress and a madwoman - Ophelia underwater and Hamlet with his sword.

She's weird and strange and she's everywhere, so you've probably already met her...

Hello, Jane...

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www.boneditch.wordpress.com

A car crash that creates a saint.

An abused child who becomes the quintessence of distrust.

A playground that runs the world.

The world's largest organism.

The secret truth of bone disease.

The witch who became a saint.

The town where only psychopaths are allowed to buy homes.

The literary festival at the end of the world...

For twenty years Eliot Rent has been travelling the world, collecting stories about the little accidents and disastrous catastrophes that have shaped the world, divining at the epicentre a crazed apocalyptic witch. 

This is the story when she finally recognises that face at ground zero, and this is the point when the competition steals ahead and gives this battered world just one more push.

www.boneditch.wordpress.com

music by Ed Smith - https://soundcloud.com/ed-smith

words by Ian Bird - www.mrcarapace.wordpress.com

"Look over there, she said to me, passing me my drink, taking my money. I think they’re going to kill each other.

"I looked where she was pointing, out in the car park, but it was too dark already – I could only see the shapes, likes bones underwater, could only hear the screams, and the punches, and the sounds of beating wings..."

Thanks for this opportunity, Ed...

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i should be writing a horror story, but instead here are twenty minutes of words about Grendel, the demon of society's mediocrity, and how he inspires Batman, who needs a great movie right now...

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www.mrcarapace.wordpress.com

This time I’m sidestepping slightly to talk about two films I really enjoy, which I wrote about some time ago on my other website, www.mrcarapace.wordpress.com, and which I just stumbled over again – Ken Russell’s 1971 masterpiece with Oliver Reed, The Devils, and Luis Bunuel’s 1967 work of art Belle de Jour, starring Catherine Deneuve. I think both films do an incredible job of describing a strange and rebellious, erotic and devastating heart, and they’re both deeply affecting and amazing fun…

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www.boneditch.wordpress.com

It's the start of the ends of the world. The madman has written a book about why everything always goes wrong, and it's going to change everything for the worse/better...

Tonight’s story is the nineteenth, and also the first part of the third and final act of the story. Act I was the story of Eliot Rent and her friends and how they all fell into disaster together and then again separately, and Act II was a collection of weird tales uncovered by Eliot about the Boneditch – vengeful ghosts, recruitment agencies in Hell, weird circuses, werehouses, love songs and Murder She Wrote. But Act III is the story of what happens next, at the two ends of the world.

We’re returning to Governor Spinacre, the punchline to the serial killer story Haine Reaction, to the California Ladies from A Bum In The Coven, and the fearsome Sisters Under The Skin, Bonnie, Margaret and Jessica return from Chapter Six.

But this story is mainly about the life and times of Michael Breeden, Eliot’s first lover, who we last saw escaping from a pack of cannibal zombie celebrities at the start of the year 2000 in I’d Have To Talk About Virility…

This story is called Saints Are Sinners Who Kept On Going and I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you for listening…

www.boneditch.wordpress.com

www.boneditch.wordpress.com

The war ended, so Margaret had no choice but to come home...

She's been away for at least a decade, living a life of danger and significance, but now she's on her way home and these days she might just be another divorcee, another orphan. Summoned by her stepmother, Margaret steps into a world that means nothing to her, the world created by her family and the skeletons in their closet.

Margaret has a skeleton of her own.

www.boneditch.wordpress.com

www.boneditch.wordpress.com

While I finish writing the next story, here are some words that came out of the panic attack I experienced reading Daphne du Maurier's wonderful novel My Cousin Rachel, and how they both reminded me of the amazing Alice Bradley Sheldon, who wrote one of the scariest short stories ever...

For more excitable words about stuff I love to read please visit my other website at www.mrcarapace.wordpress.com - I'll have the next Boneditch story finished soon...

Thanks for listening...

www.boneditch.wordpress.com

www.boneditch.wordpress.com

Another short story from the Boneditch collection...

"Have you ever been struck by lightning?"

"No."

"I Have."

"What happened?"

"I struck it back."

His heart has been broken, and he doesn't think that's right. So then he meets God, the way people used to meet God, and suddenly he's inspired. Now he knows how to connect with the people he loves. Don't look shocked: of course love is a thunderbolt.

(c) Ian Bird

www.boneditch.wordpress.com