Nightmare’s Womb

In the early to mid Seventies, the ghost hunter worked in Pall Mall near the National Gallery and later at a building erected upon the Temple of Mithras within the City of London near the dome of St. Paul’s, much of which appeared in the ghost hunter’s then written-down dreams. 

Many of you will know of the potential for ghosts in the mazy byways of those parts of London, but the ghost hunter also wandered into the streets of Whitechapel and Shadwell. And that was when Canary Wharf was still in its mine before being hawled out in earth-blasting array. Meanwhile, this is the start of a new series of Torque Tales as yet to be written from that direction of penmanship.

St Paul’s, of course, was the nub of such things, if I can be relatively blunt about the ghost hunter’s spiritually magnetic compass, which I suppose makes sense as that cathedral, in whatever stage of evolution, has been intended from outset to be a centre of a form of spirituality, if not necessarily the ghost hunter’s own form. The paintings in the gallery also carried a forcefield  of spectral punch. And this first tale in the new series implies a hand-twisted arch between the tip of the famous dome and one particular painting in the gallery that memory has veiled, whatever the distance needed to be plied between them. Not like the straddling cathedral in ‘Agra Aska’ that some of you may already know, because that was in an alternate world. These tales take place in our own perceived world of reality, even if it may be someone’s else alternate one! The ghost hunter took reality for granted in all their dealings with it. Even if their hunting’s eventual gestalt was gaslit like an ancient version of the city they now walked.

This is both an introduction to such a series of tales and a tale in itself. With scene setting comments as well as a beginning, middle and end, even if there is no ‘found ghost’ to speak of and no climax as yet to satisfy any avid reader of ghost stories. But I sense there is a slight pervasive frisson of fear for you to harbour in hope or even dread of such frisson’s future growth into nightmare. Until it fades like this print itself.