On what remains

April feels like it’s beginning to take its first breath.

There are moments where the spring sunshine settles—soft, warm, almost convincing—and then just as quickly, the clouds return and you find yourself hurrying back indoors, holding onto that brief warmth.

It’s a month of in-between,; of light that doesn’t quite stay, of never seeming to have the right coat with you.

And perhaps that’s why I’ve found myself feeling more reflective than usual.

There is deep loss close to me at the moment—some already felt, some still unfolding. And in that quiet, unavoidable way, it shifts your perspective.

You start to think about how fragile things are, how quickly something can change, how much of a life remains, even after someone has gone.

And how much love you can hold inside you.

On loss (and the gothic, perhaps)

I’ve always been drawn to gothic spaces—not just in writing, but in feeling.

Not the dramatic kind—full of noise, screams, obvious shadows or sudden fears—but the quieter kind. The sense that perhaps something is still there, that absence isn’t empty, that memory has weight.

I like to slow the fear right down until it pulses in rhythm.

In gothic writing, loss rarely disappears. It lingers. It echoes. It repeats itself in small, almost unnoticeable ways; a voice not quite gone, a presence just out of reach, a life continuing alongside its own absence.

Perhaps that’s why it feels so close to home at this time.

Looking outward

My gothic writing is still there. Waiting, perhaps. Or forming in its own time.

I’ve spent much of this month writing elsewhere - inhabiting a different voice, a different kind of world. But this space hasn’t disappeared.

If anything, it feels like it’s deepening.

I’m beginning to think that loss might sit at the centre of it—not as something to resolve, but as something to understand.

And alongside this, something new is beginning to take shape.

I’ve started working with a voice actor to create a series of short gothic stories—something to be heard as much as read. A different way of entering the same world.

It’s early days, but it feels unfamiliar in the best way. Quietly exciting.

More on that soon.

A message left 

“You have a new voicemail.”

I tried calling. I don’t know why. I always do. I wouldn’t know what to say if you answered anyway. Not now.

You left so suddenly. I didn’t see it coming. You tried to prepare me, I think. I wasn’t listening.

Anyway, I found your coat today. I was going through some things and—yeah. There was a receipt in the pocket.

Hot chocolates.

From a month before you left.

 I tried calling again.

You didn’t answer.

It’s been twenty years. I still leave messages.

Okay.

Love you loads.

…I wish you could call me back, Dad.

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