“If she and James might take on the special responsibility of ‘lighting’ in the big production . . .”

He showed her the equipment, the many lanterns, the thick red velvet drapes eaten by ‘moths’ ©, the dusty vertiginous metal walkways looking down upon the stage and soon she was in love.

*

Rehearsals came and went and O spended many many hours perched high up looking down on the action of the stage, J sat beside her, while all the other unfortunate children came and went below like so many ants at the direction of the depressive Gormenghast.

“What is the play about?”

James asking Olivia. No sense of it in his head, the architecture too vast.

O: “It is not about something” she says “It is something . . .”

An answer J could not understand. After the last scene ended he looked at his sister and smiled – teeth bad, heart good. O kissed him ‘tenderly’ and ‘tears came in the eyes’ ©. After weeks of absence enforced by the orphanage regime the time they spended together in rehearsals was valuable (and strange) just like when you see a dead friend in a dream and are so glad to meet them again.

*

November. A timetable crammed with extra rehearsals. The winter nites were ‘long and deep’ © and the wind told stories that no one wanted to hear.

DEAD SOLDIER himself lay many nites fox-holed in a box under James’ dormitory bed, his eyes nightvision © but nothing to see, hidden and sobbing and neglected, lonelier by day and by night. Even when J was around he was too frightened to remove DEAD SOLDIER lest some other child should want him badly or steal him away.

All night DEAD SOLDIER was groaning and his ‘body’ ® was aching and James was ignoring the sound. 3 months in the box. 3 months of dark solitary in realistic colours and like some kids-club experiment in language acquisition DEAD SOLDIER’s moaning turned slowly but surely into words. Listen:

“Spuuurrch”

“Speeerrnch”

“Speech ”

No one there to witness it. Nightime. Magic in a shoe box.

*

What DEAD SOLDIER talked to himself about when he had got language.

1. The dark.

2. How cold he was.

3. His dead buddies.

4. The idea of an enemy.

5. The power of the ‘human spirit’ in overcoming loneliness.

But in time, with no one to talk to DEAD SOLDIER’s language simply faded, receded – from new words to broken words to no words and simply moaning once again. Full cycle of life, lived utterly alone. Strangled groaning in the dark.

*

Dormitory. Most kids sleeping. One (1) up and moving.

At midnight 13 November James woke up and heard DEAD SOLDIER groaning, getting ‘louder and louder and louder’ ©. He rose and snuck silent to put a blanket snugly over the box under his bed, just trying to cut down the noise.

“Be brave DEAD SOLDIER . . .” he whispered “just be brave . . .”

Good simile: like some part of his own ‘soul’ © lay there beneath his bed, dying, dying, very slowly. Did not want no one to notice.