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Cut-up story: Lies on the cliff

Emma Parfitt — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 13:58:00 +0000

By E.L. Parfitt, author of Seascape, Shattered Roses and Temptation & Mozzarella.

This month I took some time to be creative with a pile of old scribbles I had made in a spiral notebook. Here is the result.

Short story: Lies on the cliff

It’s an uncertain coming of age: a catcher in the rye. There are lies breathing on the cliff surrounding the house. It’s maddening that, trying to work out what’s the point of a lot of things. A conscious faltering. Control. End. The precipice …

I can’t imagine how … slowly … it becomes the tale gone wrong. God knows we all sprint off the edge in the end; dependant on twilight feelings of anger. The doctors did not know what to expect. Each time they considered how it came to be I wanted to ask, ‘Why bother?’

I left the room for a cigarette break. I know that surprises you because I don’t smoke.

I wanted to leave. To breathe in the peaceful alchemy of being absent. Art came, was born, died.

“If you love someone,” grandmother said, “you can bring the fairy tales. Myths have limits to human love. I’ll put the kettle on.’ She never made much sense in reality or memory.

I felt isolated returning to the house alone: relocated to the past.

‘Call,’ Ernest said.

‘When Art’s dead,’ I said.

It was as if they—us, these other people—continued to play roles outside of us. I couldn’t inhale in this place.

‘Enough,’ said the tears.

To cry him back from death wasn’t possible. Silent tears, for the truth of it was that no one wanted to listen. Not even Ernest. I missed Ernest’s friendship: the man that it was generally accepted could make matters worse. It was worse when Art stole the words I might have spoken but it was inevitable.

It wasn’t Ernest that I cared about. I wanted to look into Art’s eyes back when there was no death and kiss his forehead again. I wanted to walk across the cliffs together and change how I had reacted.

‘Do people die here?’ Arthur asked.

‘Kids, yes,’ I responded.

‘That’s enough,’ he said, in gratitude of the don’t-you-dare-jump tone of my voice.

Being loved and cared for is something to keep a hold of.

Meanwhile I dreamed another life where my hand was his wife’s hand and he goes away unwillingly. One fixed to the other refusing to part again.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘There once was a man …’ meaning that I would find a land where Art would be there; him and me, country after country. Yet Art left the room at the border between cliff and sea while I was dreaming. I wondered if he asked to be alone but I hadn’t heard. Now each time I asked the answer would be as solid as lies breaking on the cliff.

A very brief history and technique

William S. Burroughs takes the credit for devising the cut-up method. The technique however can be traced to the European avant-garde art movement of the 1920s (the Dadaists). When I read about the technique it made me think of the colourful cut-outs of artist Henri Matisse in the 1940s and 50s (Murphy 2014).

Here is the method described in Burroughs words:

The method is simple. Here is one way to do it. Take a page. Like this page. Now cut down the middle and cross the middle. You have four sections: 1 2 3 4 … one two three four. Now rearrange the sections placing section four with section one and section two with section three. And you have a new page (Burroughs, 1963)

Going to give it a go? Or fancy reading? See other stories by E.L. Parfitt.

References

Jones, J. 2015. How David Bowie, Kurt Cobain & Thom Yorke Write Songs With William Burroughs’ Cut-Up Technique. Open culture. 4th Feb 2015. http://www.openculture.com/2015/02/bowie-cut-up-technique.html

Murphy, J. 2014. “Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs”: A Modern Master’s Final Years. 10^thNov. 2014. Biography. https://www.biography.com/news/henri-matisse-the-cut-outs-moma

Burroughs, W.S. 1963. The Cut-up Method. In: Jones, L. ed. 1963. The Moderns: An Anthology of New Writing in America (NY: Corinth Books, 1963). http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/burroughs-cutup.html

See other stories by E.L. Parfitt.

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New publication: Seascape

Emma Parfitt — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:13:00 +0000

I am happy to announce the forthcoming publication of a book inspired by my storytelling research. The title Seascape comes from a play on the words ‘sea’ and ‘landscape’. Seascape is the title of one of the stories in the book. I had the idea for it walking the coast line of Cornwall. In particular along the areas connected to Gyllyngvase Beach, Falmouth. Those familiar with these areas will get a lot of the references to Cornish myths and landscape underlying the story.

An old monolithic stone arch at Gyllyndune Gardens (Parfitt, 2012)

Why write a book inspired by research? I had intended the writing to become part of my doctoral thesis. Yet before you think how boring (too late I suppose), the writing did not fit the academic work so I dropped that idea early on. Without using the writing as part of the research process which I did not wish to do at that point I created a book of stories instead. The stories I finally selected are interspersed with quotes from the young people in my research (with their names and details changed to protect their identity).

I invite you to follow me into a world of fairy tales where the lines between fiction and reality blur, and melt and burst into flames. A selkie leaves the sea for the first time to go to university; three young boys find a genie in a can of Irn Bru; two friends think they see a firebird in an old housing estate; a boy discovers that people are not always who they seem to be; a man is spirited away by a snake charmer into a dark maze; goblins crawl through mirrors; an unwilling princess is “saved” from a tower; and Rapunzel is kidnapped by an automaton. A series of eight original short stories to amuse and entertain.

Seascape is available to pre-order here (release date March 26th).

Book cover designed by Manuel Aguilera x

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Raven’s Heart

Emma Parfitt — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 14:06:00 +0000

The plot: A woman asks a raven to fetch a piece of her lover’s heart.

Last month I republished my ebook Temptation & Mozzarella. This month I would like to share a link to a PDF file of the story Raven’s Heart. This is a story I created but did not know where or how to showcase. It is an experimental digitalised fairy tale of a sort. A mixture of strange graphics to play with the boundaries of reader interaction and text/pictures. I used formatting available through Microsoft Word to edit the pictures I had drawn.

My inspiration for the piece is at the end of the document. If you enjoyed the story and would like to make a donation this can be made to my Paypal account. I would be happy to answer any questions.

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Emma’s Little Red Coat – Scottish Book Trust

Emma Parfitt — Tue, 05 May 2015 19:00:00 +0000

Red riding hood

Red, there’s a reason why women claim it as their colour. It’s a power colour, interwoven with our right of passage into womanhood. This month I submitted a story to the Scottish Book Trust part a fairy tale and part biography inspired by my journey to doing a PhD. The Scottish Book Trust hosted the story for a while, but it is no longer available. The story was called Emma’s Little Red Coat. And I have the full short story below for you.

Little Emma’s Red Coat

Walls can be furry; at least the outer surface. The side where I found myself was ribbed and fleshy. I took one of granny’s knitting needles and pressed the tip against my finger. How did I get here? The options for a shy, self-deprecating girl, after university are simple: she puts away her cloak of dreams to find a job and somewhere to live. Naturally a biology degree led to cleaning, reception work, and pensions; where wolves eat little girls and call it profit. I used my meagre wages to travel: I hiked in Peru, worked with children in India, dove in the red sea, yet my palms itched for something more.

In stories the main character takes a while to figure out what they want. It takes a long time to worm your way out of a wolf’s stomach with only a pair of knitting needles. Trust me.

My granny was a clerk of the court. She knew the law inside out. She also liked to knit and read horror novels. The paths we chose weren’t neat little woollen knits. Granny’s wool became as red as blood. Clickety-clack, she weaves the wool into a coat to see me through winter.

I never had the chance to ask Granny about academic life because she died before I understood many things. I do not think she would be proud of the girl I was: quiet voice, long hair, crippling fear. Isn’t that what a girl is brought up to be? The good news is that I rebelled, silently, slowly. She would be proud of me now.

The “truth” of Granny’s journey, and my journey, is complex: mouthfuls of pins, flowers and feathers. Do you know the story well? Perrault lied: my granny never knitted me a cloak, she crocheted a shawl. Mr and Mr Grimm lied too: Stranger Danger? There was no hunter.

I raked myself free of the wolf’s belly without scissors or axes. I used the tools that my granny left me: curiosity, imagination and perseverance. I strove to escape the clichés of womanhood; scorned red shoes and threw porridge pots at would be suitors. I was dubbed Ice Queen by people too wrapped up in their furs to be open to “the other”. They did not see the woman who listened to the heartbeats of trees, laughed like a child, read for hours, and danced while ironing.

Have you noticed that in folk tales women’s blood is constantly spilled? Keep to the path little girl; be good, be docile; hide your face, curl your hair and avoid giving off the wrong impression. There are still plenty of wolves in the forest but it is not those wolves you have to be wary of.

I returned to university to create a story of my own making. I researched oral storytelling in schools; spoken, verbal, uttered. The social space created by stories. I am not saying the whole world is comprised of fiction, but I have certainly wove a fiction out of this journey.

The knitting needles are sticky in my hands. I will put them down. I do not need them anymore. I do not need the self-criticism and self-doubt. I must ignore those harmful words from parents, teachers, peers, which still echo in my ears. I need to have hope, I need to be nurtured and supported. To break the spell that led to the smooth and fleshy stomach of the wolf.

So let us, other, woman, man, run, run like my grandmother did towards something more satisfying. This is where our journey begins and ends.

Storytelling research

If you would like to know more about my work some initial thoughts are published here:-

Parfitt, E.L. 2014. Storytelling as a trigger for sharing conversations. Exchanges: the Warwick Research Journal. 1(2).

Young people, learning & storytelling was published with MacMillan in 2019.

Publications

A Friendship of Thistles

Seascape

Shattered Roses

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