Besieged and smothered by them in my childhood; my parents and my brother always with their noses in books; force-read to at bedtime; bombarded with messages about how books are every child\u2019s best start in life. Every book I come near \u2013 though it\u2019s usually they who sidle up on me like the frotteur with bad breath on the crowded bus \u2013 is a punishment, floods me with fear and loathing. I hate their smell, their weight and shape when a Christmas or birthday present, beautifully wrapped, lands in my hand. I hate the sham delight my parents make me display to smiling uncles when they thrust it at me, with that creepy sideways glance for my parents\u2019 approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now I\u2019m back in the nightmare, in a room lined on every side with books, with no window and no door, just shelves and shelves and shelves of books. Their stern spines glare at me. When I swing on a shelf with all my body weight, it topples, sure, but only to reveal another shelf behind, it too crammed with books. Each shelf I pull down is the same, and soon there\u2019s no floor to be seen, and I\u2019m wobbling ankle-deep, sobbing, on layer upon layer of tumbled books. Some fall open, and from their smug pages the letters, letters, letters jeer at me like hyenas, and I\u2019m sure I can smell their carrion stench. Each time my feet slip down between them, their tough bindings and sharp corners scratch my legs. I feel my last strength slip away. Panic turns my limbs to great planks I can barely lift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then suddenly I\u2019m through, past the last shelf. No more books. I\u2019m free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it\u2019s worse, much worse. Not the peaceful stillness I crave. No, it\u2019s a boiling, writhing, seething horror, the unshaped, untold, unstoried terrors of existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I vomit up a scream. There\u2019s no way out, no road for me to run down, out of this trackless horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besieged and smothered by them in my childhood; my parents and my brother always with their noses in books; force-read to at bedtime; bombarded with messages about how books are every child\u2019s best start in life. Every book I come near \u2013 though it\u2019s usually they who sidle up on me like the frotteur with … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-10c","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3857,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions\/3857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Moray McGowan, a Hiberno-Scottish silverback, wrapped chocolate, delivered mail, dug trenches, picked fruit and baked boiler insulation, taught for forty years at universities in Germany, the UK and Ireland, and now shuffles between the marshlands of Somerset (UK) and the jungles of Berlin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"