A collection of prose poetry published by the wonderful Wild Pressed Books.

You can buy the collection here:

http://www.wildpressedbooks.com/i-can-see-the-lights.html

I believe in ghosts. I know its not a popular viewpoint among more rational members of society, but forgive me, I am a product of my upbringing. Like most fishing families in Hull, mine were steeped in superstition and held a casual credulity for the supernatural. Added to this, a friend of my mother’s was a medium and she would talk to unseen spirits whilst she was getting her hair done in our back kitchen. So I grew up with the idea that there was an unseen world happening alongside ours. It never seemed all that unusual or far-fetched to me. I’ve always thought that if you could imagine something then that made it real enough. I suppose, like most people, I try to have an open mind on most things.

I’ve never seen a ghost, although I have sometimes caught strange shapes and movements in the corner of my eye or heard odd noises where there should be none. All very normal, I suppose. The mind can play tricks, especially if you leave it wide open to suggestion. But it remains a subject that fascinates me. So I suppose it was inevitable that at some point I would try my hand at a ghost story.

The idea for “Kingdom” was borne out of illness. For most of my adult life I had not been able to breathe properly on a night, especially during the winter months. The slightest bout of the sniffles would result in a mushy head, a bed full of dampened tissues and hours of broken sleep. Sudafed would provide some brief respite, but too much of that stuff can wire you up tighter than a tour of duty in Vietnam, so I tried to keep the medicine to a minimum. Damp November nights would have me tossing and turning and trumpeting like a wounded bull elephant. No fun whatsoever.

I struggled for years with this nonsense until fatigue finally forced me to the doctors. My GP is a pragmatic fellow with a rash of bad art adorning his walls; horrific portraits of mangled faces, all hard angles and garish colours. He tells me they’re hung there to dissuade persistent malingerers. And they are truly horrible. Even the hardiest of hypochondriacs would have their stomach turned by this gallery of broken-faced ghouls. It is for this reason, among others, that I try and keep my visits there to a minimum.

But desperation drove me to his door, where he told me that I had a deviated septum. It was so deviated that I only had one functioning nostril. This was why a simple seasonal cold would reduce me to a spluttering, gasping heap. I was firing on one single barrel. So I was sent to the hospital where they put me to sleep and smashed and then re-set my septum.

Upon waking from the operation I found myself in that strange, woozy, half-awake state of existence peculiar to the after-effects of a general anaesthetic. From where I was laid I could see a sign swimming in and out of focus: NOW WASH YOUR HANDS. My brain struggled to compute this. Wash my hands? Why did I need to wash my hands? And why NOW?

I got off the trolley and took a few tentative steps towards the wall where the notice was displayed and caught sight of myself in the reflection of a window. The sickly grey pallor, the flowing white robes. I felt like I was floating.

I stood staring at myself, dumbfounded, for what seemed like an age, not knowing what to think or do, until a passing nurse took me by the arm and guided me back to my repose. I fell back to sleep and dreamt of ghosts and long white corridors.

After the post-op rest and recuperation I found that I could inhale and exhale freely through both nostrils. This was a revelation to me. All of my life I had become accustomed to impaired breathing and now, as I walked home from the pub one icy dark night, I found I could pull the world in and out, in and out, clean fresh air flooding in and out. Unbelievable! Glorious! I imagined it must have been fairly similar for a short-sighted person, putting on glasses for the very first time, being able to see tiles on rooftops and distant landmarks. After years of nocturnal gasping and snuffling, I could finally breath properly. I loved this newfound sensation. I was ecstatic, drunk on fresh air.

The book got properly into gear after another medical occasion, this time a visit to the dentist. The dentist I use is near a street of derelict houses. I parked my car up near these steel-shuttered boxes and mused on the likelihood of homeless people setting up camp there. It was the depths of winter, January or early February, remorseless biting cold. I thought about a person setting a fire in a room, and all the problems associated with that. Then I thought about a man not lighting a fire, and dying in the cold in such a place, like in the story by Jack London. I started writing a story about a man waking up in a derelict house. At this stage I didn’t know who he was or why he was there.

A few days later, the words “My name is Alistair Kingdom and I was born a ghost” arrived in my head. Of course, a ghost is an irresistible narrator, because he is potentially a witness to everything. A ghost can drift in and out of the action unchallenged and nothing is hidden or censored. I started writing the story anew.

I’d recently written a thing about a blind girl, written it in the second person with a heavy reliance on smell and listening and the sense of touch. When I started writing from the viewpoint of Alistair Kingdom, I decided to stick to visuals. If this guy was a ghost, then he couldn’t interfere or interact. There was to be no sensory perception in the narrative, save for sight. This ended up as part one of the five parts of the book.

Around three or four weeks into messing about with this, I drifted onto Facebook and found a video of a band called Wilco doing a song called “Handshake Drugs” live on the Letterman Show. I’d never heard of this band before, but I loved the song. I looked up the album. It was called “A Ghost Is Born”.

I took that as a signal and got down to the proper graft of writing. A year and a half later the book was finished and now it’s a real thing existing in the real world. It’s an odd book, but I think it’s a good one. I hope you like it.

 http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/2016/01/21/book-review-kingdom-by-russ-litten/

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdom-Russ-Litten/dp/1903110327

https://wordsaremycraft.wordpress.com/2015/11/22/kingdom-by-russ-litten/ 

http://hullalumni.me/2015/10/15/russ-littens-kingdom/

https://readymag.com/browsemag/321308/4

http://nothingintherulebook.com/2015/11/29/creatives-in-profile-interview-with-russ-litten/

http://www.brianwlavery.com/#!A-ghost-writer-par-excellence/c19nk/5671a0a60cf2fb0fe5b0f7cb

http://www.crimesquad.com/reviews.asp?year=2015&month=11

My third novel, “Kingdom” was released by Wrecking Ball Press on October 5th 2015. Here is the prologue. You can buy Kingdom at http://wreckingballpress.com/product/kingdom/

Her Majesty’s Prison, Library, 8.40 am.

The librarian is the first to notice him. To suspect that something is amiss. He looks out of place, somehow, in a way that she cannot immediately identify. Not his face. An ordinary enough face; dark chin length hair, sun-starved pallor, five-day growth of beard. A face you’d find in any prison or public institution. His clothes, perhaps; plain and anonymous enough on the outside, but incongruous here; black overcoat and dark trousers, worn and shabby looking, but an expensive cut. Not the usual jeans or logoed-up tracksuit of the enhanced or the standard grey sweatshirt/green polyester trouser combo issued on induction. And shoes, proper shoes, not trainers. Staff, she thinks at first, a recently arrived tutor she hasn’t been introduced to yet, or a visiting civilian perhaps. But something about him is vaguely troubling. His bearing. Not for him the sullen head down subservience of the newly arrived, or the slumped blank eyed stare of the hardened. He sits bolt upright in the corner near the computers, set apart from the rest of the men, surveys their babble with a tightly wound unease, a contempt bordering on fury, almost. Tight knuckled fists gripping the arms of the chair. Heels hammering the carpet beneath the table.

A voice raised in complaint at the desk, some angry squabble over an unreturned DVD. The librarian turns her attention away from the man in the corner and deals with the complaint, sends the aggrieved offender away with a list of available titles and his local paper. She returns to her desk behind the panels of glass and wood that serve as her office, but no sooner has she sat down then another offender is at the door, bugging her to chase up a certificate from a previous prison, his fifth identical query in the last two days. Another offender wants to know about Story Book Dads, is his CD ready yet Miss, the Gruffalo at Christmas, Miss, and if not why not? The first of the day’s minor dramas.

The day’s major drama starts with a phone call; Control asking for a headcount. The librarian reads him the number from her tally and replaces the receiver, returns to her typing.

Ten minutes later the phone rings again. The request is repeated and this time she stands and counts the bodies through the glass; relays the information, pauses, listens, nods.

Yes, she says, yes, that includes Orderlies.

Five minutes later the phone rings again and the request is repeated and then again, two minutes later, with an added instruction. She puts down the phone and signals to the assistant.

Stand-fast, she tells her. Don’t let anyone out.

A group of men at the door holding gym bags and beakers overhear, raise an immediate chorus of complaint.

Aw, what, for fucks sake …

Again? What’s up Miss, can’t they count?

Useless bastards!

Beyond a fucking joke, this …

Gonna miss me fucking session …

The head librarian looks at her assistant.

One extra, apparently …

Jangle of keys from the other side of the door and the men are forced to jostle back and stand aside to admit the two officers. They lock the door behind them and advance into the centre of the room. The younger officer carries a clipboard with a list and mouths one, two, three, four, as his eyes scan the men sat around the tables or stood at the bookcases. Radios in his count and looks at the librarian.

What wing are these?

B, she tells him.

All of them?

Yes.

He scrutinizes his list, frowns, looks around the room again. Moves among the milling group of men, glancing from the names to each face.

Keep still please lads.

Fucks sake, guv … I’m missing Cash In The Attic …

Stay still …

The officer spots the man sat at the corner table near the computers. Walks across, looks at his list.

Name and number please mate …

Kingdom.

Number?

The man glowers up at him.

Not got one, he says.

The officer keeps his eyes on his list, pen tap-tap-tapping.

Don’t be clever, he says, I’m not in the mood. Number.

I’m a man, not a number.

Sigh from above. Pen slotted into top pocket.

Stand up, says the officer.

Say please.

Titters from around the room. The men have stopped moving and fallen quiet. All eyes clamped on the corner.

The older officer takes a step forward.

The younger officer tucks the clipboard under his arm.

On your feet, he says. Now.

The man’s eyes widen. A thin, mirthless smile.

Make me, he says.

In prison, it is often said that time seems to stand still. This is such an occasion. Minute but perceptible shift in the atmosphere, a slight tensing and murmur, bodies braced. The man issues his challenge and time stands still.

The younger officer has been in the job for three months. The older officer is six months away from retirement. The librarian has being doing this for twenty years. She has already made her way over to the wall, to the green panic button. She hears the words from the corner of the room.

I said make me. You deaf as well as fucking stupid?

Five seconds later the morning explodes in clamouring bells, a stampede of boots and a riot of raised voices.

Filmed on an iPhone by Dave Lee. Voice over by Jon Strickland. 

Directed by Dave Lee. Sound Design by Engine 7 Audio

Continue reading →