Sarah Pearson 20304366

ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

Short Fiction Folio

Science and Magic

“Can you do it?”
“Yes your Majesty, but such spells do not last indefinitely...”
“How long, wizard?”
“Alas, Sire, we cannot be completely certain...”
“Gods above, man! Is it impossible for a magician to talk sense?”
“Indeed not, King Mor – it is because we prefer logic that we will grant your request. The spell
should hold steady for around 2000 years.”
“Then do it!
“Of course your Majesty, but there is the fee?’
“You will receive it when the work is done! Do not babble further, wizard! The sooner magic is gone
from this world, the better!”

Cal flinched. He had felt a shift. Ignoring it, he refocussed on the lecture. He was a man of science, of
logic, and would pay no attention to his mind’s tricks. He was just tired; coffee would fix it.

But as Cal stared into the bottom of his paper cup, he was certain that the shift had been important.
He tossed the cup into a nearby bin and climbed into his car, his mind for once occupied with
something other than chemistry, sport, or girls. Cal felt like he could do things, though what things
he didn’t know. He was too distracted to start the car. Shaking his head, he moved to turn the key.
The engine roared to life; the key clicked into place a full second later. Cal winced. That had not
happened. He drove home.

Studying later that night, Cal remembered a reference he needed. He pulled a book from the pile at
random, ran the specific passage through his mind. The words seemed to jump from the text. Cal
threw the book across the room, scowled as it stubbornly remained on the right page. Okay - one
more test. Cal silently encouraged the book to return to his hands. The response was immediate; it
cannoned into his chest before he had time to call himself a fool. He tried to take the fact stoically.
Fatigued, Cal fell on to his bed. The assignment wasn’t due for a couple of days anyway...

He woke sore and feeling filthy from sleeping fully dressed. A quick shower rejuvenated him, and as
he packed his bag for uni, Cal had an idea. He checked around to make sure he had everything, took

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

a deep breath. He thought to himself: uni...somewhere no one will notice. The world twisted; Cal
was standing on the top floor of the library, the heels of his shoes on the edge of the stairs. Dimly he
registered falling, and a loud crack.

He was in a hospital bed; his parents looked at him with concerned consternation.
“You fell down the stairs darling – you’ve broken your arm.” his mother said.
“Not to mention the concussion. The doctor reckons you overexerted yourself, Caleb. Not enough
sleep, and not enough food. You should take better care of yourself young man.” remarked his
father.
So tired still...

Cal flexed his arm, newly free of its cast. He’d learned several things in the month since his collapse
on the stairs. First, eat before going to uni. Second, his newfound ability had its drawbacks. And
finally, he would never be a man of science again. He smoothed the bumper sticker down with a
grin. It was cheesy as hell, and a terrible shade of purple to boot, but at least it was accurate.

‘Magic Happens’.

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

Just Another Monday

On a cold Monday morning, staff and students arrived to find the Menzies Building had collapsed.
Again. After some minutes, with many sighs and rumblings of sleepy discontent, the crowd set about
putting it back up. Picking through the wreckage, they called to each other as they found the main
struts and pylons. It had fallen straight down, and soon sorted piles of debris covered the common
lawn. As usual, the basement level had survived well, and a few engineering students quickly
restored water to the bathrooms, even as the soccer team pushed the lockers back into place.
Nobody worried about the dents. It was soon certain no one was stuck inside the building this time.
Strange how it held itself together while people were in it, almost as a matter of pride. Only on
weekends did the Menzies allow itself to fall, like a shabby salesman spending his days off on the
booze. Indeed, when the first round of students and staff clustered to the hastily reconstructed
coffee shop, the next set down their books, rolled up their sleeves and remarked: ‘Well, I guess
Menzies had a big weekend.’ Scattered laughter followed as the more hung-over among them
slapped hands to chunks of wall and muttered ‘Know how you feel mate’ as they lifted them up. The
ceiling closed over the coffee drinkers, a spider web of timber and concrete.

Slowly the Menzies was restored to its imposing, if slightly lopsided height. The engineering
students, escaped from classes, helped their lecturers re-rig the elevators, right down to the military
green tarps inside. No one could get the fourth floor escalator to work, but the building had come
together pretty well. It was five o’clock, and there was a gentle, trickling exodus of students, books
slung over shoulders in bags, and overflowing in arms.
He drank down his coffee. ‘So pay up.’
‘What did we say this time? Twenty?’
‘Fifty more like!’
‘Fine,’ she sighed, pulling a crisp note from her wallet.
‘Thank you,’ he smiled as he held his winnings to the light, ‘Bet you it won’t fall for two weeks?’
‘Nah, I’m impoverished as it is, thanks to you.’
He laughed, and patted a nearby column. ‘What can I say? The old boy likes me.’

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

Below the Ice

Julian could remember things. Things that didn’t belong to him. At least, things he didn’t want to
belong to him. In the year since his wife’s death he’d made an effort to remain ordinary. He was just
an everyday guy, raising his son alone. Looking down at Riley’s cheeky, chocolate stained face, he
couldn’t help but wonder if Susannah would have approved. But she wasn’t here; she was sundered
from them forever by a six car pile-up. Mercifully, it had been Julian’s turn to take Riley to childcare.
‘Come on Riles, bedtime.’
‘No! Daddy, let’s play some more.’
‘Nuh-uh, little mate - we’ll finish tomorrow.’ Julian threw Riley over his shoulder, the little boy
bubbling with raucous giggles as his father dumped him gently on to the bed.
‘Tuck me in, Dad!’ said Riley, all thought of games forgotten. Julian pulled the covers tight around his
son, swiftly kissed his forehead, and switched off the light.
‘Goodnight Daddy.’
‘Goodnight Riley.’
Julian stood in the door for a minute or two. With a smile, he went to his desk. He struggled. He
didn’t want to look, not really, but the images kept coming. Ice on his nose, his coat, a world sealed
with it. Julian wrenched the drawer open. He pulled out the newspaper clipping, and spread it in the
light.
‘Missing Man Found Alive After 6 Weeks’. His mother had kept this, given it to him when Julian
finally arrived back in Australia. He was hospitalised for a month, receiving treatment for two severe
ice burns: one around his wrist, the other over his heart. He still had the scars.

At twenty-five, Julian finally fulfilled his greatest dream: to travel to Antarctica. He’d spent so many
dry Melbourne summers dreaming of icecaps and penguins it was hard to really believe in the trip.
Julian boarded the ice-shielded cruise ship in Ushuaia, Argentina, the world’s southernmost city,
with a bag full of camera gear, plus the obligatory piles upon piles of puffy winter clothes. Fully
dressed, he resembled the Michelin man, waddling ridiculously about the deck of the salt-soaked
ship. Julian feverishly took shots of every iceberg they passed. Every flock of penguins was filmed
from all perspectives. Every inquisitive fur seal got its own mug shot. He kept all the tapes, all the
pictures, despite what happened. The weather held; the crew said the tour could camp on the shore
overnight. Julian made his way off the boat at speed, thumping his muffled feet down on the vast
tracts of ice. Joyfully he helped the tour staff force tent pegs into its resisting surface. Unable to
sleep, he heard the storm arrive. Foolishly curious, Julian emerged from the tent into a world where

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

a sulking sky swallowed radiant stars. The blizzard enveloped him, led him on. His lost the camp; he
lost his way. Then there was nothing. Nothing at all to explain the six weeks of survival, nothing but
two ice burns. Julian was discovered by another tour group, long after the search parties had given
up. The doctors explained away the blank in his mind as just trauma, but the lack of serious injuries
had everybody wondering. Over and over, people asked ‘But what happened out there Julian?’
And over and over, he replied ‘I don’t know.’

Julian’s disappearance nearly shut the tour company down; fearing the press, they offered him a
large cash settlement. He didn’t think it was their fault, somehow, but still, he was happy to take the
money they seemed so anxious to give him. Julian retrained as a photographer. He often
contemplated going back to Antarctica, but never did. Then Susannah walked into his studio. She
bought one of his more artistic pieces for a friend, a conversation began, and before Julian knew it
they were having dinner, laughing and talking. He proposed – eventually – and they married a few
weeks before his twenty-seventh birthday. By this time, Susannah knew all about Antarctica, had
touched his scars. She had one demand: ‘Jules please, don’t ever go back.’
Julian agreed readily, but became increasingly irritated as he found he was expected never to
mention his disappearance, and destroy everything from the trip, or at least keep it out of
Susannah’s sight. He accepted her edict for the sake of peace; there was a greater problem. They’d
started trying for a baby almost immediately, but Susannah suffered two miscarriages in twelve
months before falling pregnant with Riley. Julian and Susannah bickered and sniped as he fought to
keep her fear of losing the child at bay. He did not understand completely; he had grieved deeply for
the first two babies, but the doctors kept saying how well everything was going, what a strong hold
the foetus had on life. Extreme relief had Susannah crying for hours after Riley was born. Beside her,
Julian held his son in silence, marvelling at the miniature perfection of his limbs.

The stress of the pregnancy left the pair husband and wife in name only. Riley’s charm and
effervescence held them together for a few years. But days before the accident, Susannah and Julian
agreed to separate. Mourning Susannah had been complicated; it was made more so by the
expectations of his family and friends, unaware of the state of the marriage, and by Riley’s barely
comprehending cries for his mother.

Julian sighed, and put the clipping away. He must not linger on the past, or on that void in his
memory. Especially now the void was filling with the images. In bed at last, he fell into an unsettled
sleep.

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

He walked through ice and snow and sleet; he stumbled to his knees, screamed for help. Julian railed
against his own stupidity, swearing loudly into the wind. A figure emerged from the grey-white blur.
As he lost consciousness, he could hear her shout in his ear: ‘Even I know that is rude. You are not
dead yet, are you?’
Julian woke in a room of ice, with a woman’s face hanging over his, framed by curtains of blue-black
hair.
‘So you are awake. Good – the healers say you are fortunate to be alive.’
‘What is this place?’
‘Aleraqi – in your language you would say “home below the ice”’.
‘My language?’
‘Yes – everyone here speaks Qima first, the others second.’
Now Julian could hear the tiniest trace of an accent. ‘Who are you?’
‘Kezaila. What is your name?’
‘Julian.’
‘A strange name. But then, your people must think our names are strange.’
‘Others have come here?’
‘Oh yes, quite a few. Last year, we had a woman who spoke a new language. Why is it you have so
many?’
Julian smiled. He couldn’t help but like Kezaila’s curiosity. She was as fascinated by the outside world
as he was by Antarctica.
‘There are too many of us, in too many places, for us all to speak one language.’
‘How many?’
‘Around six billion.’
Kezaila frowned. ‘But that is incredible! Surely the world has no room for so many!’
Julian shrugged. ‘How many live here?’
‘Oh, what do you say...a million, yes, that is your word.’
It was his turn to be flabbergasted. ‘But then...why don’t we know about you?’
She smiled. ‘The healers say you are well enough to leave your bed. You will see.’
Kezaila led Julian from the room. His knees shook a little as he padded across floors coated in
spectacularly woven rugs.
‘Do not look at the ground, Julian. Look at this.’
He gaped. He was standing on a terrace fashioned from ice, looking down on an incandescent
metropolis. It was oddly warm, and he was compelled to stare at the colossal sheet of transparent

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ice separating Aleraqi from the ocean. He could see fish swimming past. When he thought to look
up, he saw the brilliant Antarctic sky through a frozen ceiling.
‘The weqina, your people, do not know of the Qina because they do not see. We do not allow them
to.’
‘Then why help us?’
Kezaila sighed. She was older than he had thought; perhaps his own age. ‘We have a saying Julian.
“Qina or outsider, no one is left to die.”’
‘Makes sense, but Kezaila, why tell me? Why show me this...beautiful place?
She smiled ‘It is. Those who speak your language always use that word...beautiful.’
‘But why show us? Am I going to be here forever?’
‘No Julian. I will return you to your room.’
The next morning, Kezaila was there. She would not tell him what happened to those the Qina
found, but as she showed him more of the city, it was easy to relax and enjoy the sights – and her
presence. Over the next month, Kezaila took Julian over every inch of Aleraqi. He saw the Qina
fishing, tasted their catch. He watched as artisans sculpted the ice using a power his guide called
‘shifting-life’, telkeza in her language. To Julian, it was magic, pure and simple. The whole of Aleraqi
had been built with it, still ran on it. The Qina moved their hands, and the world moved with them.
Alone in his room, Kezaila conjured up images, carved shapes from the ice, laughed at his
amazement. She taught him a little Qima, and after much practice, Julian managed to master one
telkeza movement. When she left him to sleep, as she always did, he stopped her in the doorway.
Seeing what he had learned, Kezaila’s face lit with delight and embarrassment ‘Julian,’ she scolded,
‘you have made me far too beautiful! The art lies in making the image, oh what do you say?
Accurate.’
Julian let the image dissolve. ‘It was accurate.’ He kissed her, pulled her back into the room. She
waved her hand, and the door froze shut.

He woke with his arms around Kezaila, her hair entangled with him.
‘Good morning, Julian.’
‘Good morning,’ he replied with a smile. Suddenly, she turned her face to his chest, and he felt tears
sliding down his skin. ‘What is it?’ he murmured.
‘You must go back.’
‘What?’
‘You must. All the weqina do. We – we make you forget, and we send you back.’
‘Why?’

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

‘Your people do not belong here, just as mine do not belong out there.’
‘But Kezaila, that’s...’
‘I know, I know – but it is my father’s law, and I must obey it.’
‘Your father?’
‘He rules here. One day, I will. But not yet, not yet.’
‘You never said anything...’
‘How could I, Julian? You were not strong enough to leave, and I did not want to change your view of
me.’
He held her tighter. ‘When?’
‘It should have been a week ago. I think they will take you today.’
‘I won’t go.’
‘You will have no choice.’
‘Then come with me.’
‘Do you not understand? I must rule after my father. There is no one else.’
‘Then you take me back, Kezaila, if I really must go.’ Julian saw refusal in her face. ‘Please.’

She took him out of Aleraqi, via a passage he had never seen. Kezaila used telkeza to speed their
journey, and protect them. She stopped abruptly, kissed him softly. She pressed one hand to his
heart, and one to his wrist. He felt ice cutting into his skin as she whispered in his ear.
‘I will not forget you, Julian.’

Barely five minutes later, he was found, and Kezaila was gone, taking the memories with her.

Julian scrambled out of bed. It was five in the morning, but he didn’t care. He flipped his laptop
open, looked up Antarctic cruises. Riley was only four. But when he could take his son, Julian would
go home, go back below the ice. And this time, he was determined to stay.

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

Exegesis

I have always found it somewhat difficult to contemplate my own creative process. In fact, I rarely
know exactly what I’m doing while I’m writing a piece. I have an idea, I construct it on the page, and
then I try to clean up after myself in terms of grammar and missing words. It is not until afterwards
that I begin to dissect the themes and undercurrents in my work. ‘Science and Magic’, ‘Just Another
Monday’ and ‘Below the Ice’ are typical of this method of writing. I consider the three pieces to be
essentially a showcase of the various levels and strains of fantasy, the genre with which I have
always been most at home. Interestingly enough, this folio of work separates itself from a certain
amount of my earlier writing, due to the use of masculine viewpoint. As a woman I do tend to write
from a feminine perspective, yet in the pieces above each central character (Cal, Julian) or figure (the
Menzies) is overtly male. In this exegesis I will discuss the ramifications, if any, of a woman writing
men, the correlation between the three somewhat different stories, as well as each piece in
isolation.

The pieces in the folio have been arranged in the order in which I wrote them, though the idea
behind ‘Below the Ice’ is one I have been mulling over for some time. ‘Science and Magic’ is
therefore the first to be dealt with. Cal’s transformation from ‘man of science’ 1 to modern day
magician is a story I find particularly enjoyable. In places I have found the study of narratology, as
interesting and valid as it is, somewhat staid in its vision, and in a way ‘Science and Magic’ is a
reaction against an overreliance on logical processes I have seen in The Narrative Reader. Take for
example this extract by Mieke Bal: ‘Narratology is the theory of narrative texts. A theory is a
systematic set of generalised statements about a particular segment of reality. That segment of
reality, the corpus... consists of narrative texts.’2 This is informative, and very easy to understand,
following as it does a logical progression. But what about the creativity involved in those narrative
texts? ‘Science and Magic’ is very much as its title suggests; a juxtaposition of the more logical
elements of life with the intangible. In this piece, I was not looking to reject logic, or narratology, but
to balance those ideas with that which defies description. In a sense, ‘Science and Magic’ is my
version of Virginia Woolf’s opening to Mrs Dalloway: ‘What a lark! What a plunge!’3

Moving on to ‘Just Another Monday’, it must be said that it is one of my more unusual pieces to
date. It is born partly out of a half-genuine, half-joking anxiety about the stability of the Menzies

1
‘Science and Magic’, pp.1-2
2
McQuillan, Martin (ed.) The Narrative Reader, Mieke Bal, ‘from Narratology’, p.81
3
Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, p.1

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building. However, it is the humourous side of this concern that comes out uppermost. ‘Just
Another Monday’ is simultaneously an assimilation of a fairly pedestrian apprehension and the idea
of simply ‘getting on with it’ in an unexpected situation. This is exemplified in the turn the story
takes. The first sentence is a shock: ‘On a cold Monday morning, staff and students arrived to find
the Menzies Building had collapsed.’ 4 However in following this with ‘Again.’5, my intention was to
immediately undermine its impact. In essence, the piece is about subverting the original impression.
No one is hurt or dies in the collapse of the building, indeed no one is even concerned by the event;
to the characters it is just a matter of putting it back up. And it is this attitude, and the image of
students and staff ‘set[ting] down their books,[and] roll[ing] up their sleeves’ 6 in order to reconstruct
the building that I wanted to convey to the reader.

I look at ‘Below the Ice’ as being a collision of everyday life with my preference to write in a high
fantasy mode. This is shown in the way Julian’s memories of his old life begin to intrude first upon
his mind and then his current life. It is difficult to bring high fantasy into a short story, as much of the
style relies on a level of exposition short fiction simply does not have the space for. Yet as my chief
influence, it was important that high fantasy be part of my folio in some form. It is also worth noting
that ‘Below the Ice’ is underpinned by death and injury. The death of Julian’s wife is the most overt
example, but the idea is also present in the ice burn scars, amongst others. Death is not intended as
the central theme of the piece, rather it is present in the way suggested by Walter Benjamin: ‘Death
is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.’ 7
Or in other words, death is always involved in narrative on some level.

Though the above deconstruction of each story would suggest that they stem from different
influences and are as such wholly separate, this is not the case. As the pieces were written so closely
in terms of chronology, they share a certain coherence of style. For example, the folio is bookended
by periods of high fantasy in the form of King Mor’s conversation with the magician and Julian’s time
in Aleraqi, with lower fantasy in between these two points. In short, the pieces have taken on a level
of unity because they were written to be presented together.

Finally, I must address the male influence on the folio. In Susan S. Lanser’s ‘Toward a Feminist
Narratology’, the author contends that ‘[a] narratology for feminist criticism... [has] to reconcile the

4
‘Just Another Monday’ p.3
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
McQuillan, Martin (ed.) The Narrative Reader, Walter Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller: Reflections on the works of
Nikolai Leskov’, p.49

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ENH4265 Final Assignment: Short Fiction Folio and Exegesis

primarily semiotic approach of narratology with the primarily mimetic orientation of...feminist
thinking about narrative.’8 However I am in line with Nilli Diengott when it comes to the discussion of
the perspective of sex in narrative: ‘...there is no need, indeed, no possibility of reconciling feminism
with narratology.’9 I would go further than this and say that there is no reason, for myself at least, to
reconcile the masculine and feminine perspectives, simply because I don’t find writing a male
character to be markedly different from writing a female. However, it is inconceivable to my mind
that my male protagonists could be female. Consider the idea of a single mother, in comparison with
a single father. To me, writing men and women is essentially the same; it’s what I want to do with
my characters makes their sex crucial.

References:

8
McQuillan, Martin (ed.) The Narrative Reader, p.199
9
Ibid, Nilli Diengott ‘Narratology and Feminism’, p.204

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 McQuillan, Martin (ed.) The Narrative Reader, Routledge, New York, 2000
o Walter Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller: Reflections on the works of Nikolai Leskov’, pp.46-
53
o Mieke Bal, ‘from Narratology’, pp.81-6
o Susan S. Lanser, ‘Toward a Feminist Narratology’, pp.198-201
o Nilli Diengott ‘Narratology and Feminism’, pp.201-204
 Woolf, Virginia, Mrs Dalloway, original publication Hogarth Press, 1925, annotated edition,
Penguin Group, London, 1992

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