Necropolis Drive single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 Necropolis Drive
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Wintery rain slaps the window. I have the flu. I'm a linguist, a mechanic of language. I work with words and history. I'm lying in bed, reflecting on the word "sick." 'Old English'. Bringing me a cup of tea this morning before heading off to work, my wife Mia referred to me as "ill." 'Norse'. I shake free from the oblivion of fever momentarily to consider these two words, the cultures and wars behind them, the mystery of why I used one word and Mia used the other. I'm telling this story telepathically from a chamber of my mind unaffected by malaise and time...' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Southerly The Lives of Others vol. 78 no. 2 2018 16854409 2018 periodical issue “Doesn’t a breath of the air that pervaded earlier days caress us as well? in the voices we hear, isn’t there an echo of now silent ones? ... if so, then there is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Then our coming was expected on earth” (Benjamin 390). What does it mean to be in secret agreement with people and places that came before? To recognise that coming after is a matter not just of influence, but also the taking on of certain obligations—for example, to return, to pay tribute, to make amends, to put to rest? for Walter Benjamin the challenge in writing about the past is not to achieve a faithful reconstruction of an earlier period. it is to grasp moments of correspondence between the past and the present that otherwise would fall prey to the ever-present forces of amnesia. nowhere is the call of  Southerly this precarious correspondence more acutely registered than in writings and forms of creative practice that are located in the movement between one generation and the next. it is here that remembrance comes face to face with the unfinished business of people, places and events that demand some-thing of us. 2018 pg. 139-155
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Last amended 25 Jun 2019 16:58:36
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