This is the first of four posts I shall share over the festive season, each sending something I crafted a while ago, when I had far fewer subscribers. As three of these posts are usually behind the paywall, it makes sense to share them once more. After five years of consistently sharing a letter, there are a lot to choose from.
For those of you who enjoy my fiction, Dancing With Death will continue to be shared every Friday. (There will also be news about my fiction early next year.)
I shall return with new words in January 2025 and I truly cannot wait to share some of the things I have lined up for you.
For now, here is the first of these letters, taken from this piece I originally shared on the 15th of November, 2023. This is from my Edges and Entries series, of which you can read more here, focussing on liminal spaces, in this case doors and entranceways.
A Memory of Keys
Do you ever pause and consider keys and locks? There’s a strange mystery and magic to these, enhanced by a rich and long history of fairy tale and folklore surrounding both, a tradition which only continues to grow.
When I was little, I never had a house key. I never needed one, I was either with my parents, or one of them (Mum, usually, always) would be at home. My Dad had a giant bundled bunch of keys, despite many of them apparently being for locks he either no longer had access to or had forgotten their use. I found this strange, until I met others who had the same habit, keeping keys forever, despite no longer knowing what they did. One friend had a bundle of thirty or more, shards of his home history carved out in metal, the latest rental marked with a piece of sticky duck tape, his leather jacket pocket misshapen and weighed down.
Before this, when I was growing up in Orkney, other friends had keys or, quite often, their homes would be unlocked anyway. Orkney, at that time, was like that. There was little crime, although it was growing even while I lived there. The Sheriff Court pages of The Orcadian were always required reading, and I’d often wonder at that dangerous and lawless city of Kirkwall (pop. <6k in those days), over in the East Mainland. Sometimes, there were people sent away to prison in the south for breaking and entering, for theft, of all things—something usually reserved for fiction.
(When I was a young teenager, my sisters and I decided we should become international jewel thieves (possibly aided by watching reruns of Roger Moore as Simon Templar/The Saint). This career choice for us lasted but a week or two, before we moved on to something else. During this time, however, I found a padlock and surprised myself by actually learning to open it without a key. This was a long time before YouTube and I probably succeeded by nothing more than sheer luck and trial and error. Perhaps I would have more money, had I stuck with this career choice? [Or perhaps that is what a real international jewel thief, deep in their cover, would say?!])
Often, Orcadians dealt with criminal activity in a more direct, more ancient manner and, perhaps, this discouraged such acts. There were outliers, events which would be talked about winter-long, whispered in shock and horror but, for the most part, it was utterly safe to leave the doors unlocked.
When I moved away, I felt very much as though I was thrust into a dangerous and glittering metropolis (this was the city of Derby, pop. circa 200k). There were proper crimes here, with real burglaries, cops and robbers. Receiving a key to my university home felt like something of importance, a step into something more adult, for risky, more worrying.
Over the years, keys and locks have come and gone in my life. Doors which needed to be pulled to turn the key, others which only opened with a bit of a kick or shoulder. Some didn’t always work at all, and I’d have to trust to luck for a time, until a negligent landlord finally fixed the issue.
Later, I would receive keys from lovers or friends, places to go when I needed to, places which were not mine but where I was welcome, nevertheless. These felt like strange tokens, things I did not take for granted, and still don’t.
When I left Scotland to become globally feral, on the literal eve of my 40th birthday (as I’m sure you’re probably already aware by now), I had in my pocket a key, gifted for that birthday. It was from a friend, for her house. That way, she said, no matter where you go in the world, you’ll still have a home. In exchange, I lent her my childhood teddy bear, so he would not be kept stored, bundled in a box, but would actually continue to be loved.
I had tried to explain to her that the wind was my home. My home was in watching a bird I had never seen before, or wondering at the names of trees I had just met or the spices in the dish I had just eaten. Yet it was moving to be given this level of trust, made considerably more so by the fact that, last December, she died, suddenly and unexpectedly and younger than me.
I now have a key to her house, where the husband she met and married whilst I was away now lives alone, as far as I know. I do not really know him, and I wonder if he knows I have the key. I wonder if he still has my teddy bear.
Keys and keyholes. Strange things, full of stories, full of meaning. We are a tale of our keys, we are a tale of the times we have used them and the times we no longer will.
Questions and Prompts
Do you collect keys? Do you have any for which you no longer know their purpose? Have you ever dug up or found an ancient, huge key, all iron and twists and teeth? What does a key represent to you? Do you lend them freely, or keep them close?
Twice the Money: A Fiction
‘It’s just logical. Why not double the space we can rent out?’
‘But…’
‘Twice the money, what’s not to like?’
‘But no one will…’
‘Won’t they? They did it at number seven. It worked. They did it at number forty-three too. All you have to do is slap a lower price point on the rent, find the sweet spot and pull in the punters.’
‘Is it legal, though? I don’t see how it can…’
‘It’s not illegal. After all, it would be discrimination against shorter people if it were, right?’
‘I’m not entirely sure of your logic there, I…’
‘Look. Think of it this way. If you divide each room up, it gives you more to rent out, right? This city has been parcelled and chopped for years now. Well, why do we have to do so with vertical walls? We can do the same thing with horizontal ceilings and floors, then market it with the same floor size—it’s all relative, remember? Fifty square feet, fifty square metres, whatever. As soon as you chop that up into two with normal walls—it’s half that. This way, it doubles.’
‘But who’s going to want to live somewhere they can’t stand up?’
‘There you go, being discriminatory again. Some people will be able to stand up here. And punters look at the numbers my friend, they see those square numbers and the lower rent, arrive and have a look, love the location and decide the trade-off is worth it.’
‘But…’
‘Besides, these big old houses, all that dead space above our heads? It’s environmentally friendly, is what it is.’
‘It’s what, now?’
‘Environmentally friendly. Takes much less to heat the space. Makes sense, right?’
‘I’m not sure…’
‘You don’t have to be. It’s green, it’s a good investment and, best of all, I don’t even have to put in another front door.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Nah. I’ll just put the floor in and saw this one in half. Makes sense, right? This, my friend, is just good business.’
Finally
Many thanks for reading.
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Finally, I want to thank each and every one of you who has read anything I’ve shared here. Whether you are a paid or free subscriber, have sent a tip (thanks Mum, for getting the ball rolling on that one, since then the tip button has actually finally been used!), or have enjoyed something I’ve sent enough to let me know, whether through a little heart, sharing, or a comment. It is all so very, very much appreciated and I am so grateful you have used some of your precious time to have done so.
"Globally feral" ... love the image that creates. I'd love to be globally feral, but those damned passports ...
A memory of Keys... this makes me smile Alex; did I ever tell you one of the reasons we moved to France was because we held keys for so many properties in Ireland, friends, family, clients etc... we were tired of the responsibility they held. We wanted just one key each, preferably one that would rarely have to be used, we were hopeful, we'd been told that here, in La France Profonde' there was no necessity to lock up every time we left the house. Not so as it turns out but in twenty years much has changed... and of course, we now have just as many keys, friends, family and clients and for me, for too many of those years schools also!
It seems we are bound by the nature of our lives to bear this burden!
I hope your evening is lit by that beautiful light only deep snowfall can provide!