Mr Conrad’s Final Tale

I am certain that my fascination with the gone and forgotten stems from my own fear of impermanence. Leaving something behind when I am gone is of utmost importance to me, so I have dedicated my life to preserving and sharing the legacies and lives of others who have passed. The archives in our library, the artefacts in our little museum, along with our quaint traditions, keep our village alive and thriving. As a child, I grew up hearing the histories of my home parroted from my teachers’ mouths. I would cling to every word, hanging on to each of them in anticipation of my walk home. I remember re-creating the fantasies around me as if I were there amongst forgotten time. Granted, my understanding of the nineteenth-century man stemmed from tired caricatures and parodies depicted on television. Bowler hats and monocles were perhaps not as common as I had once imagined.

For obvious reasons, I followed my love of the past wherever I could. Somehow, I was lucky enough to make this passion my profession. I am a local historian. In fact, I am the only local historian. Though I am interested in antiquities and Civil War-era Britain, I am most concerned with that which is around me. My home. The village that captured my curiosity right from the beginning. The annals of history are full of Shakespeares, Cromwells and Elizabeths. The names of those who perhaps didn’t make the history books in the National Archives are the ones that pique my interest. They deserve preserving. Though I realise now that some things should perhaps remain buried in the past where they belong.

It was this desire and craving for uncovering the forgotten world around me that led me to Daphne Silvers’ house. While renovating her fifteenth-century Tudor-beamed cottage, Daphne uncovered a chest hidden under a floorboard by the stairs.

I have undertaken extensive cataloguing and archiving of Daphne’s property already. Nothing quite like this one, but I wasn’t to know. The entire property has undergone renovations through the centuries and left remnants of architectural decadence of the time behind. The Tudor beaming remained throughout the cottage’s life, but various additions and repairs had been made. There is a Jacobean dark wood mantelpiece, a Georgian ceiling rose, and the floral wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom is still apparently laced with arsenic. The latter addition to the property was put there by one Mr Peter Conrad. Mr Conrad captured my attention from the moment I came into this job. He is my crowning achievement, if you will. Although right now, I feel as though he may have been my biggest mistake.

Unfortunately, the life of Mr Conrad is a tragic one. Before my research, the known documented life of Mr Conrad consisted of a birth certificate, a marriage certificate and a death certificate. There are a few letters here and there, along with early photographs from 1900–1905 just before his death, but nothing more. It was not until uncovering an unpublished collection of short stories written by local writers that I came across Conrad and his work. The writers in the collection were of fair notoriety in the area. A few of their manuscripts had been left to the writers’ next of kin; some published them to vanity presses over time, and others kept them for sentimental reasons. Conrad was a mystery, however. You can imagine my excitement when I came across an unpublished short story from an unknown writer. It was then that I discovered the aforementioned details documented about his life and, to the detriment of my own sanity, set my mind to discovering more.

Since then, I have come across more unpublished short stories and unsent letters from Conrad, as well as some holes in his life that I am yet to unpack. It was discovered that his wife had died mysteriously and was labelled by the police as an ‘unexpected death with no suspicious circumstances’. Without detailing the more visceral and disturbing nature of her death, it was noted that the deceased was found lying by the tree in the garden outside the cottage with bruising around her neck. Conrad gave statements and was cleared of any wrongdoing, but the public did not see this as an adequate outcome. His ramblings of dreams and strange hallucinations left him perceived as a madman. Conrad became a pariah and never left his home up until his death only one week later. Conrad’s death was not so strange, and the police report is likely the most informative and detailed account of his life that has been found. He was found by the same tree as his wife. Hanging. That’s all I care to comment on right now. For my own sake. I’m sure the report can be found if you feel you so desperately need the details. Either way, neighbours reported hearing him shouting about a strange dream in the week leading up to his death. They noted that candlelight could be seen burning throughout the night, never snuffed or extinguished. Most mornings he could be seen at first light tending to his gardens, muttering about the dream and breaking out into maddening screams, still erupting in a hubbub about a dream.

Upon discovering the chest under the stairs of her cottage, Daphne’s first impulse, from her own words, was to call me. I was, of course, immensely excited at the prospect of bringing more to light about the now locally famous antihero of the village. I promise you, my intentions were nothing but pure and came from a place of curiosity and historic inquiry. I had no knowledge of anything else.
I arrived at the cottage around midday and knocked on the door with three firm knocks. The door fell open slowly upon the third. On occasion, callers would leave the door unlocked for me to do my work whilst they went about their day. Most took keen interest in the artefacts or documents I was there to inspect, but others simply wanted them removed so as to continue with their own lives. The community is fairly trusting either way, but I had assumed Daphne would be there on this occasion. Nonetheless, I pushed on and into the house. A faint smell of rubber and chemicals tickled my nostrils as I walked past the tubes of luminous carpet underlay stacked by the door. The hairs on my arm danced slightly in the cool, dead air as I walked through the empty door arches and finally toward the stairs. The chest protruded proudly from the rotten floorboard encasing it.

The chest was bound shut with a brass clasp. Without hesitation, but with due care, I flipped the lid to reveal a leather-bound notebook.

To preface what you are about to read, I should tell you that Conrad wrote wholly on the topology of the village around him. His short stories were set in the village, and his characters were forged from observations of those in the village. In fact, this is yet another reason for my infatuation with the man. His writing was rich and, dare I say, culturally important—observations not only of the life around him but of life itself. Conrad was an intellectual. I have spent much of my career since discovering the man trying to prove his intellect to others.

Inside the leather-bound notebook was another story. I do not wish to comment any more on the contents of the notebook until you have read the story yourself. I have typed up as much as is legible from the notebook, but certain parts are missing due to damp and discolouration. I was unsure whether to share this, but you may read it for yourself below.

He had never seen a mountain in real life. The slopes of nineteenth-century rural England were the only remotely similar phenomena that came close to mountainous terrain. England didn’t really accommodate such creations, but from what he had seen in a picture on his classroom wall, he concluded that it was something to be feared as opposed to something one should wish to encounter. He would often imagine what he would do if he found himself face to face with the magnitude of such an intimidating structure and would ponder how others might react should they experience it with him. He simultaneously felt so small yet so empowered by its presence in his head that the idea of meeting it in person would force him to recoil. A mountain does not pick and choose its victims, you see; if you should find yourself within its proximity, you would immediately become aware that you have no power or agency over its lording presence and would simply have to resign any notion of superiority.

His mindless wanderings were, however, brought to a halt when Mrs M’s metre stick met his knuckles in a sharp, abrupt snap that brought him back from this liminal space of unconscious streaming.
Mrs M was a cold woman who appeared to enjoy asserting authority over her students. She was adorned in the most puritanical of garments that matched her equally plain persona. Her long black dress accompanied the clacking of heels on the linoleum floor, and her white blouse billowed in the heavy air of the classroom she heralded. Her outfit was brought together by a tightly fastened necktie that locked her head in an upright position, forcing her view to remain consistently fixed forward, meaning her glances to the children beneath her consisted of a stern stare without lowering her head. Her hair was always pulled back conservatively in a similar manner to her tie; it was tightly drawn to the extent that one might expect the grease to drip down as though freshly rinsed. The finishing touch was always a bun positioned at the very highest point at the back of her head. She measured it by drawing an imaginary line from her nose all the way round to the back of her head. If the bun did not sit where her finger finished its travels, she would redo it until completely satisfied.

I could elaborate on the décor of her classroom, but I fear this would be a waste of time. It simply acted as an extension of herself. White walls, the plainest pattern of flooring one could purchase in the nineteenth century, and a blackboard with white chalk. The mountain on the wall was the only redeeming feature of the boring classroom. Mrs M felt embodied by this little accessory yet would scarcely meet its gaze.
Jack jolted at the sensation of Mrs M’s harsh thrashing and planted his eyes directly forward to avoid any further beatings. He focused his gaze on the equations on the blackboard, which of course made little to no sense to him, as he had paid no attention to the lesson so far. Mrs M did not utter a word but simply carried on perusing the desks of the children in front of her as if carefully searching for an excuse to dish out another knuckle-cracking hit. Everybody else appeared to be chalk in hand, so Jack picked his up and looked to the desk beside his own to copy any legible markings from his neighbour’s board. He did this until the lesson was over, then promptly made his way to drill and began getting changed.

Jack took his black flat cap off his scruffy brown head of hair and placed it on the peg above his bench, followed by his black waistcoat and trousers, which were replaced with a pair of black three-quarter-length shorts. This routine happened once a day after Mrs M’s mathematics lesson. You would assume the exercise would provide a cathartic release of energy built up from stiff spines pressed against wooden desk chairs, but you would be wrong to assume with such optimism. The entire school was just as melancholic and macabre as Mrs M’s classroom. In fact, Mr H’s changing rooms were just as unembellished and boring as Mrs M’s, so much so that if you were to place the school next to a state prison you would be hard-pressed to find any distinguishable differences separating the two.

Jack had often overheard the matron speaking about ‘containing the problem’ and how the Whigs had got it right. You see, she didn’t see the point in educating boys of Jack’s position. In her eyes, they would be of far more use in labouring occupations, getting their hands dirty and using their life force for some good before inevitably becoming too weak to do anything of substance for society. It is rather an ironic point of view for someone who resides in a profession that values care and human wellbeing above all else.
In essence, the message I am trying to put forward to you is that the façade you read about regarding nineteenth-century society as a modern landscape is precisely that—a façade. Jack most certainly did not see himself as living in a modern world rife with scientific advancement and enlightenment. His circumstances were just as poor as those outlined by his favourite contemporary authors.

The students quietly made their way outside, with the odd snigger here and there from Arthur, who had found Jack’s spindly rickety legs humorous. They lined up in formation and awaited Mr H’s commands.

“Head erect. Eyes front. Chins drawn in,” Mr H called, panning across the blank faces as he continued. “Shoulders back. Arms straight. Heels together.”

Mr H stood facing the students, who looked through him. The scene was akin to that of a commander instructing his troops—each set of arms, legs and eyes at his disposal.

Jack looked at the bell tower looming over the school behind Mr H’s slick black hair and felt a sense of elation at the fact that he was in his final hour of obedience. He knew, of course, that this hour would be the longest of the day. He insisted to himself that he would not look at the clock again until he heard the bell chime five times. He went through the menial procedures: standing to attention when called upon, answering questions when beckoned, and doing as much as he could to cause the least amount of trouble possible.
When the bell chimed for 5 p.m., Jack followed his classmates back to the changing rooms, got back into the clothes he despised so much, and promptly ran home.

When Jack returned to his home in the suburban slums, he found his mother who, after slaving over the evening’s supper, was sporting a very pale face indeed. Supper consisted of a liberal serving of bolted wheat-flour bread, accompanied by the odd sprig of broccoli, other strange bits of vegetable greenery, and some cheese. She barely acknowledged Jack as he walked in—not because she was displeased by his arrival, but because she was visibly fatigued after a long day of caring for Jack’s younger brother, Henry. When she did finally have a moment to speak, she flicked her eyes at Jack, who was still standing by the door. She tended to little Henry’s snotty nose—a far less appealing green than that which was being prepared in the pot—and then spoke to her eldest son.

“Alright there, Jack. Steamed vegetables tonight, good ’nuff for ya? By jove, you need it—your legs look positively twig-like.”

Jack spluttered a little giggle at his mother’s exclamation.

“Sounds lovely, Ma. What’s little Henry got for dinner then?” Jack glanced over lovingly at his baby brother as he spoke. “He looks starving!”

“I’ll prob’ly mash up some broc’li for ’im,” she replied. “You like ya broc’li, don’t ya, Henry?”

Henry bounced a little on the floor as his mother spoke and let out a gargled shout as he flailed his arms in the air. Jack knew Henry was only picking up the high-pitched tones from his mother’s voice, but it made him smile to think that perhaps his little brother could feel the love in the voices that spoke to him. Jack slowly walked over to Henry and lifted him so that his face aligned with his own. His eyes seemed strangely knowledgeable despite his lack of earthly experience. Jack felt that lack of experience was a gift. Henry had no concerns or worries of the world and no concept of schedules or authority. He simply lived without agency, and Jack wondered why people didn’t learn from small children like his brother. Everything was black or white, and for this Jack was envious. He kissed his little brother’s cheek, and the affection was returned in an open-mouthed, gummy clatter. Jack giggled once again and set him back on the floor.

“How long till supper, Ma?” Jack enquired. “Can I go outside for a while?”

“You can go play for forty-five minutes and not a moment longer. Be back on time or I’ll give ya grub to young Henry here!”

He wasted no time, grabbed his flat cap, and sprinted out the front door once again.

Jack would always play by the railroad. There were usually no people, open space around the tracks, and he could look over the hedge to the more affluent part of his neighbourhood. He did not look enviously at these richer parts of town—I must preface—nor was he intimidated by the immense wealth he saw above the hedge. Instead, he remarked upon the way the trees grew above the rooftops. Trees that had been there long before the erection of the houses. Trees that towered over the rooftops that shielded the rich from the elements. He often sat on the tracks and watched people rush about on their daily errands or hail carriages to take them wherever they needed to go. The trees, like him, simply watched them with all the time in the world. They didn’t need to be anywhere. Jack had forty-five minutes to watch them—the trees had eternity. It was always at that thought that he would shiver. The concept of eternity frightened the poor boy, which in turn gave him a further appreciation for the trees.

Fifteen minutes into his observations, Jack noticed another young boy crawl in from the hedges. He was immediately struck by the appearance of the boy and quickly adjusted his cap and shirt before the young lad could see how scruffy he was.

At the sight of Jack, the boy’s face lit up and he came tumbling across the grass toward the railway line where Jack was perched.

“Hello, me ol’ cobber! How’d ya do?” spoke the other boy in a dialect unfamiliar to Jack.

“What does cobber mean?” Jack enquired.

“I don’t really know, but I thought you might,” replied the boy. “I’m Thomas, and you?”

“Jack,” he answered. “I’ve never seen anyone before in these bits.”

“I often come here. I’m surprised we haven’t bumped into each other sooner. Do you want to be my friend?”

Thomas’s request seemed exceptionally odd to Jack’s ears. He had never really had a friend before, especially not someone layered in the trappings of wealth Jack had never known. Thomas was dressed in a navy shirt and pin striped trousers that stretched down to his navy striped shoes, fastened with a small gold buckle. Jack got the impression Thomas was a sailor from the immediate look of him. Jack looked down at himself and couldn’t help but feel out of place, but nevertheless decided to accept Thomas’s offer.

“That sounds good. Do you want to play sticks?”

“What’s sticks?”

“Well, I have a stick and you have a stick, and we have to knock it out of each other’s hand. Whoever knocks it out of the other’s hand is the winner.”

Thomas seemed shocked by the juvenile description of the game but was intrigued, and so obliged. He scouted the area and found the thickest, longest and toughest stick he could find.

Before long the two boys were engaged in combat, laughing as one stick was knocked from the other’s grasp. Jack seemed far better at the game than Thomas, but neither minded.

As the sun began to set below the hedges, the boys became tired, and their once enthusiastic stick clattering became a lethargic clinking of wood. When Jack realised he probably didn’t have long left of his allotted forty-five minutes, he picked up his rhythm and became determined to have the last laugh. For one final time they were engaged in heated combat.

As they continued, Jack saw a train propelling towards them at speed. He assumed Thomas was also aware of the incoming locomotive, as they both stepped away from the tracks, continuing their game fervently. As the train approached nearer, Thomas’s grip loosened slightly. Without hesitation, Jack seized his moment. In an instant Thomas’s stick flew from his hand and landed beside the steel rail.

“I win!” Jack exclaimed triumphantly.

Thomas huffed in exasperation but let out a slight smile at his new friend’s elation. He turned and bent over to pick up his stick, determined to have one last game before Jack returned home.

Unfortunately, this game would never be played again.

Before Thomas could retrieve his stick and straighten his spine, his head was dashed against the steel bumper of the steam train that unapologetically ploughed down the rails at full speed, taking Thomas’s head with it. What remained of his lifeless, decapitated corpse was strewn across the bloodstained grass at Jack’s feet.

The days after the murder—or at least that was what they were calling it—were slow and torturous for Jack. He found himself locked in a cell on death row with nothing but steel bars, a privy, a bed, and a clock ticking outside the cell to keep him company. He occasionally saw the warden pacing down the corridor, giving Jack a swift and judgemental stare as he passed. The walls were white, the floor was white, and the sky outside was white. He knew what was coming, but the trial date seemed so distant that the days sauntered by slower than he had ever experienced before.

When the time came for his trial, Jack stood in the lavish courtroom surrounded by journalists. Poor little Thomas’s parents sat sobbing behind him, and to his left stood the portly gentleman who had first encountered Jack standing over Thomas’s dismembered body with blood covering his clothes. When he spoke in court, Jack got the impression that the man had witnessed the entirety of the event unfold, but in reality he had only lingered briefly before fleeing through the hedges screaming bloody murder toward the town Jack once observed. He had claimed he witnessed Jack shove the boy onto the rails as the train approached.
The trial was over in less than an hour, and Jack was escorted back to his cell where he would spend the remainder of his life. He wished for his mother to visit him, but she had been detained after an outburst at the police station when Jack was brought in. She was told she would not be allowed to visit. Though unaware of Jack’s exact predicament, she knew her son stood trial and, like any concerned mother, lashed out at any uniformed individual in her way until she could see her child. The result was a fine she had no means of paying, likely condemning her to debtor’s prison before the week was out.

Jack felt the clock ticking in his heart as he paced his cell once more. He wished desperately to transfer his soul into Henry’s, or to feel the slow burn of a school day again.

Jack had three days to live.

The third day passed excruciatingly slowly. He watched every hour tick by until midnight struck and his second-to-last day on earth began. As he drifted into slumber, he dreamt about the mountain on his classroom wall. He dreamt he stood face to face with it. Atop the mountain stood the portly gentleman from that fateful day. He held a pocket watch and a golden pole with a flag attached. He screamed and drove the flag into the mountain, sending debris cascading down and engulfing Jack in darkness. He felt the crushing weight of rock around him, unable to muster the strength to free himself. He was trapped. The struggle continued until the chiming of a clocktower outside his cell window tore him from sleep.

His final day passed faster than his mind could endure. He remembered breakfast with sunlight pouring through the window, lunchtime beneath grey clouds, and supper accompanied by rain hammering against the bars and dripping into a puddle on the floor.

Everything blurred together, filling him with unbearable anxiety. He decided his final night should not be ruled by fear but by memories of happiness. He dreamt of Henry’s slobbery kiss, the smell of steamed vegetables, and the candlelit stories his mother read each night before bed. Sleep embraced him with a gentleness absent the night before.

As he awoke on the morning that would mark his final hours, Jack noticed how brightly the sun shone and how loudly the birds chirped. Soon he felt the dewy morning air upon his skin as he was escorted toward the gallows.

Jack stood barefoot upon the wooden platform. A crowd stared back at him in confusion. They did not know how to feel. He was scarcely into double figures, and despite the horrid details of the crime they believed he had committed, many felt a quiet remorse for the child condemned to die.

He scanned the faces until he recognised familiar ones. Mrs M stood there, her hair down, eyes fixed on the ground. Arthur stood beside her rubbing his eyes. At the very back of the crowd he saw his mother, sobbing uncontrollably with Henry screaming in her arms. Jack knew Henry could not understand what he was about to witness, yet his presence made the moment more bearable.

“On the charge of murder, we hereby sentence Jack Parson to death by hanging.”

The crowd fell silent.

Jack stepped forward. The executioner tightened the noose around his neck and placed a black hood over his head.

The bell tower rang into Jack’s ears one final time. He paid attention to every tone, every rhythm. The first startled him and sent a tear down his cheek—not a tear of terror, but one that slid across his lips as they formed a solemn smile. The next five chimes passed too quickly to count, but the seventh seemed to stretch into eternity. He focused on the air slipping between his restrained fingers.

The elements would continue long after he was gone, and Jack found comfort in this. Though his body would vanish, he believed he would live within his mother’s memory, drifting around her like the air brushing his fingertips. He heard her wailing as the bells continued to chime and whispered for her not to cry. He imagined sitting once more beside candlelight, held in her embrace as she read stories to him and Henry.

When the bell chimed for the twelfth time, Jack’s neck snapped, and his legs spasmed until they finally fell still.

When I first reached that final line, I knew immediately that this story had scarred me. Marked me.

I have read it twice over, and yet I am no closer to explaining this feeling. It has left me in a despair deeper than I can put into words. I am not a literary scholar by any means, but I can offer my own interpretation based on my experience, and perhaps it may help you.

There is no certainty or place of ultimate knowing. Time marches on. What do I actually know for certain? If I do not consolidate what I am now, what happens when it is all done? I cannot answer, and I cannot think any longer on this. Even typing these words makes my hands shake.

Perhaps the uncertainty of life is what gives us hope. The unknown pushes humanity forward. It makes us curious. You may find comfort in the fact that even our greatest academics cannot explain your own experience. You are here, you are now, and this is real. And when you go—when you leave something behind, however big or small—it still exists and will forever remain on this planet. I have tried convincing myself of this. It has not worked as of yet.

I am unsure what you felt when reading this story. Perhaps you felt nothing. Perhaps it did nothing at all. Conrad’s stories never gained much attention anyway.

All I can say is this:

I had a strange dream last night. I saw a man on top of a mountain with a pocket watch and a golden pole. The debris was charcoal black, suffocating. Every inch of my being was engulfed by black, sooty rubble. I cannot experience that again. I cannot go back to sleep. If you have read this entire account, I am sorry, and I wish you good luck. Please let me know if you experience anything similar. I do not know how much longer I have.

Credit: George Sharp