Series teaser

An extract from Rae Rostron’s new series, ‘My Fucking Turn’

She had fallen asleep with the window open. Stupid really, you’re not supposed to do that. It’s one of the first things her mother taught her when she was younger; when she was young, and it was hot, and she wanted to feel the breeze on her face. Don’t leave your window open when you turn out the lights, don’t leave the blinds up. Simple advice really, simple advice every child is given: not to let the dark in.

But here was dark. Here existed somewhere in between, here was quiet enough to make you jump.

She didn’t remember falling asleep but she must have; and that’s when it must have come, when her eyes were closed and she couldn’t tell it not to; it must’ve known she’d leave the window open; it must know her so well, though she didn’t know it at all; she couldn’t even tell where it had gone, it had just whispered sour sorries into her ear and sunk into the shadows, or the night, or whatever it was that was making it so, so dark.

How she’d imagined breathing backwards would sound

Sorry. It sounded strange, kind of like how she’d imagine breathing backwards would sound. She wondered if it meant it, she wondered if it could feel anything at all, she wondered what it would feel if it

Rae Rostron’s series will be published weekly online. It follows the story of a girl battling a physical manifestation of depression

Starting Friday 5 May 2023 it will be uploaded onto the Palatinate website.

TW: Discussions of mental health could. She didn’t imagine it would feel sorry, but there was something pitiful here. Not pity like she’d felt it before, not the kind you feel for sad children or broken birds, maybe the kind you felt for bitter men when you realise how and when that bitterness came to be; the kind you feel for hurt people who hurt people. Maybe, but not quite. It was as though it had taken a peek into her nightmares, asked what they were made of, and weaved that same fabric into this place, a place it had made its home in, and asked her not to fear it. Is that what she was doing? Was she scared? Was she feeling?

It was her own fault. She shouldn’t have left the window open. It must have been so quiet, but if she cast her mind back she could almost remember it. She could almost remember the gentle violence with which it had taken her out; the brief moment where her stomach had dropped, not as if the floor had fallen out from beneath her, but as if the floor had forgotten that it was supposed to be there at all. She must have fallen so far, so down, down, down, until wherever she was falling to had become too narrow and she hadn’t been able to fall anymore. Maybe that’s what this place was, whatever existed when there was no where else for you to fall.

God, as if god wouldn’t be deaf and blind

It had come back into her space, god knows when, God, as if god wouldn’t be deaf and blind, but she could feel it careening, wrapping its hands around her, shoving di erent parts of her out of the way, her legs, arms, her hands, it was all alone.

It was lonely, maybe that’s why she was here; maybe they were the same; maybe it was something that was happening for her and not to her; maybe it just wanted to talk to someone; maybe it really was gentle because it didn’t really feel like violence, not if she thought about it, not now she was here. Not now that she settled and it was just getting comfortable. Not that she was comfortable. It felt as though it was kind of ripping her open, as though it was squeezing her flesh, ripping her away layer by layer, maybe to nestle in somewhere inside: cocooned, warm, safe, and entirely unwanted. Not even because it wanted to, but because it was supposed to. But it didn’t feel like it was touching her either. It wasn’t just taking each layer it was changing it, chewing it up, spitting it out and letting the rags piece themselves back together, or watching as they failed to. Whatever it was doing and however it was doing it, she didn’t think that it was finished. It was waiting, or was it doing something else? She could smell it, but she couldn’t feel it. Whenever she reached out, whenever she went to tear it away, to loosen its grip or fight back it would slide down her palms and something like dust would tickle her fingers instead.

film@palatinate.org.uk