It was upon one of my infrequent trips to the conglomeration of buildings known only as - The Centre - where I happened upon an anonymous diary in a back street shop I have not been able to place since. This diary was written by someone obviously undergoing a psychotic break and I present the opening pages here, only in the hope that the diarist will recognise himself and get in contact; or at the very least seek the redensitive help he so obviously needs...
Recent history sadly doesn't recall the exact cast, location or motivation for the experiment. However its outcome has come to be known as The Redensive Epiphanies of Pouty McNavel
Early in the early 21st century a selection of the <word unclear> minds were sent to an island, for reasons unknown. This is their story. Or stories, or facts, in the case of.
Decades previous to finding this marvel the events of that far gone halcyon time had existed only in heavily redacted documents tenuously secured through brave Freedom of Information requests by students and aficionados of the bizarre. It is time to add the words back in, to redensify those documents; in short, it is time to reveal to the world - The Epihany - as the ephemeral collection has become known.
Enter the first story in the collection - The Redensive Epiphany of Pouty McNavel which is only surpassed by one of the later stories - The Redensive Epiphany of Pouty McNavel whose author leaves us no map except the pattern of punctuation which points to a greater understanding of the cosmos which is perfectly reflected in the night sky once every thousand years. One may ask how they knew, but that would be the wrong question.
Naturally one author regales us with the thoroughly unlikeable qualities of the title character before he, or she, is redeemed in later tales, only to be cast further into infamy in yet later tales. The message is almost clear, but will take repeated readings to fully divine. Some of the stories break cover, and codify other, possible realities - titles in two of them break the mould in ways that yet define and reconstruct it anew.
Solely recorded in the back of the book is a list of unlikely names, but these surely are not the authors of this collection, merely the brave souls who went before us on this exploration? The count of tales and count of names doesn't match - a further redaction? Each is captured in the scratchy atonal pictures of the time.
Inscribed are the names hallowed in the annals of our especial pursuit: - Sarah Ellender - that tragic figure, that valiant first explorer, a cautionary tale, Gordon Fraser, the remarkable capturer of light. Helen Callaghan the one they never knew was there with them. David Gullen - just this guy? Or the ringmaster? Melanie Garrett - they thought she was a plant, she thought they were , Gaie Sebold has cheated death more times than there have been books of poetry on the NY Times bestseller list, Chuck Dreyer - it is best not to dwell on what happened to Chuck, Troy McLure - nothing need be said about Troy, for obvious reasons and Sumit Dan - the one whose own epiphany will possibly surpass McNavels!
Vast are the gulfs in understanding this pseudonymous collection, but follow the links and you shall be enlightened... Their reactions are captured, to receiving the FOI documents in return for the questions we have all been asking ourselves since we discovered the existence of The Epiphanies - "Who is Pouty McNavel?" "What are his, or her Epiphanies?" and, perhaps, most importantly of all - "Why are they redensive?"
Evidently- it is the answer to the last that brought me to this collection. Redensive is a word that is reserved for the black dictionaries of course. Words that 'shall not be spoken' or words that in, and of, themselves scream or flail or gibber. To which we delvers return to again and again, sometimes to the detriment of our sanity. Here. Here in its fullest glory. Here the barest black dictionary entries are given form and here the word soars and swoops and exults.
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