The Magpie by R M Gurnhill
The head on the door first appeared late one Sunday evening when Wagstaff was a little worse for wear from ale. It materialised on the inside of the entrance to his apartment in the bell tower where he lived on campus. At first Wagstaff put the apparition down to the drink and the after-effects of watching Apocalypse Now, ensconced alone as usual in his small living room, a thunderous storm booming around the university.
The head on the door was still there the following morning; a day that dawned bright and full of hope, little fluffy clouds in an ocean of blue. It promised a classic English summer, fit for dogs and mad Englishmen.
He spent the day, as usual, around the buildings of Lancaster Hall, managing and directing operations to maintain and supply the faculty and student population of his small part of Nottingham’s finest educational establishment. As he worked, his mind strayed continuously to the matter of the head, wondering if the ale, his usual brand, had become contaminated in the cans somehow. Trying to push the matter from his mind, he soldiered on until the last of the day’s dramas had been resolved.
Returning to his apartment, Wagstaff was surprised to find the head still on the back of the door. Ignoring it, for want of any other way to react, he went about his nightly routine; first, eating the meal he’d brought from the refectory, then settling down for several hours writing at his desk, attempting to overcome the writer’s block that thwarted all his attempts to complete his second literary masterpiece. Later, frustrated once more, he retired to bed with a cocoa and that bastion of truth and accuracy, the BBC 10 o’clock news; Wagstaff avoided social media and the tabloids. He always considered their effect on common culture ‘brain death by media’.
This night, as he sat writing, he was aware of the head watching him, its face somehow anguished and on the verge of tears. Wagstaff tried to put it from his mind, and he struggled on with his work, pushing the words around the page, trying to find a pattern where they fit and meant something.
This night he went to bed cursing the continued silence of the agent he had submitted his first full manuscript to after the man had expressed interest. Wagstaff slept restlessly as always.
The week dragged on. After each mundane day, Wagstaff returned home to find the head, still anguished, and the block to progress still intact. On the Friday he was called to the kitchen to resolve an altercation between an agency waiter and the chefs, and that night, for once, slept soundly and dreamless. The following day, Wagstaff walked to the university shop - many students travelled home to family on the weekends, allowing him space and freedom on campus away from people; after all, there was no need to interact – what did people know, what did they know of him or his life? They didn’t understand. They could never understand.
As he navigated the vast expanses of lawn, crossing the stone bridge spanning one end of the lake, he soaked up the solitariness, drinking in the sensory experiences of the open air. Later, heading home, bags stuffed with stationary supplies and the guilty pleasure of ale, he felt a thrill of excitement at his purchases. Then he froze, as a lone magpie landed on the grass before him to stand staring intently. Wagstaff’s pulse quickened; he whispered good afternoon, Mr Magpie, saluted, and the bird was gone into the air and away.
That night Wagstaff dreamt of his childhood dog, Benjy, the woods where he would walk him on the reserve near his parents’ house, and the heavy rubber ball he threw for Benjy to chase. In his dream, he saw a magpie swooping down the path towards him; his heart beat faster until the bird veered off into the trees. For just a moment Wagstaff had imagined the bird staring deep into his eyes, into his soul. He shuddered, and woke.
On the Sunday he found the road to his writing free from obstruction, his mind clear and focused, the writer’s block dismissed into the past. The head appeared to be chuckling, silently. Wagstaff set to his keyboard with relish.
He spent time during the second week photographing the head, in all its glory, with his phone camera. Time and again he considered showing someone, but each time he hesitated – even Paul, his fellow bursar from Tunbridge Hall would think him mad. The thought of allowing anyone to enter the hallowed space of his apartment was never a consideration, even to prove the head’s existence. Thinking of the head gave him comfort somehow, his own little secret.
On the second Saturday after the appearance of the head, Wagstaff walked easier to the shop, his gait light and his steps no longer weighed down with crushing doubt over his ability to create. The wide-open space and lush green lawns filled his senses with clear, fresh inspiration, and he exalted in the deserted expanse. There were magpies on the grass that day too. He greeted them cordially and strode on.
That evening, Wagstaff lay in the dark, cocoa cooling, TV turned off, staring at the ceiling as he worked on his story and characters; many based on the students he saw passing through the university year after year, a stream of continually changing youth in a pool of potentiality.
He slept deeply that night and within his dream, he awoke, the pressing weight of a magpie on his chest, beak raised imperiously as it cawed over him. His dream-self tried to rise but the bird held him fast to the earth. As he struggled, his heart raced, and as he pulled free at last, he awoke in the real world, sweating.
By the end of the second week Wagstaff had become used to the presence of the head in his apartment and his life. He took to greeting it good morning when he rose and good evening upon his return from work. The head, as was its way, gave no response. said nothing, failed to react, just chuckled silently on while Wagstaff wrote.
By the third week the presence of the head signalled normality for Wagstaff. His work and writing continued in a set routine, the words flowing easily now, Wagstaff determined more than ever to write on, regardless. He always thought of Thoreau’s advice when the doubts excited his anxiety, and his imposter syndrome came crashing once more into his consciousness: ‘If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours’. It seemed to calm him somehow and placate the niggly feeling in the back of his mind that writing wasn’t really a proper job. Wagstaff was sure that, even after the six months he’d already waited for a response, no news was good news. Confirmed rejection would probably destroy him.
The ringing of his phone distracted him – Paul, his fellow bursar from Tunbridge Hall needed assistance. Sighing, he saved his document and rose.
His trip to the shop that week was wet and morose, a sudden storm lashing campus for the whole of the weekend. Wagstaff was relieved however, as the students remaining in halls refused to venture out. He greeted the waiting magpies in his customary manner.
That night Wagstaff took himself off to bed with no cocoa or TV. In the dream that came he stalked the wood, finger pressed to lips as he hushed Benjy, seeking the elusive magpie as it hopped from limb to limb, a stolen treasure clenched in its beak. They watched it concealing the deflated foil balloon scrap in a hollow of the trunk.
By the end of the month the head displayed a determined look each time that Wagstaff sat down to write, and he used this encouragement to soldier on through the second part of the novel. The week passed without incident until the Saturday. As he returned from the shop, laden with bags, a feast of crows descended on the lawn. He greeted them politely and passed on. As he approached the entrance to the hall, he encountered a gaggle of female students surrounding a weeping, howling girl as she sat distraught upon the entrance stairs. He hurried past, eyes fixed on the distant haven of the belltower as suppressed emotions crashed into his senses. Slamming the apartment door behind him, he dropped the bags on the floor and fled to his bedroom to lay, mind whirling with images and emotions he hadn’t experienced since the time the student had expressed her undying love for him, triggering his deepest anxieties, and catapulting him into a maelstrom of faculty accusations. He’d learned that day that innocent until proven guilty no longer existed in a world obsessed with social media frenzy. It was the beginning of his self-imposed exile, his attempt to protect his shyness and anxiety from the outside world, and the lie that meant he would never trust in love again.
That night the nightmare came; crouched within the foliage, mesmerised by the pie-bald bird as it built the nest high in the branches, he waited. Then she was there, his Grendel, crashing through the undergrowth, graduation gown flapping, calling his name. He shrunk into the ferns, burrowing down, fear clutching tightly at him once more.
For the next week Wagstaff kept his head down, trying to stay as anonymous as possible, eyes ever watchful for danger. The words were difficult to coax onto the page, and he felt himself slipping to a blockage once more. The head appeared downcast as Wagstaff sat silently, hands unmoving on the keyboard, the swirling emotions clouding the words that lay just beyond his grasp.
He hurried to the shop at the earliest hour on the Saturday, trying to avoid anyone at all, and the single magpie that greeted him from the lawn accepted his perfunctory hello and flew cawing away. Wagstaff paused momentarily to watch it fly, then hurried on to the sanctuary of home and the head.
That night in his dream he sat cross-legged, lotus-like upon the lawn beside the lake, tit-bits of flesh slipping from his fingers to the ravenous beak of the magpie before him.
He awoke refreshed and as his thoughts turned that day, he considered the wisdom of a tattoo; a magpie totem inked symbolically over his heart, a place no-one would ever see.
The words flowed easily now, the final chapter nearing, and Wagstaff felt an elation unheard of as his fingers wove magic upon the keys, the head smiling manically down on him. Wagstaff had consigned the anxiety of the girl once more to the confines of the past, and as he journeyed through the week, he rushed home each night to greet the head, the thrill of each meeting lifting his spirits and raising his hopes for the future.
At the shop that week, for the photo he had printed of the head, he bought a gilt frame, to place beside his bed. A mischief of magpies sat upon the railings of the bridge, watching him intently on his journey home. A single voice, cawing intently, followed him all the way as he walked.
In his dream that night he once more walked the winding trails of the woods, heavy rubber ball cast before him over and over for Benjy to fetch. And then, a misthrow, the ball careering from a fallen bough, bouncing high into the branches, crashing to the ground in a flurry of feathers and broken nest, mewling babes casting blindly around their crushed brethren. “Benjy! No!”
The following day he rose with a strange trepidation in his chest. Greeting the head with a cheery smile, he turned on the coffeemaker and booted-up his laptop. Opening his email, his heart leapt then fell. Nestling in his inbox was the publishing agent’s address above the subject heading ‘Re: manuscript submission’. So, today was the day. He rose and poured himself a coffee, adding milk and stirring slowly as his mind whirled in a flurry of emotions. His stomach rose and fell in the possibility of elation, or devastation. He stood and sipped, eyes avoiding the head.
When he could hold back no longer, he sank slowly onto his chair, hovered the mouse cursor over the open icon; took a deep breath. As he clicked the button, he glanced to the head on the door; to find it staring, eyes wide and expectant.
“This is a story I was inspired to write by the turbulent existence of the writer striving to write their magnum opus as well as holding down that all-important bill-paying day job. As you can probably tell, it's something I am experiencing myself! The story reflects on my belief that we writers are but magpies, watching the world pass by, gathering the glittering shards of everyday life to weave into fantastical tales of the extraordinary. Unfortunately, this piece struggled to find a home: I suspect due to its Englishness, or perhaps due to its blend of magical realism and weirdness.”
Russ, novelist: obsessed with the construction and form of the novel, storytelling, and Ezra Pound’s wish to ‘make it new’, is engaged with untangling the Gordian knot of life. Literary fiction is his passion, and, like his fellow writers, he aspires to be published - but more; to be read.