Igor (short story)
Igor was the seventh story in The Boulevard: Volume Two.
Summary
A word is etched into brickwork in the Boulevard over and over, an old woman tracing it over and over, unable to move on. "Igor."
1958
Pam and her sister are alone, their parents gone and unlikely to return. As Pam fights off a man who assaults the pair, her thoughts turn to the stories her mother used tell her, the Duppies, the fairy tales that prey on disobedient children, seeing one's influence in the man. And so Pam begins to plan. How can one catch and destroy such beings? Trapping physical ideas in non physical forms. She decides on music.
1950
Pam sits on the floor of her kitchen, as her mother warns her of the Duppy. Pam asks why nobody has ever tried to catch one. Her mother tries to warn her away from this idea, but Pam silently resolves to herself that she'll capture it eventually.
1284
A figure in a technicolor dream coat plays music as he leads a group of rats and children out of the town of Hamlin.
2001
A boy and his parents are traveling on a train, preparing to perform the premier of a new piece by a famous composer. As they disembark, the boy loses his parents, and he waits for them near a horde of pigeons for hours until it gets dark. As he turns to leave, he notices graffiti on a nearby wall - "Igor". The same as the name of the piece he's to perform. A figure descends. All that's found the next day is shredded paper.
1953
Pam's family has been given a house by the government after they've moved from Jamaica. Near them she finds a family that has a piano and finds herself entranced by the melody. While the family is out in church each week she sneaks in and attempts to teach herself, having stolen a book from a local shop and using the pieces left by the owners, from work for beginners to more complicated compositions by people like Igor Stravinsky.
1652
Krampus comes at night to take away those naughty children and stuff them in his sack, none ever escaping the folds of the cloth. A wonderful Christmas gift.
1969
Pam sits on a rooftop, books and papers scattered around her, songs scribbled on anything within reach. Her sister isn't here. As she sings the other gutter rats flocked to her voice, and she's amassed a small following of children who she's doing this for now. Her sister isn't here. Where is she? Where has she gone? She goes by a different name now, not Pam. Igor. Her plan is still working, slowly, bit by bit, her web is expanding.
2007
As dia de los muertos comes and goes, a boy, Abs, takes a bus, having ran away from home, encountering Pam as she whistles to herself a tune. He talks to her, now an old forgetful woman, who can't even remember why she wrote the music pieces that she did. Abs walks Pam back to her house, and then starts the trek to where he's currently holed up. As he does a static-y creature congeals out of the darkness, plucking out his eyes, leaving him to die.
1985
Randomly, by complete accident, Igor meets someone else, another woman. And so Igor becomes Pam once again, and forgets who Igor was. Instead she works as a composer, becoming famous, only ever thinking of the name Igor as it's the name of her magnum opus, never quite finished.
2018
Pam has a student, a small whelp of a thing. Frankly, quite irritating. Can't remember her name though. Everything has become a blur, all her life, the stories her mother told, her works, her magnum opus. Only three people tried to play it - all died before doing so. A game she played when younger of being Igor. As the girl pesters her with questions, she points to an old photo, one of Pam and another girl. Is that Pam's sister? Did Pam have a sister?
Pam stumbles. A sister? She begins to remember. She remembers protecting her sister with a broom. There's someone else in this room with her, not her sister. She grabs a nearby broom, not recognizing her student at all, and attacks. Her student flees out of the room.
1959
As Igor begins to build her empire, constructing her nest, scrawling her name all over the city, building a found family for all those lost creatures, Pam's sister becomes more and more isolated. Finally she confronts Pam - Igor on a rootop, insists that she's unhappy, that she wants to leave. The two scuffle and Pam's sister falls, dies. Igor walks away.
2018
Pam's student continues to flee. Pam unearths the Igor manuscript, the finished version. Igor remembers the plan. She is the plan. Most of the graffiti has long since been erased, but there's still some. She walks to her stove, lighting it. And one by one she burns the pages, dropping them as they light. As the last falls, she too falls with it. And the flames swell, becoming a beacon of light, leading the lost boys home.
Characters
References
to be added
Notes
The music from this short story was recorded by Rae Evans and the Dunelm Symphony Orchestra and released on Soundcloud by George Wells on 1 July 2020.[1]
Continuity
to be added
Footnotes
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