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Terror - Jemma Paek

‘Goodness me - she’s a terror’,
Said my mother to another mother in the schoolyard.
And they watched The Terror (Sophie Brown)
Unimpressed
With parallel crossed arms and parallel straight faces
And that terrifying ennui of grown-ups
As she tore across the concrete, pigtails all a-bounce
Yelling and bellowing as her little lungs allowed
Stomping her t-barred feet as she ran.

Later, over a dinner of fish fingers and peas,
I asked my mother why she had called Sophie Brown
A Terror.
‘Well, she’s badly behaved. That’s why.
I’m glad you don’t act like that.’

I finished the fish fingers and left the peas
- Too hard to scoop with a fork -
And thought about the adult apathy on mummy’s face as she watched little Sophie Brown.
That scared me more than The Terror did.

The next day, as Sophie
(The Terror)
Tantrumed anew across the yard,
And mother once again regarded her with disdainful indifference,
I joined her in amok.
I had decided that I wanted to be A Terror
Too.

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Jemma Paek

They talk of hijacking and hostages
And growing old alone
And rising sea levels
And how smoking is carcinogenic
And all I can think about
As I stare at the screen
Is the
Terror of clicking submit

Preface to ‘The Guild of Worshipful Compendologists’ Almanack’

The Foster Concise Compendium of Definitions was discovered in a cavern under the Great Metropolis, and is believed to date from the mid-21st century. It is remarkably singular for a compendium of the era, in that there exist clear links between certain definitions, as illustrated below by the oft cited 'Man and Earth’:

man -  noun \ˈman, in compounds ˌman or mən\ 1 d :  a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens) distinguished especially by notable development of the brain with a resultant capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning, is usually considered to form a variable number of freely interbreeding races which inhabit the planet Earth, and is the sole living representative of the hominid family. <Napoleon Bonaparte><Jon Tickle><Kevin Rowland>

Middle English, from Old English man, mon human being; akin to Old High German man human being, Sanskrit manu

E.g There was once a man called Lars

Who had a bad case of SARS*

*Severe acute respiratory syndrome

earth - noun \ˈərth\ 1 a : the planet on which we live.

Middle English erthe, from Old English eorthe; akin to Old High German erda earth, Greek era

E.g He said ‘The air on this earth

is no good for my mirth’

So now he is living on Mars

Theorists have long maintained that there exists a causal chain which links the entire compendium together, using each definition only once. They maintain that, once decoded, the Compendium will reveal the long lost third volume of Malepth and tell of the Sixth Coming. Artificial Intelligence has long proved ineffective at decoding the Compendium; the most ambitious attempt was made by the great scholar Truskdu of the Citadel of Watford. His attempt, though congruous and a landmark in the field of Compendiology, used just 76,000 of the 303,074 defintions, and was forced to use the term ‘Brantano’ over six hundred times.

WE asked our most avid practitioners to submit their best discoveries. Here is one of our favorites, sent in by David, 8, from the Lower Plate region, entitled ‘Winged Terror’.

Winged Terror

-p·tera - noun combining form - \-pt(ə)rə\ :  organism or organisms having (such or so many) wings or winglike parts —in taxonomic names especially in zoology<Hymenoptera> <Physaloptera>

New Latin, from Greek, neuter plural of -pteros -pterous

E.g On her third day in the wilderness she fled from a great swarm of hymenopterans.

-p·ter·ous - adjective combining form \pt(ə)rəs\ :  having (so many or such) wings or winglike parts<anisopterous> <hexapterous> <hymenopterous>

Greek -pteros -winged, from pteron wing, feather

E.g Not since the days of Khepri had such a multitude of hymenopterous creatures been seen in those parts.

pteron -  noun \ˈteˌrän, ˈtiˌr-\ :  (of a classical temple) a passageway between the walls of the cella and the columns of the peristyle.

Latin, from Greek, literally, wing, feather

E.g Had she not fallen through the undergrowth into the pteron of the Long Since Forgotten Temple Of Boreas, God Of The North Wind And Bringer Of Winter, the seething mass would have fallen upon her with the wrath of a thousand years of injustice. Her blood, confused by so much ancient poison, would have spewed forth from her eyes and fingers in a dying homage to the Superman® that did not save her.

cel·la -  noun \ˈselə\ : the principal enclosed chamber of a classical temple, containing the statue of the deity. <naos><chamber><enclosure>

Latin: storeroom, shrine, akin to cēlāre to hide,  see kel-1 in Indo-European roots

E.g I crawled into the cella to seek further refuge. Not since the days of the days of Khepri had the Temple Of Boreas been used as a sanctuary. I found a match and lit it. The stone roof hangs just above my head. The statue of Boreas rises high into the air in front of me, head bowed, stone eyes burning into the ground, his two great wings folded across his back.

de·i·ty - noun \ˈdē-ə-tē, ˈdā-\ 1 : A god or goddess; a supernatural power as worshipped by a people, religion or cult. <Huitzilopochtli><Lei Gong><Faravahar><The Divine Incubus><Boreas>

3 : b) A representation of a god or goddess, such as a statue or carving:

Middle English deitee, from Anglo-French deité, from Late Latin deitat-, deitas, from Latin deus god; akin to Old English Tīw, god of war, Latin divus god, dies day, Greek dios heavenly, Sanskrit deva heavenly, god

E.g She turned to leave but she was surrounded by stone. She lit another match and the statue rose high into the air, eyes fixed on her lithe body. In the flickering light of the flame a wry grin spread across his face. She could feel the seething, pulsating, raging, churning within the corporeal form of the deity. The marmoral body burning with the light of epochs of inertia. There could be heard an eon-shattering roar as he spread his wings.

in·cu·bus - noun \ˈiŋ-kyə-bəs, ˈin-\ 2 : an imaginary demon or evil spirit supposed to descend upon sleeping persons, and are associated with feelings of intense terror.

Middle English < Late Latin: a nightmare induced by such ademon, noun derivative of Latin incubāre to lie upon;

E.g. His eyes pulsed with man's greed. Terror grips my throat with a marble hand. He presses himself down into my chest, he is the divine incubus. The walls close in until all I can feel is his cold hard burning form inside me. I am the eternal sacrifice.

In the whirr of the night
After days of bad news
I hear you shout
In your removed room
Far off from help
Alone, asleep, and terrified

By some secret
Untold in the day,
Surfacing tonight.

Your yellish noise was utterly strange
To an ordinary ear:
Impossible from a daytime mouth,
Though undeniably human.

Begun with one long-drawn heavy aspiration,
From your whole weighted chest it heaved,
As though you were crying for help
But rushed to cry help’s meaning
Without the power of speech.

Now standing at your door
With worried eyes I watch you:
Covered, still and quiet
I cannot know what frightened you
Or haunts you still or always.
In the morning I do not dare to ask,
Nor would you ever say.

Nightmare on East Avenue

Turning, snatching at images, catching-uncatching my breath, 
Watching the damage of hatches, imagining, gurning,
It furrowed that I had been followed, through hollow and fallow, 
By all of my morals and vices disguised as a shadow, a fellow 
Whose eyes, as they shone in the blackness, desired my death.

At first the force of reason quenched the wrenching thirst of terror; 
I was fierce enough to face him, he was far enough behind,
And though his eyes were beaming closer, still I seemed to know 
The forest, for I grew and learnt my trade within these branches 
And their shade, and so could cope with any horror they contained;

But as the stranger on my heel came into sight, and was revealed,
My zeal dissembled, strength surrendered, blind, disturbing fright congealed, 
For he was greater than the sum of all my parts, his gait was faster
And he hated what I stood for with a venom that was blighting, while his arms 
Concealed a weapon primed and sighted to annihilate my world.

So the dilemma that defined my life unfurled at once, and billowed,
As a sail that catches wind propels the vessel: my assailant, his committal 
To my vertical internment, with the tools of my disposal on his person, 
And the hope that kept me going ebbed and faded, as the glade
That I inhabited increasingly was bathed by the destruction in his gaze

And my existence seemed to shiver. If this mind of mine has any worth,
I valued, it must find the answer now, or else the safety of the blink
Will be outmuscled by the stare. Just think, I urged my brain, you useless organ, 
Search your contents for the means of my defence, before this foe, this
Violent opponent, finds his moment. What’s your weapon? Where’s your purpose?

Then, quite happily, and quietly, it happened. Hope emerged again. 
I turned to face my demon and confronted him. He faltered,
Halted in his tracks, his imminent attack insulted by my fortitude. 
His jaw gaped and a noise escaped that sounded like a question,
So I answered with the truth, or what I thought the truth to be;

I told it all, from start to finish, the sum total of my learnings:
How to boil an egg or poach one, where to get the fastest coach from, 
Why the Pope lives in the Vatican, the plays of Terence Rattigan, 
The pleasures of an orgy, the destruction of the clergy
By the forces of the secular authorities, and why,

And how we chanced to be conceived, grow up and die, without a stick 
To guide or carrot to incline us but the ones that people find
Inside the darkness at the edge of our perception, how except
In special circumstances no one takes the chances they are given,
Why we each have different prophets, why we bother, why we suffer.


Pause for breath. The air was silent. My assailant was considering
My offer. Then, quite terrified, he screamed a most incongruous 
Expression, dropped his weapon, closed his eyes, cried out for mercy, and 
Disintegrated suddenly, so suddenly the mud beneath
His feet completely dried as though great heat was shed by his demise.

So: I survived. And yet, the bliss of my relief was short and ugly, 
Since the woods I thought I recognised were somewhere else entirely 
And although my life was spared, the bitter strife that it conferred 
Would be my master and my slave until the day my mind expired, 
And I was ashed upon a pyre or tossed aside into a grave,
And every night until that day would dream the same, disarming game. 

I can't forget those words I saw. It was last week, head pressed against the window. The gentle hum and buzz of the coach becoming the hum and buzz of my brain. I can't forget those words I saw. Various songs fluttering past like forgettable leaves. The world was nothing except my flickering thoughts. I can't forget those words I saw. I sped on, body soft, open to the fields around me. There they were, graffitied on a fence by someone who knew. Knew about what was to come, the tubes, the monitors, the tears. And wrote: 

"Nothing is permanent." 

'everything happens all of the time'