Author Topic: Pseudopod 391: Jack The Ripper’s Bedroom  (Read 6378 times)

Bdoomed

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on: June 22, 2014, 08:37:33 PM
Pseudopod 391: Jack The Ripper’s Bedroom

by John Paul Davies.

“Jack The Ripper’s Bedroom” is original to PSEUDOPOD. This story is inspired by the very real painting by Walter Sickert, the artist who is suspected by many to actually be The Ripper himself.

JOHN PAUL DAVIES is originally from Liverpool, and is a member of the Poised Pen Writers (see link under the name for further samples of their work). He has had stories published by Interstellar Fiction, Third Flatiron Publishing’s ORIGINS anthology, Big Pulp and Liquid Imagination, and was longlisted for the Penguin Ireland Short Story Contest 2013.

Your reader – Simon Meddings – is a writer of comedy and science fiction and writer & Director at Martian Creative, is currently working on his first novel and finishing a full length script for a satire television series. He also produced and co-presented a podcast called Waffle On and he’s a co-host on the Mash4077 podcast.

Info on “End Is Nigh” can be found at the Amazon link (music under the promo is “Meet me at the place” by Glass Boy, available at: Free Music Archive).

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““Come through,” the landlady said. “This will be your room.”

The lodger stood in the doorway, afraid that stepping into the room might shatter its illusion for good. For after months of searching, he had finally found the inspiration behind Walter Sickert’s masterpiece, *Jack The Ripper’s Bedroom.*

Longer and narrower than the others he had been shown, its floor slanted uneasily to the window. The same anaemic light that Sickert had bathed his room in, seen through a flexing eye recently shorn of its cataract.

The landlady gestured for him to admire the view, to look at the further world beyond the glass: a lofted city within a city, consisting of streets of rooftops, of other windows. Smoke curled from clusters of chimney pots; to the lodger, each weary fume represented a soul in ascension. Further, the serene blue of the river was captured in the channels between dark maritime warehouses, as twelve chimes rose deep and clear from an unseen chapel.

Drawing his attention away from the window, a macaw, or some other exotic breed, now stirred within its dulled bronze cage. The raw pink spindles of its feet gripped the perch as it shifted awkwardly, keeping in its blue, green and yellow feathers. He noticed a jagged hole in the drip of its beak, imagining a nail had been driven through; while eyes bruised as cobbles seemed to swell and throw back only a cold, blanked universe.

Had Sickert portrayed such a bird, hidden in some dark corner of his painting? Pecking at its small, chained mirror, he wondered if it had been changed entirely when first confronted by its own image. What the bird had imagined itself to be before.

“I can remove him if you would prefer? Though he’s been here longer than any tenant. I’d hate to issue the eviction notice at his age.””





Listen to this week's Pseudopod.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2014, 08:39:07 PM by Bdoomed »

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Sgarre1

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Reply #1 on: June 24, 2014, 10:33:53 PM

"Jack The Ripper's Bedroom" by Walter Sickert


"Woman Seated On Bed" by Walter Sickert



Unblinking

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Reply #2 on: June 26, 2014, 02:22:19 PM
I don't get it.

So there was a painter at the time who in retrospect is the biggest suspect for being Jack the Ripper?  And this is someone who rents his apartment next? 

I didn't really get what happened, I felt like I missed something major.



The Far Stairs

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Reply #3 on: June 28, 2014, 09:21:25 PM
I didn't get it either. I feel the narrative was murky.

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ElectroSquid

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Reply #4 on: August 08, 2014, 07:44:40 AM
I listened to this twice... it's still a bit murky to me as well though. Seems like Jack the Ripper is not so much as person as an embodiment that inhabits different bodies. If you rent this room, you become the Ripper for a while? As if he is a timeless force rather than an individual. Interesting idea, could have been clearer maybe.



Jax

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Reply #5 on: November 30, 2014, 08:13:43 AM
Thank goodness I'm not the only one, listened to it twice and still have no idea what is going on. Too many unexplained elements and deliberately opaque language.