Mark Fagan

"I think memory is the most important assets of human beings. It's a kind of fuel, it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest; there are so many drawers in that chest and when I open a certain drawer, I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I could smell the air and I can touch the ground and I could see the green of the trees."That's why I want to write a book."Haruki Murakami

• Reflection on writing from Han Kang, Nobel Prize in Literature 2024

Excerpt from Eyes That Paint The SkyThe world there stays deep-rooted through shifting seasons. It holds the weight of our first steps.A September wind curled over the leaves, spinning sycamore seeds through the air like little lost travellers. Snow frosted the dirt and a gentle drift rolled over the Lomond hills. Silver bark glowed under autumn sun. Chaffinch sang. It was sometime in the afternoon.A sunbeam fell on you as if picked out by heaven. By your side, you held a book with a handwritten note marking the page, and I wondered what those pages contained—if we were searching for the same words. We stopped together on the willow bridge and looked into the river. A minute or so passed. The water stayed deep and clear.***‘The days are getting shorter now,’ you said, in a soft voice—a voice as soft as the trickling water, as soft as champagne pouring over the edge of a glass. Strands of your hair caught on the breeze and feathered over your cheek, like burnt rose and winter berries—a sigh that danced like butterflies. My words felt coarse in reflection.Across the den, a couple of wood pigeons bobbed lazily on a dry-stone wall, and beyond, over the farmland, deer grazed quietly in the fields. The black swing-coat you wore seemed a soft shield against the wilderness. You wore that same coat the first night we kissed, letting it fall to the fireside before you held me warmly. The same champagne light sparkled in your eyes.

• An Elephant Never Forgets

They say an elephant never forgets. Never forgets the shape of the land, the long path home, when the ground trembled under the weight of their entire family moving side by side. A time before fear. They will never forget the way the world was before the crack of rifles, before the scorch of burning grass, when the only fire was the warm, nurturing sun.Do they remember the first friend who didn’t rise back to their feet? The first time their bones were taken so some grand piano could sing while some poor creature fell silent, the first tusks carved down into bits of jewelry and hung around the necks of wives like trophies.Do monkeys remember the way those men hollowed out their skulls, piece by piece, thought by thought, until there was nothing left inside but darkness? All so they could fuck their good wives with stiff cocks, and pass that lust to another generation.Lions still roar, but I wonder if they hear the ghosts beneath. Do they roar and tell the land, we’re here, we’re many, even now, when more of them live behind bars than run free?Every insect must wonder what happened, why every flower tastes of poison. Every fish must feel the water grow heavy with waste, and more absent of life. Every tree must remember a time when growing tall felt like a risk worth taking.I want to say something simple here. Something about joy. Something about a newborn’s breath, the soft shock of it. A friend’s smile arriving at just the right moment. The way a lover’s hand can steady you. But my mind is scared to grow into the light. I’ve been burned too many times, too close to the light, like an animal trained into silence.The cage is open, yet I cannot walk through.They say an elephant never forgets. I wish I could forget. I wish I could forget the exact moment it changed. The moment you took your last breath, and something in me quietly decided that love wasn’t a risk worth taking. That even the beautiful things could hollow you out, piece by piece, thought by thought, until there was only darkness inside.I wish I could forget all the boats rusting in the bay, all the bones rotting in the sand, all the birds with broken wings.
But an elephant never forgets.

I keep company with those who have left the beaten path—Some only ever stand
and look up at the mountain
Some know the jagged peaks
only through passing cloudsBut have they ever seen the mountain’s true shape?
Have they ever known its soul?
Have they ever clung to the rock and looked down into the abyss?
Or shivered in the open through a long, lonely night?To those who have known struggle
To those still fighting on
To all those who pray the storm will break
And the warmth of day will returnThat light will come
Dawn will rise again
It’ll be beautiful, you’ll see
the sky where the land gives wayWhere you belong
Where you always have belongedBetter to reach for the summit
than walk blind down there forever