You never know what’s going to lead you to a short story. My latest story evolved from a visit to the State Library of New South Wales for a talk on some of the interesting historical artefacts and materials from their collection. During the event, I was intrigued by the story of Frederick William Birmingham, a civil engineer at Parramatta in the 1860s, who designed a flying machine which he unsuccessfully tried to sell to the Americans. He had been inspired by a dramatic vision of a flying vessel which he described as an ‘Ark’, manned by a man-shaped ‘spirit’. Birmingham’s vision of a UFO, long before such manifestations entered popular culture, was compelling. However, his increasing levels of obsession and paranoia meant that he became insolvent and ended his days in the asylum. For a comprehensive account of the primary documents and Birmingham’s life see Chris Aubeck’s ‘Birmingham’s Ark‘.
Inspired by this story, I wrote an account of entirely imagined events of a fictional character, living in the Parramatta asylum in the late 1800s. After some thought (and several rewrites!) I decided to use fictitious names within my story, since I felt I was departing a long way from how Birmingham himself would have interpreted his experiences.
It was great news when I learned that my story ‘Asylum’ was awarded First Prize in the 2019 Inaugural Margaret Cech Writing Competition which was run by the Southern Highlands Branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, New South Wales. The story appeared in The Writers’ Voice (the bulletin of the FAWNSW) this month and, as the competition allows authors to retain their copyright, I have reproduced the story here.
Hope you like it!
Asylum
by Alison Ferguson
Dr Williams cleaned his spectacles and, after refolding his handkerchief into his top pocket, tried again to make out the scribble under the blots of ink that raced across each page in the dog-eared bundle on the desk before him. He sighed. It was useless. Perhaps if the light were better? It was too early to call for an orderly to light the lamp. Rifling through, he selected a page with relatively fewer crossings-out and smudges and took it over to the long windows to peruse again in the shaft of afternoon sunlight. This time he made out a few words: flying machine, rotors, strange alien figures. He sighed again. It was no use. The lunatic’s account of his visitation was indecipherable and, no doubt even if he could read the writing, incoherent.
‘Dr Williams?’ One of the orderlies hovered by the door. ‘Was you wanting to see Mr Cleary? It’s just that we puts the inmates out in the garden of an afternoon. ‘elps settle ‘em for the night, you see.’
Drawing his fob watch from his waistcoat pocket, Dr Williams considered whether he’d make the three o’clock coach back into Sydney town if he left now. Caught between going and staying, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. If any other colleague but Dr McIntosh had urged him to delay his return to London solely for the purpose of reading a patient’s journal, he would have dismissed the notion. Well, he was here now and, since the journal in question could just as well have been in hieroglyphs, he’d might as well see the patient in person.
‘Bring Mr Cleary in to see me. Oh, and,’ he added, ‘when Dr McIntosh arrives, bring him straight up to join me.’ He felt the tea-pot ‘And some fresh hot water.’
Mr Cleary must have been waiting just outside the door for he came in directly. He was a short man, rail-thin and his eyes, wide and staring, looked to be strangers to sleep.
‘Glad to meet you. Glad to meet you,’ Mr Cleary said, holding out his hand in greeting. ‘Dr McIntosh told me about your interest in my discoveries.’
Dr Williams was taken aback. If it weren’t for his oddly startled gaze, the patient had every appearance of any sane man meeting another of his professional class. Mr Cleary was a civil engineer, Dr Williams reminded himself that even a professional man could lose his grip on reality. He repressed a shiver at the thought.
‘So, what are your thoughts on my journal, Dr Williams? Mr Cleary had seated himself in one of the large leather chairs by the window, the lines in his face now cut in sharp shadow in the slanting light.
‘I, I confess I cannot say,’ Dr Williams began. ‘I found the writing difficult—’
‘Ha! You doctors are usually the ones with the bad handwriting, what?!’ Mr Cleary’s joviality edged toward a note of hysteria.
Dr Williams took the chair opposite him and spoke slowly and, he hoped, soothingly. ‘I’d like to hear your story directly from you, if I may. As Dr McIntosh told you, I am most interested.’
At this, Mr Cleary settled back into his chair and, closing his eyes as if to better remember, began his story.
‘It was late and my usual nightcap of milk and cardamom had gone cold by the time I finished reading and retired for the evening. I woke abruptly, coming into full wakefulness without a trace of lingering stupor. I was seized by a sensation of great energy and I threw on my coat and walked out of my cottage into the winter night. I strode off, heedless of where my footsteps were taking me. The streets of Parramatta were dark and, without any lantern to guide me, it was by the radiance of the stars sprayed across the heavens that I found my way into the park. Two points of light emerged and grew steadily larger and, as they came closer, I saw they were vaporous and swirling. They hung before me, unsuspended by any means I could discern, and their shapes reassembled till I perceived that they were two heads, the first appearing as our Lord Bishop and the second at the Governor of New South Wales. I began to shake, fearing that I had lost my mind.’
Mr Cleary stopped talking abruptly and leaned forward. ‘You know I’m not insane, don’t you?’
‘I, I —,’ Dr Williams was caught off guard.
‘I’m only in here for my protection. They are after my discoveries, you see. Dr McIntosh suggested this would be the safest place.’
‘Of course, Dr McIntosh is very wise in these matters.’ Dr Williams looked to the door. The orderly seemed to be taking a very long time to return with the hot water.
Mr Cleary resumed his reflective posture, and in the same sure tones of one telling an oft-told story, continued, ‘Darkness, heavy with dew, fell like a cloak about me and I turned this way and that, unsure of how to return home. Then came a vibration, a thudding so intense that the beat of my heart leapt to join its rhythm. How was it that no-one from the town came running out to find the source? Louder and louder it came until I was upon it, whereupon the noise fell to a low hum. A cylindrical shape, tapered at both ends, hovered at waist height above the ground. At its highest point it would have been perhaps twelve feet; its diameter perhaps twice that. However, its gleaming surface was what drew my gaze. I longed to touch it, so smooth did it look, without any visible rivet or join.
Although it looked seamless, an aperture appeared and a creature such as I had never seen, nor could have imagined, emerged and beckoned me to follow. It was oddly humanoid, though its arms seemed disproportionately long. Strangely, as soon as I saw it, I felt calm and certain: as certain, in fact, as I had ever felt in my fretful life. I have no memory of how I entered the vessel; for now, it seemed to me that it must be a kind of ship, though propelled by some mechanism unknown to me. Once inside, the being indicated a kind of table, although closed on all sides, and centrally located before a curved porthole, through which I could make out the dark shapes of trees in the park. Inlaid within the surface of the table were banks of brightly-coloured lights and buttons. The creature began to explain something to me, with some urgency. I could not make out its language, but I recognised the mathematical symbols it was using. I realised it was a series of formulae, though unfamiliar to me.’
Mr Cleary fell silent and it took a moment for Dr Williams to break from the spell that his story had cast.
‘Ah, the tea,’ Dr Williams said, clearing his throat, as the orderly re-entered.
Closely behind him, Dr McIntosh manoeuvred his bulk through the door. ‘Ah, good. So, you two have got to know one another,’ he said, vigorously shaking their hands.
‘If I might interrupt, Dr McIntosh,’ the orderly said. ‘It’s time for Mr Cleary’s walk.’
Mr Cleary opened his mouth as if to object. There were tea-buns on the plate beside the freshly-primed teapot and, for a moment, Dr Williams feared that Dr McIntosh would invite the patient to stay.
‘Yes, yes, can’t be disrupting routine, can we?’ said Dr McIntosh, his arm loosely draped across Mr Cleary’s back, accompanying him out after the orderly. ‘Safest time for you to be walking abroad, my good fellow, with these chaps on watch.’
Mr Cleary shrugged off the doctor’s arm. ‘I’ll be having my notes back before I leave.’
Dr Williams shuffled the pages back together. Clasping them tightly to his chest, Mr Cleary followed the orderly without a backward glance.
Dr McIntosh, after filling his plate with bun, sat down Mr Cleary’s vacated chair. ‘So, then, what do you make of all that? Extraordinary, don’t you think?’
Dr Williams sipped his tea thoughtfully before replying. ‘I really don’t know what to make of it.’
‘Go on. I know you London chaps are making strides with these sorts of cases. It’s not everyday that colonials such as myself get to hear any of the latest thinking.’
‘Well, I think you dissemble good doctor. I’m quite sure you have read as much of the new writings in philosophy as I have. Why, I saw you had a copy of Schopenhauer in the original German on your bookshelf. Well, all right then, if you insist.’ He took a breath. ‘If we consider that our experience of the world, as received through our senses, shapes our perception, then visions such as Mr Cleary’s might be said to arise from a temporary disturbance of sensation, caused, for example, by some passing illness. To some extent at least, his vision reminded me of the common occurrence of hallucinations in cases of fever and the like.’
‘And yet?’
‘Yes, you’re right. There’s something that doesn’t fit. He is eccentric in his manner and certainly excitable in temperament, but it is difficult to consider the man a lunatic. He is essentially rational and his account of his experience is cogent and lucid. But, at the same time—’ Dr Williams broke off and, rising to his feet, returned his empty cup to the tray. He walked back over to the window and looked down to the grounds, now bathed in gold in the setting sun.
Dr McIntosh came to stand beside him, munching on the last of his bun. ‘At the same time, he’s suffering from considerable paranoia. He is convinced that the American government—’
‘The American government?’ Dr Williams’ eyes narrowed. ‘Now, he really must have lost his reason.’
‘No, no,’ said Dr McIntosh smiling. ‘There’s a lot of interest in the idea of developing some kind of machine that can fly. He did indeed take his designs to New York to show the American government officials there shortly after the events he described. However, he refused to leave the material with them so they dismissed him out of hand. He ended up on the streets and it was only through the good offices of his friends and workmates in the Parramatta office that the funds were raised to bring him back. He was clearly unfit for work by then, I convinced him to come here. But governments are interested in flying machines, you know. The military advantages are obvious. Why, even my own scientific dabbling in that direction elicited a letter of enquiry from the British colonial office.’
‘What? Were they telling you that designing a flying machine wasn’t what they were paying you a stipend for?’ Dr Williams’ lips twitched.
Dr McIntosh chuckled ruefully. ‘Well, yes. But it’s going to happen one day. My own design used steam, but the thing that’s so interesting in the schematic that our Mr Cleary has drawn up is that some kind of alternative propulsion was involved.’
‘And that is, what? You’ve seen the drawings?’
Dr McIntosh fell silent.
‘Ah, he doesn’t know or he won’t tell you.’
‘I’ve seen his sketches but he won’t let them out of his sight. It took every ounce of persuasion to convince him to leave his journal here for you to read. I honestly don’t know what’s going on. These strange beings seemed to have imparted something to him but whether he actually understands what they, or his own mind, has told him, I don’t know.’
The two doctors looked down to the garden as the orderlies rounded up the straggling patients to bring them inside for the night. Finally, only Mr Cleary was left as the indigo-blue of twilight infused the scene.
‘What’s that?’ Dr Williams gasped.
Seeping through the shadows, vapours of mist assembled into a long cylindrical rolling cloud, too low to the earth to be of the natural world, and moving independently of the light zephyr stirring the tree branches.
Dr Williams couldn’t wrench his eyes away to gauge his colleague’s reaction but he felt Dr McIntosh’s hand grab at his shoulder as if clinging to the physical world.
The tiny figure of Mr Cleary below stretched out its arms as the cloud, if cloud it were, moved to engulf him.
The two doctors stayed, transfixed, till darkness obscured the scene.
There was a soft knock at the door.
‘Will you be wanting to make the night-coach back into Sydney town, gentlemen?’ The orderly enquired.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Dr Williams. ‘Nothing else to be done here.’ He turned to his colleague, ‘Dr McIntosh?’
‘No, you’re right,’ said Dr McIntosh. ‘We’re all done here. Best to be off.’
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