Tony Walker

about in that, you know, the old beginning, middle and an end.

But it's absolutely full of this deeply, disturbingly

Not quite surreal, but edging towards a surreal, you know.

Obviously, I'm a big David Lynch fan as well, so obviously that appeals to him.

So I thought Ligotti, the other reference that I had for this was, I think I said this to you in the emails, was Barney the Vampire, sort of the 1850s Penny Dreadful character.

Same here.

I mean, I think the Varney thing is about how the vampire, as you say, visits the victim.

And there is that structural thing in your story as well, the monster thing.

visits the victim repeatedly as well, I think.

You know, the psychical predator in a way.

And the other weirdness of it was Aikman as well.

You know, you read some of Aikman's stories, Robert Aikman's stories, and you think, well, I think particularly The Hospice, one of my favourites.

Nothing like this in terms of characterisation or what actually happens, but

just that oddness whereby the world is, it looks like our world, but there are, it just is, it's shifted slightly or more than slightly.

Yeah.

It's just off.

Yeah.

A lot of sort of daytime novels, daytime stories, they have a daytime logic that is very similar to the logic we live by, you know, when we're awake.

But this story...

had the feel of you know dreams are more symbolic aren't they that then if they mean something it isn't necessarily because a leads a leads to b it's more like they have a resemblance or a feeling or or a or an aura if you like and that's definitely i've definitely got that there so so what however after saying that returning to the story itself