Tales from the Potts House: William Hope Hodgson

In the spring of 2020, while stuck in isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I began experimenting with streaming live audio to Twitch. I wanted to mix, chop, and screw with Creative Commons-licensed music live while reading weird fiction no longer restricted by copyright. My elderly Mac Pro from 2008, connected to even older audio interfaces and a Reloop Mixage Controller Edition USB DJ controller, running El Capitan and old versions of Traktor and Logic, gave me endless troubles. I originally wanted to use MainStage, but it would not behave reliably for me at all and I had to give up. Audio was glitching occasionally, but I kept the setup limping along long enough to finish this live reading. This is a challenging story to read aloud, as much of it is in the form a single monologue of extremely long sentences that flow together into extremely long paragraphs in a hypnotic, stream-of-consciousness style. Because there is continuous background music, no editing was possible. Enjoy!

A captain returns to his home town and the woman he loves after twenty years on the high seas.

A ship at sea in the dead of night is hailed by a solitary figure in a small boat. Who is he, and why does he refuse to allow the crew to see him?

The good ship Seabird is repaired, and all aboard her long to see England once agan. A vicious fight with the weed men claims one final victim before the ship is finally free of the Land of Lonesomeness. The friendships forged in that strange land will not be quickly forgotten. The music is by Samsa, from the album "The Laurentian Divide," and by PHOLDE, from the album "In Favor or More Permanent Pleasures."

Aboard the ship, the men use long reeds from the island to help push the weed aside, and as the line is tightened the ship inches ever closer to the island. Our narrator and Mistress Madison find that they are in love, and at last the ship pulls itself free of the weed and into open water! The music is by Adaptcore, from the album "Sunset After Wind," and by Formication, from the album "Pieces for a Condemned Piano."

The narrator rides aross the rope to the vessel in the weed. There he meets the dead Captain's wife and young niece, Mary Madison. But the rope line is already beginning to show signs of fraying, and so it is too risky for the narrator to return to the island. Can the hulk pull itself free from the weed before the rope breaks? The music is by Samsa, from the album "Sounds Good on Paper."

Another sailor is presumed lost after the tragic weed-man attack, and Job's grave has been plundered. The giant crossbow has failed to fire a line across to the trapped ship, but as luck would have it, one of the sailors is an expert in kite-making! Soon a heavy line connects the ship in the weed and the island. The ship begins to draw the line taught. But will it be strong enough? The music is by Caul, from the album "Apophasis."

The survivors' worst fears are realized when in the moonless darkness their camp is attacked by vile and terrifying creatures. It seems that only fire can deter these evil beasts, but the men are rapidly running out of fuel! The music is by Slutmachine, from the album "Inching Glaciers," and by PHOLDE, from the album "In Favor of More Permanent Pleasures."

The survivors work to construct a giant crossbow in order to fire a line across from the island to the ship. But the island is unquiet in the night! Uncanny things are moving about in the valley, and in the waters between the island and the mysterious continent of weed. The music is by Formication, from the album "Pieces from a Condemned Piano."

The bo'sun continues work on the ship while keeping one eye on the ship in the weed. When the people on board the ship discover that there are people on the island, there is much rejoicing. But neither group can reach the other, and the men scratch their heads until the narrator proposes to bridge the gap with a cord shot from a giant bow. The music is by Exit, from the album "Sleep."