Escalating Panic Escalating Panic was originally written for the range of tinned fear at Hoxton Street Monster Supplies, to support the Ministry of Stories, a charity that aims to inspire a nation of young storytellers. www.ministryofstories.org The first imperfect thing was that Leona found it impossible to say the word gaseous. It wasn't a word she'd ever tried to say before. Her younger brother, Cally, told her she would never need it, and offered her gassy and vaporous and, maybe, gas-like. But Leona, at nineteen years old, was a perfectionist, so she tried again to say gaseous, but found it evaporating as it left her lips. At university she studied biochemistry, and went on to a doctorate, specializing in the environmental impact of methane from livestock. By this time she had found a way round the problem by saying, in quick concession, "gay" then "see" then "us." On the day of her graduation, she noticed that whenever she said the word bourgeois she got a little dizzy. A pleasurable dizziness like when an elevator reaches the top floor. She held on to the railings and said it three times. Bourgeois, bourgeois, bourgeois. The next thing was mango. That was a good time for her and her soon-to-be-husband Hu, having breakfast in bed, Leona saying the word and - ta-da - pulling a ripe alphonso from under the duvet. But, on her thirtieth birthday, the second imperfect thing happened: the word canine made her gums bleed. She said it again and the tip of her nose grew wet. She said it again and growled. She didn't say it again. Then things started happening faster, some good, some imperfect. "Mellifluous," she said with a trill. "Limning," she said and got vertigo. She filled a notebook with all the trigger-words. Anchovies gave her a bitter taste. Brouhaha got her in trouble. California was warm but expensive. Whenever she needed to say one of these, she just pointed to the word in the notebook. But the more she wrote down, the more words replaced them. Abacus. Butterflies. Cabbage. Eventually, she had matched every word in the dictionary with an effect. This made her extremely powerful. "Twix," she said. "Deckchair." And for a long time everything was perfect. But one day, when she was forty-five, the third imperfect thing happened. Her husband told her he wanted a divorce. He had fallen in love with an out-of-work actress. Leona just stared at him. A few words offered themselves to her – migraine, boob-job, castration – but she didn't say anything. In the following months, she stopped speaking altogether and moved in to her brother Cally's spare room in his house in Wood Green, where she learnt sign language. A few months later, a little drunk on white Zinfandel, with the house to herself, she whispered: "toy-boy." His name was Erland. He was good fun, but somehow lacking something. She looked at Erland and said: "emotional kinship." He went deaf. He became depressive. He was perfect. She said I love you in sign language. From that day on, she used her powers sparingly, and with balance. "Fresh water lake," she said. "Jet-ski." Then "drizzle" and "veruccas." |
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