Stories from Burg Rappottenstein Part 1

Writing by Lea Gremm, Connie Phlipot, and Brigid Whoriskey

For the 2nd year running, Sunday Writers’ Club returned to Burg Rappotenstein in Lower Austria for our 2023 writers’ retreat. SWC members escaped to the imposing twelfth century fortress for four inspiring days of writing, sharing, and some exploration of the forest all around.

We’re excited to share here a small selection of members’ creative writing from the retreat, including-

• Absence by Lea Gremm 
• Latisha is My Name by Connie Phlipot
• All Together Now by Brigid Whoriskey

We hope you enjoy reading these stories. And keep an eye out for Stories from Burg Rappotenstein Part 2 coming up next week and containing more fantastic creative writing from members at the retreat. 

Absence

By Lea Gremm

and watch me make my whole life about this mixed drink in my hand

and hear me slur my words so much you could never understand

a single one –

still, I’d go on and on and on…

You should come here

and hear me shout

over the music, way too loud

in this apartment that is haunted by your ghost

‘cause I still love you the most.

Will you come here

and see me make a fool of myself,

take every book off its shelf

to make neat piles for yours and mine

and watch them grow and gather dust in time.

If you came here

you would see that I’m a mess,

still put on your favourite dress 

for my birthday,

wondering why you couldn’t stay.

I still sleep on the right side of the bed,

I still buy your favourite toast and that awful chocolate spread,

I still watch the news at three and again at half past seven

‘cause you never liked the anchors that read them at eleven.

Every time I call your name

there is silence and sharp pain, 

a reminder that you’re gone,

only absence lingers on. 

Latisha is My Name

By Connie Phlipot

Latisha lived in this village hidden in the folds of the Dolomites all her life, except for her university and post-graduate years in the capital.  It was during those years the discovery had been made.  Her email inbox instantly filled with the news.  “Latisha, you are famous!”  her grade school friends wrote first.  “To think we played elves and witches in the shadow of that stone, never guessing your name was written there!”  If her name had been one common to the region, Maria or Elisabet for example, this revelation would have been totally unremarkable and immediately forgotten.  Or if it had been a Celtic or Roman name, logical conclusions could have been made.  She knew no one else named Latisha except for an American pop or hiphop singer she’d read about in her teenaged years.  That bit of information had helped her get over the childhood embarrassment of a strange name that provoked teasing from her classmates.  Since then unusual names had come in vogue and she no longer gave her name any thought except to make sure it was spelled correctly.

Until the revelation.  There had to be a strong connection the name of a young girl born in the latter part of the 20th century and the strange carving atop the highest stone outcropping near her village.  The first theory was banal — a friend, relative or admirer had carved it after her birth.  Scientific methods disproved that one, showing that the etching pre-dated the Romans.  Maybe the coincidence ran in the opposite direction.  A parent or grandparent had found the writing, and gave his offspring that name.  After publication of the finding, journalists interviewed villagers and researched town archives.  No evidence that anyone before the intrepid Swiss climber knew about the encryption. 

Officially, Latisha was not her name, of course.  She was Maria Klara on her baptismal certificate.  Anything outside of the constellation of female saints would have been unacceptable on state documents.  But Latisha was the only name she had ever been called. She had not questioned this before.  Like the line in Catch —22 “what kind of name is that?  It’s my name, Sir, was how she regarded her moniker.  Her parents had told her her great-grandmother wanted to call her that.  Why?  We never asked, they answered.  She left it at that.

Not having ever aspired to be a rock climber, and being slightly afraid of heights, Latisha wasn’t motivated to see the description herself.  The internet photos of it were clear and convincing.  Deep fakes had yet to be invented.  This was the real thing.

When her parents died with a few months of each other and her last remaining aunt the following years, Latish felt a cold emptiness flow in her body, as if she was losing connection with her origins.  When she walked to the grocery store or the post office, fewer and fewer faces were familiar.  Her parent’s generation was gone.  She was suspended in history, a hang glider above the valley.  Before the glider crashed into the mountainside, she had to return to the mystery of the who and why of Latisha.

Perched on the stone, she continued to feel the etching.  Clearly and deeply carved, the letters were unmistakably spelling Latisha.  She fingered the cool stone, she scratched the inside of the A with her index fingernail.  Again and again, she traced the letters, so as to always remember hwo her name felt.  To make it an integral part of her corpus.

LA-TI-SHA.  The birds were twittering her name?  Or a spirit hidden in the rock, enticing her to hurl herself to her death?  The sweat of her fingers made tiny puddles of mud inside her name.  Her foot slipped on the rock, then caught itself against another stone.  There was no spirit calling her.  The leaves rustled and she allowed herself to look off to the side.  Clouds were lumpish and grey, like yesterday’s oatmeal.  She edged her way down the cliff. At the bottomf she breathed deeply, realizing she had been holding her breath for the whole descent.  

She leaned against a tree, resting and listening to the birds.  LA-TI-SHA  she shouted to the wind.  

All Together Now

By Brigid Whoriskey

Focussed minds, coffee sips

Looks of concentration

Words like defenestration

Manuscript edits

Giving credit

Masterpieces in the making

Jasmine’s cookies baking

Potatoes galore

Secret door

Wine and beer 

Ghosts to fear

Late to bed

Hangover head

Workshops and tips

Books and scripts

Friendships formed

Writing transformed

Games and craic

Let’s all come back

And for this ditty

(Which is not very witty)

Accept my apology

It won’t make the anthology