Midnight Thesis is a Historical Ghost Story and Existential Horror I am developing based on an old short story. I work up a chapter once a week and then our writing group gives me feedback I use to improve on it. I am publishing the chapters here as a serial novel. Here is Chapter 4: A Shorthand Request.
Early 1970s, Griqualand-East/South-Western Natal: Jochem Kok was doing research on a forgotten literary figure, or so everybody thought. Unearthing a tragic past opened up a conduit to an ancient horror that demands a price for being called to the present.
What came before…
A Shorthand Request
Jochem led them through the dimly lit front room. Ariadne clutched her purse tightly as she passed through it, as if she might touch something unclean in there. The path felt treacherous through the shadowy room and the floor crunched under her feet. The old packed cow-dung floor had not been swept in a long time. The stagnant smell of urine almost made her gag and she sped up.
Once in the kitchen, it was more bearable. There was a sweet breeze coming through the open back door.
The kitchen was sparsely furnished with a ramshackle sideboard that had a primus stove on the one side and a washing basin on the other. At the warped wooden table there was only one chair and some papers Jochem must have been working on.
A closed door broke the opposite wall. It had to be another room—for a pantry perhaps.
The air smelt faintly of paraffin and damp wood, with a sour undertone as if something had long ago spoiled and was never properly scrubbed clean.
Jochem walked past everything and went to stand at the back door. He pointed at the sideboard. “There’s water in the jar.”
There was a glass jar about three quarters full. Ariadne took it and poured water into a tin cup to pass to Professor Truter.
Truter sat himself down with a grunt, adjusting his tie as though that might restore a sense of authority. He placed his hands on the table and lifted them up almost immediately to dust his palms lightly. He aggressively paged through the papers, not looking at them.
He didn’t have the same contained and deliberate calm she knew him for. Here, outside his office he seemed to be out of sorts with himself.
“Here, Professor,” said Ariadne, and passed the cup to Truter. He took it without a remark and sipped carefully. The face he pulled was not a good sign, but he managed not to spit out the water.
“Groundwater,” said Jochem. “It does the thing but it tastes of chalk.”
Ariadne lifted the jar and sniffed at the water. It had the smell of dust. She was not yet thirsty to risk it.
A single fly traced a lazy circle in the dirt on the windowsill. Her attention shifted to Jochem where he stood barefoot, leaning against the doorpost as if he needed the support. He stared at the other door leading off from the kitchen.
He was skinnier than she remembered him, too skinny. His eyes were sunken with dark shadows underneath. He shouldn’t be living like this—not Jochem.
When he noticed Ariadne looking at him he immediately turned away and stared out the back.
Professor Truter placed the cup down and moved the papers aside. “Miss Papadopoulos, if you would take notes? We need to make this official.”
Ariadne dug in her handbag and pulled out a notebook and pencil. There was no place to sit so she leant against the sideboard, ready.
Jochem stayed at the back door, pressed against the frame. He glanced over his shoulder at the outside. It was as if a cold wind was blowing on his neck, arms locked across his chest like a man bracing for impact.
“Right,” began Truter, “I will probably have to repeat this but here is the official version. Mister Kok, due to the unexpected departure of your doctoral promoter, Doctor Marais, from the department…” he paused and looked over at Ariadne.
She suppressed a shudder and gripped her pencil tightly ready to take shorthand notes.
Satisfied that she was transcribing, he continued. “The faculty research committee requests you to present your work in progress for review. If your work is sound and of academic value, and should you wish to continue, the process to appoint a new promoter would be initiated.”
Jochem didn’t move from the doorway. “Why would that be necessary?”
“Because,” Truter said, thumbing the papers with deliberate slowness, “to be perfectly honest, nobody understands what you are doing out here. Not anymore.”
Jochem gave a short laugh, humourless, and shifted his weight against the frame. “Perhaps that’s the point.”
“We need you to come back to the department and do an oral presentation of your work. If there is any value to it you need to get departmental approval to continue, and you would need to get a new promoter regardless.”
“But isn’t there—”
“No, there isn’t. There is no shortcut, no dramatic revelation waiting after a few hours of effort. What there is, is the discipline to keep moving, however tedious, however plodding it feels. That, not excitement, is the hallmark of true scholarship.”
“If? What if it is found not to be sound?”
“Then the department will work with you to formulate another hypothesis,” said Professor Truter. He took a deep breath and a long pause before speaking more forcefully.
“Damn it man, let’s be honest. Doctor Marais was willing to entertain your crackpot theory, but nobody else is. We will find something else that makes proper use of your talents.”
Ariadne looked back and forth between the two men. A muscle twitched in Jochem’s cheek and for a moment she feared he might jump forward and take a swing at the Professor. Could she intervene if he did? The haunted look in his eyes pushed her back. She clutched her pencil, feeling it slip from her sweaty grip.
“I have done so much while I have been here,” said Jochem and turned his head sideways to stare out and over the hills.
Looking past him in the distance there was only more thorn trees and grassy hills. The nearest sign of civilisation could be a hundred miles away.
“It may feel as if you are making progress here in isolation, but we have serious doubts about the validity of the work. I mean, Doctor Marais as your supervisor, only presented so much about your work.”
The pencil twitched as she had to write out ‘Marais’. Why wouldn’t he just say it all? She would have. But she was only here to record, and be a witness. Professor Truter had made it clear that he would give the required information to Jochem in the manner he best saw fit. He saw it fit to limit the news to one item at a time, which made her bite her tongue.
The professor continued in his measured tone. “He vouched for you but because he is no longer with us, we need to review it.”
Professor Truter thumbed through the manuscript sheets. “Take a week or so and get your thoughts in order and present it. Maybe…”
Jochem shook his head vigorously. “No,” he said and stepped outside and disappeared from view.
The fly buzzed and slammed repeatedly against the milky windowpane.
“Mister Kok?” said Truter and then looked across at Ariadne, a deep question etched into his face.
Ariadne could only return a confused shrug. No, she knew a different Jochem, not what he had become here, but what he had been.
Ariadne left her notebook with her bag on the sideboard and walked toward the back door. She placed a hand on the Professor’s arm. “Let me speak to him, Professor. I think I can at least calm him down enough to listen.”
The Professor nodded, and she stepped through the back door, a stone in her stomach. She had calmed Jochem before. But that was before what he had become here.
© 2025 Gerhi Janse van Vuuren
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