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 5: That Which Matters.
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…
That Which Matters
Jochem had not gone far and stood just outside, upright on the stony ground, facing the sun. The air was honest out here, just the sounds of the veldt. None of Professor Truter’s measured words and silences. Away from the implications.
He heard the door open behind him, heard her footsteps. Of course it was Ariadne.
“Jochem, we are here only in your best interest. Believe me, it does not look good for the department to lose a promising PhD candidate.”
The words should have been comforting. They weren’t.
He turned to face her. “Do you believe in my work?”
“I don’t know enough about the subject to know if it is any good.” Her honesty cut—then she added, “But I believe in you.”
“That is not the same.” Not in the slightest. Belief in him meant nothing if his research was going to be dismantled, redirected, turned into something safe and acceptable.
Ariadne stepped closer, her eyes large, lashes damp. “Remember that Saturday morning when we walked to town? You led me into the Voortrekker cemetery just to show me one thing and then we spent hours walking from grave to grave, as you tried to work out which people buried there might have known each other while they were still alive.”
“I was making things up.”
“You were. But you also made the connections between Brandt Verneuk, and the concentration camps, and the Anglo-Boer war, and why it all still mattered. It really struck me that day that you were so enthusiastic about the work you were coming to do. You had all these great plans and ideas and I know you had enough energy and will to finish two and a half times the amount of work that was needed.”
Jochem remembered that day. The way the light had fallen through the trees, the way he’d talked and talked, unable to stop himself from explaining every detail of what he wanted to accomplish. And she’d listened. Actually listened.
“I was angry with you at first, thinking it was a date gone wrong.” Her voice was gentle now. “But now I know it was something that you had to complete first before you could mind anybody else. Nobody wants to take that away from you. Not me, not the department, and not Professor Truter. He may not look as if he cares but every student in his department counts to him. You matter, and he will make sure you get a fair hearing with the research committee.”
A fair hearing. The words should have reassured him, but they felt like a noose tightening. He shook his head.
“Professor Truter will not be swayed by an emotional outburst.” Her tone shifted, becoming more practical, more insistent. “What you must do is listen to his concerns and then answer him with facts and reasoning.”
“I—”
“It is not an argument to be won. You need to hear him out.”
The way she said it made him suspicious. There was something she wasn’t telling him. Something in the careful way she chose her words.
“Why are you really here?” he asked.
She looked away. “It is not for me to say. I am only here to take the notes for the departmental records.”
“Why does it feel like a trial? As if I am found guilty of something?”
“It is nothing like that.” But her voice wavered. “Professor Truter is merely here to bring you a message. If you were in town this might even just have been a phone call and you could have come into his office, sat down, and had a conversation. But you are not in town. We had to drive all the way out here and that required Professor Truter to make a huge investment of time.”
Ariadne laid a hand on Jochem’s forearm, her fingers lightly stroking across his skin.
“You have this quiet out here. All this space. It would be easy to forget how it is on campus. Things are always busy. I had to move two meetings to make time for us to be here today.”
She sounded as if she were pleading for him to understand but the words she spoke stung. As if his work, his life out here, was an inconvenience. As if the hours he’d spent, the isolation he’d endured, all meant nothing compared to their precious schedules.
Before she could say anything else, Jochem grabbed her wrist—not roughly, but firmly—and took her along the back wall so that they stayed in the shadow of the house. Close to the corner there was a long flat rock used as a low bench. It was still in the cottage’s shade, but not for much longer.
She held her arm stiff, not completely giving over to his touch, but also not resisting his pull. He sat down and waited for her to join him.
Out here, away from the door, away from where Professor Truter might overhear, maybe she would tell him the truth.
“What has happened to you, Jochem?” Ariadne’s voice was quieter now, concerned in a way that made his chest tighten.
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing. You don’t look like you are eating well. And you most certainly have not bathed in weeks. How many months out here?”
“My mind is clear. I have to keep it focused on my work. Only my work. I cannot have distractions.”
Ariadne placed her hand lightly on his forearm. Her touch was warm, steady, and for a moment he almost let himself lean into that comfort. “Is it still your mother…?”
The mention of his mother shook the marrow in his bones. Jochem recoiled away from her. “Leave my mother out of this.”
“Everybody in the department knows that you have a brilliant mind. They just want to know what you are working on, so that they can support you.”
Support. That word. He shrugged off her hand. “Support me? That is not what they want. They want to stop my research. Doctor Marais could explain to you why.”
Ariadne wrapped her arms around her knees and looked away.
“Why isn’t Doctor Marais here now? He knows what I am doing. He can convince them.”
Her eyes searched the ground and she avoided looking at him. She sniffed—her hands shaking.
“What’s wrong?” The irritation drained from his voice, replaced by something colder. Dread.
“I am so sorry,” she said, starting to dab at her eyes.
“What for?” The word came out sharper than he intended. “Ariadne. What for?”
But she was crying now, and Jochem felt the world tilt, felt the ground shifting beneath him even as he sat in the shade, his back pressed against the cold stone wall of the cottage.
© 2025 Gerhi Janse van Vuuren
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