Sybil

Sybil likes beaches — mostly abroad — where she drifts between myth, consciousness, and a silliness she regards with the utmost seriousness.

She does not swim. She merely wonders what lies beneath the ocean: half-formed thoughts, abandoned moustache guards, or thick layers of dust that could only be scrubbed with Fuller’s Earth and the Lord’s own patience.

She is the patron saint of hedgewomen everywhere and nowhere: spiny, self-possessed, slightly tipsy by noon.

She likes her tea strong, her scandals freshly plucked and gorgeously ripe, and her emails sealed and hidden beneath the floorboards.

She writes stories the way she starts affairs — quietly, obsessively, with no intention of cleaning up the ashes. She is not here to behave. She observes, provokes and is never afraid to leave a sentence unfinished. She writes because life is far too serious to be left unmocked, and because creation is the most serious play there is.

She is part feral, part lady, fully awake. A disgrace with excellent posture. She laughs at the wrong time, and gets away with it — hoping you’ll join her.

There are many things Sybil does not care for: phrenology, fainting couches, and TED Talks. She prefers wine. And jewellery made from the hair of the dead.

She finds dullness in those who adorn themselves with flawless manners and police the conduct of others, secretly yearning for the courage to misbehave — she believes fortune favours those who play not by the rules, but by entirely their own game.

Now she invites you to join her: to notice what is usually hidden, to speak when silence is expected, to say, isn’t it strange…, to follow impulses most dare not name, and to share her ambivalence for life and adoration for a good middle.

Anyway, you’re welcome to join her — just mind your head, discard your expectations, and bring your own leech jar. But don’t get too comfortable. She bites when bored.