The Killing Circle Read Online Free PDF Page A

it is at first. But as a second pair of feet step deliberately forward (and with boots left on), I sense some of the others shrink in their seats around me. Then I see why.
    A sloped-shouldered giant steps forward from out of the darkness. At first he appears headless—there’s a ridiculous second when I glance down to his hands to see if he carries his own skull—but it is only the full beard of black wires that obscures most of his face. Not his eyes though. The whites clear, unblinking.
    "Thank you all for coming. My name is Conrad White,” the old man says, sitting again. The bearded latecomer chooses the last chair—the one beside mine to the left. Though this saves me from having to look at him, it allows me a whiff of his clothes. A primitive mixture of wood smoke, sweat, boiled meat.
    "I will be your facilitator over the next four weeks,” Conrad continues. "Your guide. Perhaps even your friend. But I will not be your teacher. Forwriting of the truest kind—and that , I’m assuming, is what all of us aspire to—cannot be taught."
    Conrad White looks around the circle, as though giving each of us the opportunity to correct him. None do.
    He goes on to outline the ground rules for the meetings to come. The basic structure will involve weekly assignments ("Little exercises to help you feel what you see "), with the bulk of time spent on personal readings from each of our works-in-progress, followed by commentary from the other members. Trust is crucial. Special note is made that criticism, as such, will not be tolerated. Instead, there will be "conversations". Not between ourselves, but "between a reader and the words on the page". At this, I feel a couple of heads nodding in agreement off to my right, but I still don’t look to see who it is. Somehow, so long as he’s speaking, I can only look straight ahead at Conrad White. It makes me wonder if it’s not only shyness that holds my stare. Perhaps there is something more deliberately occult in the arrangement of our chairs, the candles, the refusal of electric light. If not enchantment, there is definitely a lightheadedness that accompanies his words. A vertigo I can’t shake.
    When I’m able to focus again I pick up that we’re now being told about honesty. It’s the truth of the thing that is our quarry, not mastery of structure, not style. "Story is everything,” the voice says. "It is our religions, our histories, our selves. Onlythrough story can we hope to become acquainted with experiences other than our own."
    In a different context—a room with enough light to show the details of faces, the hum of institutional central air, EXIT signs over the doors—this last promise might be overkill. Instead, we are moved. Or I am, anyway.
    Now it’s time for the obligatory "Tell us a little bit about yourself” roundabout. I’m terrified that Conrad will start with me. ("Hi. I’m Patrick. Widower, single dad. There was a time I dreamed of writing novels. Now I watch TV for a living.") Worse, he ends up choosing the woman sitting immediately to my right, someone I have so far sniffed (expensive perfume, tailored leather pants) but not fully seen. This means I will be last. The closer.
    As each of the members speak, I play with the dictaphone in the outside pocket of my jacket. Push the Record button, Pause, then Record again, so that I create a randomly edited recording. It’s only when they’re halfway round the circle that I realize what I’m doing. Not that this stops me.
    The good-smelling woman introduces herself as Petra Dunn. Divorced three years ago, and now that her one child has left for university, she has found herself "mostly alone” in the midtown family home. She names her neighbourhood—Rosedale—meaningfully, even guiltily, as she knows this address speaks of an attribute not lost on any of us: money. Now Mrs Dunn spends hertime on self-improvement. Long runs in the ravine. Charity volunteering. Night courses on arbitrary,