It was an ordinary birth, a not so ordinary life. Not extraordinary, perhaps, but a narrative lived in the subjunctive and a story that stands out from the suburban nine-to-five. You know what they say about life imitating art and history repeating itself.
Siân Lacey Taylder was not born Siân Lacey Taylder; she was a victim of a cruel deceit on the part of her nemesis, Simon, who stole into her body at its nativity. The embittered spirit of Siân Lacey Taylder returned to her corner of limbo where she began plotting her revenge.
The nineteen eighties were in full swing: a decade of gender-bending, shoulder-pads, big hair and men wearing make-up. Siân Lacey Taylder couldn’t have asked for a better ally, her nemesis could indulge in his nefarious pastime without anyone threatening to punch his lights out. Not that anyone would have noticed the difference between ‘him’ and a bona fide woman; as his female friends often told him, he looked good in a dress.
And there was the rub. Simon Taylder was beginning to realise that he was neither kinky fetishist nor common-or-garden transvestite; that the prognosis was altogether more serious, quite possibly fatal. Being a kinky fetishist or common-or-garden transvestite is harmless enough; the English love an eccentric, after all. Wanting a ‘sex-change’ is another matter altogether but it was too late. Siân Lacey Taylder, cool and calculating assassin that she is, had already infiltrated his mind; pretty soon she’d take over his body, as well.
On 13th July 1996, to be precise, when Siân Lacey Taylder put an end to the brief but eventful life of her nemesis and assumed control of his empty corpse.
And that’s where I would have liked the story to come to an end – in the operating theatre of a private hospital in Brighton: that is, after all, that’s where most narratives of a similar genre come to an end. Would that Siân Lacey Taylder had slunk into suburban anonymity instead of trying to plough a furrow as a wannabe writer and academic.
What do they say? You can run but you can’t hide? Not only did Siân Lacey Taylder’s demons come looking for her, so did the woman Simon Taylder fell in love with back in the nineteen-eighties: the Woman of his Dreams, the woman he spurned to turn himself into the woman he wanted to be.
Did the world turn full circle and a happy ending ensue? Depends on what you want in a happy ending, suffice to say that at the last minute Death by Eyeliner ceases to be a chronicle of bereavement for a life snuffed out prematurely and becomes a story of love in its purest form.
Life imitating art? You’d better believe it.
Siân Lacey Taylder was not born Siân Lacey Taylder; she was a victim of a cruel deceit on the part of her nemesis, Simon, who stole into her body at its nativity. The embittered spirit of Siân Lacey Taylder returned to her corner of limbo where she began plotting her revenge.
The nineteen eighties were in full swing: a decade of gender-bending, shoulder-pads, big hair and men wearing make-up. Siân Lacey Taylder couldn’t have asked for a better ally, her nemesis could indulge in his nefarious pastime without anyone threatening to punch his lights out. Not that anyone would have noticed the difference between ‘him’ and a bona fide woman; as his female friends often told him, he looked good in a dress.
And there was the rub. Simon Taylder was beginning to realise that he was neither kinky fetishist nor common-or-garden transvestite; that the prognosis was altogether more serious, quite possibly fatal. Being a kinky fetishist or common-or-garden transvestite is harmless enough; the English love an eccentric, after all. Wanting a ‘sex-change’ is another matter altogether but it was too late. Siân Lacey Taylder, cool and calculating assassin that she is, had already infiltrated his mind; pretty soon she’d take over his body, as well.
On 13th July 1996, to be precise, when Siân Lacey Taylder put an end to the brief but eventful life of her nemesis and assumed control of his empty corpse.
And that’s where I would have liked the story to come to an end – in the operating theatre of a private hospital in Brighton: that is, after all, that’s where most narratives of a similar genre come to an end. Would that Siân Lacey Taylder had slunk into suburban anonymity instead of trying to plough a furrow as a wannabe writer and academic.
What do they say? You can run but you can’t hide? Not only did Siân Lacey Taylder’s demons come looking for her, so did the woman Simon Taylder fell in love with back in the nineteen-eighties: the Woman of his Dreams, the woman he spurned to turn himself into the woman he wanted to be.
Did the world turn full circle and a happy ending ensue? Depends on what you want in a happy ending, suffice to say that at the last minute Death by Eyeliner ceases to be a chronicle of bereavement for a life snuffed out prematurely and becomes a story of love in its purest form.
Life imitating art? You’d better believe it.