Tombstone Tourism
And saying thanks to Death Stranding.
Creativity can be exhausting. Too many ideas, too little time. Where one moment you think you’re on top of things, keeping up with demand, next you’ll overhear a conversation or discover a place that kick starts something new.
But there's also nothing else like it. In its uncertainty we find progress and in its unpredictability we get better at our craft. Somewhere, in the restlessness of it all, ideas come alive.
I’m not one for new year’s resolutions but I do want this year to be about embracing (rather than fearing) the unknown, because that’s what creating is about. Savouring the experience, enjoying the ride and using the chaos to propel stories wherever they want to go.
Visiting home after being on the other side of the world for almost two and a half years teaches you a lot about perspective. Perspective when it comes to friends and family. Perspective when it comes to time. Perspective when it comes to defining home.
A surprising thing I noticed when I was back in the UK was how much I missed its graveyards. You don’t have to go far in England to stumble on crumbling gothic arches or chipped gargoyles surrounded by half-sunken stone.
Perhaps it was the day trips to cathedral cities or asking my mum to pull over because we’d passed some tired headstones I wanted to look at (she insisted she’d wait in the car). Either way, it reaffirmed my love for tombstone tourism.
I should have known. I’ve always taken the long walk home if it cuts through a graveyard or planned trips around cemeteries, approaching them like free outdoor museums.
One of the reasons I wanted to visit Milan was after reading about its San Bernardino alle Ossa, an ossuary dating back more than 800 years made from the bones of those who died at the local hospital. By the time I left, I’d fallen for the Cimitero Monumentale, the city’s largest cemetery.
Some call it dark tourism. Others call it cemetery enthusiasm. Lots decide to review their time with the dead on Google Reviews (Cimitero Monumentale di Milano has 4.7 stars).
For me, I think it’s a combination of everything. It’s the statements in architecture, the stories in stone but, above all, the invitation to pause.
I can’t stop thinking about Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding. It’s packaged and sold as a video game with a cast including Mads Mikkelsen, Norman Reedus and Léa Seydoux but really, it’s more than that.
Its concept is so complex and well considered it’s hard to summarise in a few lines, but I’ll give it a go. Essentially you play as a courier, trekking across America after a post-cataclysmic event (called the Death Stranding) delivering packages in the hopes it will reconnect the country.
You plan your trips around Timefall, an otherworldly rain that ages everything it touches, phantoms that try to pull you from the land of the living and dead bodies that, if left, can cause more catastrophic explosions.
Death Stranding’s world is beautiful, bleak and unforgiving in its loneliness. It shows you that delivery drivers don’t get enough credit, technology helps as much as it hinders and that good shoes matter.
But it’s the interaction with other human players - or rather what they leave behind - that makes Death Stranding so special.
You’ll never meet the person who built the bridge that helped you cross a precarious river or speak to the person who left a friendly note at the top of a mountain urging you to ‘keep on keeping on’, but you’re always thankful they did, and you’ll find yourself going out of your way to do the same for those who’ll arrive after you.
They’re small actions but they’re powerful. Not because they meant you could complete a delivery but because they’re reminders you’re not alone.
There aren’t many things I can think about and say ‘that helped me through a pandemic’, but with a new year comes reflection. Looking back, I can say Death Stranding was one of them.
Before you go
I live in other corners of the internet. Every Tuesday, I post new micro-fiction on TikTok. I also attempt to keep an Instagram updated and tweet every now and then.
There’s also a lot going on in the horror community well worth checking out. This April, REVELATIONS is being released. It features stories from some of the genre’s greatest, with all proceeds going to Climate Outreach.
You can find out more here.
/ JW