'Present Fears are Less than Horrible Imaginings'

I shouldn’t do it, you know. I shouldn’t think of apposite things just when the situation renders them inappropriate.

You know how much I enjoy my nocturnal ramble, right? So tonight, just when I’m half way down the lane, I suddenly have to go and remember the fact that big cats have been supposedly spotted in this area. Black leopards, cougars, that sort of thing. That was a bit silly, wasn’t it?

‘Pish,’ I thought, ‘don’t be silly. Carry on regardless.’ So I did.

The walk down the hill wasn’t so bad, since it heads for the lights of some houses and the village pub. And the subsequent walk along Mill Lane wasn’t so bad because there’s a farmhouse there where a big, beefy Rottweiler lives. Good match for any black leopard, I reckoned. And getting as far as Sarah’s house was OK, too, because then I could permit myself the distraction of being on the street where you live.

It was the walk back...

Why did I have to go and think of that line from the Ancient Mariner?

Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread

And having once turned round, walks on

And turns no more his head

Because he knows some frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

I did, you know. I turned round. Once.

‘Pish,’ I thought, ‘don’t be silly. Carry on regardless.’ So I did.

Ah, but then I came to the spot where the entrance to Bag Lane was to my right, and the entrance to a field access track to my left. Two lurking places opposite one another. I shone the torch left. Nothing. I shone the torch right. Nothing. I shone the torch left again. Nothing. And then I remembered Alien, and in particular the scene where the skipper is searching for the creature in the ducting. He looked left. Nothing. He looked right. Nothing. He looked left again. Nothing. He looked right again...  Maelstrom of claws and teeth; end of skipper.

And all the time I was wondering whether a big cat would regard the beam of light from a torch as being equivalent to fire and back off.

JJ is still here. Shaken, and stirred only enough to admit what a prat he can be sometimes.

And do you know what? I just discovered that Sarah dropped onto my blog a mere five minutes after I walked past her house. Happy Ending.