A Notable Rarity.

So here I am at 2230 on a warm Sunday night in late July. The darkness has now fallen, the communion with bats, moths and growing things is done (I got caught in a squall and wasn’t dressed for it), I had my shower earlier, and there is still an hour and a half to go until my bandwidth becomes unrestricted and I can access YouTube for my nightly fix of old movies, comedy clips, and the never ending fascination of world music. This is the time of day when I become restless for something to amuse me, so tonight I read one of my old stories over on the other blog.

I used to think I was a good writer, but now I’ve changed my mind. My fiction was generally competent but hardly impressive. Much of it got published, but I shall never be listed among the shining lights of English paranormal fiction. I’m no MR James or Algernon Blackwood.

Tonight I decided to read Simon Says and I was suddenly struck by a particular paragraph. I liked it and thought ‘this is worth posting to my blog, even if only to save me thinking of something new to say.’ So here it is. Like it or not as you choose.

I stood on the prow and pondered the enigma. I was alone again and conscious of the intense stillness all about me. There was no wind, and nothing stirred in the overgrown breaker’s yard or on the road that I could see beyond the fence. No wading bird called plaintively from the reeds on the far bank and the water in the channel languished dark and silent as though it had lost the will to lap the piles of the old jetty. The red mist was as thick as ever, obscuring the view beyond a hundred yards or so and turning the other sad vessels into ghostly grey shapes that hovered uncertainly between heaven and earth.