... the dimming of the light... (part 25)

… the dimming of the light… (Part 25)

Peter Hunter

Day thirty-five continued…

… again… in my search… my need for solitude - as dusk approached I walked down to the lake…
… seeking I know not what, perhaps solitude in the slow saturation of incoming indigo stillness - perhaps the soothing burble from water birds - swans moorhens and coots. The night - heralding 'caraak' of an over-flying heron or the call-to-assemble of rooks winging back to their colony…
… all of these things eleven in my search for peace…
… West… down the lake I heard the sqabble of Canada geese as they disputed territory, on the island where in a few weeks they would stake claims for the best places to build a nest…
Even now trout were already stealing early flies from the surface… encouraging sign that even this winter saw its ending in another spring…
… and the peace interrupted as a startled deer fled the Old Orchard before running away along the far bank…
… what had frightened it I did not know…
All of these things I understood… they were refreshingly familiar… even more so in my world increasingly changing as the human content declined and faded.
Now a faint breeze arose… cooler, more refreshing on my cheek, making me less conscious of my body odour and the unhygienic smell of having not washed for more than a week…
Darker now… but I knew this patch of country well and I also had my little aluminium torch with the light emitting diodes instead of a bulb… kept charged from the solar powered trickle charger that we used for car batteries…
… it would be a tragedy when it inevitably failed to function…
but something disturbed me… a more human sound contrasting with that of the wild creatures… soft foot steps in the long lifeless winter grass…
… from the direction of the Old Orchard…
if not a person… a ghost…?
… the shape I could see in the greyness of the dusk…
who - or what?
… I switched on my little torch…
recognit……….

(To be continued…)

… too late…
… the tallyman… on Kindle

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