THE NIGHT BIRD

You might find yourself out for a walk at night. Maybe you can’t sleep, or perhaps you are on your way to or from a late shift, or perhaps you just like to walk at night because the world feels different in the moon and starlight, with few about but you, and that silvery feeling that maybe something is about to happen, something unlike the quotidian drabness of the daylight where despite your hopes nothing much ever does.
One night, something does happen. You feel it, rather than see it at first. There’s a raising of the hairs on your arms and neck, not from fear, but like a storm is coming. The shadowy landscape around has changed, but you can’t say how. Perhaps you dismiss it as an over-active imagination or a lack of sleep or just being a bit weird, as you are sometimes. After a moment or two though, all those explanations fall away.
Everywhere around you, the landscape starts to glow. It’s soft, a gentle blue-white, but it’s everywhere: every tree, every hedge, the telephone poles and the street signs, the bricks in the walls and the tarmac of the road, all shiver with the glow. You look around, startled, and then look down and see that you are aglow too: your feet, your hands, your arms, your legs. You take a surprised breath, and when you exhale you can see that too, glowing like a faint mist as it leaves your lips and fades into the glowing world.
You hear a noise, a soft rustle and flap that seems to come from all corners of the sky at once, and you look up and see the stars, bright in the dark sky, but then the noise gets louder and the sky grows dark as the night bird flies slowly above you, its presence only visible by the stars’ disappearance. They reappear as it passes, but it takes three minutes for the night bird is very, very, very large.
The glow around you fades, and you can see it away from you now, a long glitter path into the distance that gradually turns dark as the night bird flies on.
Then everything is back to normal. All except you, that is. You’ll never quite be the same again, for you’ll know that there are things that cannot be explained away, and you’ll wonder what else there is out there. The answer is, there is quite a lot. Really quite a lot.

SILENT PILGRIMAGE

If you take a walk up from Grasmere to Easdale Tarn, and bear right as you come over the hill down to the Tarn, you’ll come to the beck that runs from the Tarn and down into the valley. If the water’s not up too high, you’ll see a set of stones across the beck, and if you are careful and have good balance you can step across them to the other side. There are fewer people there, and you can sit and eat your pork pie or malt loaf in peace.
If you decide to wild camp overnight at the Tarn, the better ground is on the other side, on the ground a little higher up. Flatter pitches, and drier ground. Also, if you are camping on the night of the first full moon after the Spring equinox, you are less likely to see why the stones were put into the stream in the first place, which is a good thing for you.
That night the gap between the worlds is very thin, and it is the start of the Gathering, and if you are down by the stepping stones you may see the Folk in procession, leaping where you just stepped, dozens in silent pilgrimage on their obscure business, from one side of the fells to the other. If they see you watching, one will pull out a tiny silver whistle and blow, and you will join the hushed procession, and when the search parties are finally sent out they will find your empty tent.
Two of the older Mountain Rescue volunteers will observe your footprints in the soft ground, heading from your tent down towards the beck, and they will look at each other for a moment, shake their heads, and cross themselves before going back to help in a search they know will not find you for seven years.

CRUNCHY BITS

New Brighton is a classic British seaside town but prides itself on having the longest promenade in the country.
Down on the prom and by the beaches the usual folk, as in any seaside town in season, will sell ice creams and shellfish and candy floss. Fill your face, it’s all part of the seaside experience. But on occasion a very tall man in a wide-brimmed hat walks the streets with his basket, selling ‘crunchy bits’. You won’t be sure if it’s sweet or savoury in the little white paper bags, and as sure as anything he won’t tell you, only smile.
If you buy a bag and eat the little crunchy bits, you still won’t be sure. They’re not unpleasant, but you can’t place the taste.

That night, you’ll feel that you’ve overdone it on the longest promenade in the country, as your limbs will ache, and even a hot bath won’t shift the stiffness. You’ll go to bed early, feeling increasingly stiff like you can’t move, and a couple of hours into the night you won’t move ever again, and your body will harden and crackle and split and crumble and in the hour before dawn the very tall man in a wide-brimmed hat will steal up the wall to your bedroom window and whether its shut or not he’ll come in, and he’ll gather you up in his little white paper bags.

DREAMING THE DREAMERS

On this night, at the same time, 145,357 people in the northern hemisphere will dream the same dream.
In this dream, they will find themselves on the edge of the sea, the waves crashing and raging, the wind whipping the spray off the top of those waves, the sandy beach on which they stand empty for a mile in either direction.
But then, in the distance, one way or another, there will be movement. With the spray and the distance it is hard to see exactly what it is, but this dark shape, something like a man, will move with purpose towards the dreamer.

Everyone who dreams this dream will be filled with the greatest fear, and will run, stumbling, the wind howling and buffeting, the waves crashing, the sand slipping underfoot, the shape getting closer with implacable intent.
It will nearly be on the dreamer, when they wake. Sweating. Breathing fast and shallow. Sick in the pit of their stomach. 145,357 lights will go on, and there will be nothing there but the familiar shapes, a sleeping partner, that wallpaper that was meant to be changed last year. Some will stay awake, some will eventually return to sleep, but all will get up in the morning and go about their day and the memory of that dream will fade over time.
For 145,356 people that is. For the other - the chase is still on, and now the hunter is out of the dream and in an underpass, or a lonely street, or a quiet corridor in a hospital at night, or slipping up the stairs, as quiet as night.

CAN I HELP YOU DEAR?

In a small public library in East Anglia, one that has so far escaped the onslaught of the barbarians, there is a librarian who looks as if she should have retired many, many years ago. You might hesitate before asking her a question about a book, as she looks like she might be vague and she has food on her un-ironed blouse and what appear to be thistles in the pocket of her cardigan, but do go ahead, she’ll answer your question. Most people don’t ask her, and if they do, they’ll ask her about a book, which is a shame, as she can and must answer any question put to her, even if it is an answer that nobody else in the world knows. She’s known everything even before there were books, or indeed even before there were languages that they could be written in.

WARM BODIES

This afternoon, I watched this Rom-Zom-Com on Netflix.
I have seen It before when it first came out and I enjoyed it then like I did today.
I loved the story, which is based on a novel of the same name.
I did like the fact that it is inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
The acting and humour was quite good as was the CGI "Boneys", the main bad guys of the feature.
I loved how they changed things up with the Zombie film lore by them starting to evolve into the next stage of life.
I shall rate this flick a score of 7/10.

SEA PEOPLES