take on a life or their own, echoing audaciously down the empty streets. Stopping at a curb, I listened in case a stray vehicle might happen to approach. Strangely, peculiarly, I heard the sounds of footsteps, footsteps somewhere deep in the fog. My ears cocked, but the sound of the footsteps – they stopped. Was there someone out there, someone lost in the fog, someone following me, hoping to find his or her way home in safely? Could I have imagined it? Was it just the sound of my footsteps, echoing into the night? I waited, trying to calm my rattling nerves. After hearing nothing for well over five minutes, I began walking again. Hearing only the sound from my feet, I relaxed, breathing that bit lighter. This reprieve, however, did not last for long, because the sound of the footsteps, the other set of footsteps, began again. This time, they were closer than before.
It was odd, strange, bizarre – frightening, for whenever I stopped walking the sound of the other footsteps also stopped. When I began walking again, they did likewise. Like an invisible shadow, the footsteps followed me.
I began to get scared, thinking it a lunatic who would slit my throat without a moment’s hesitation. I tried rapping on another few doors, hoping the occupants of these houses might see fit to answer. No one answered, not even one. I was puzzled and confused, wondering how everyone could be in bed – and fast asleep.
Only a half-mile left to go; although the footsteps had not gone, they were at least no closer to me. I saw that as a positive. I was still in with a chance of getting home without someone murdering me in the dark of the night.
“Excuse me, please,” a male voice said, somewhere in front of me.
“I beg your pardon?” I replied, happy that another soul was abroad (apart from the one who owned the menacing footsteps, that is).
“I bought this parrot from you only last week...” the voice continued, “...but it’s dead.”
“Hmm, that sounds familiar,” I whispered, listening intently.
“It appears all right to me,” said a second person – also a male.
“All right?” the first man replied, his voice rising with anger, “I suppose he’s all right, if you happen to like dead parrots…ones that have been nailed to their perches!”
I laughed. There was no one in front of me. I was listening to a television programme – a repeat of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, to be exact. I wondered where it was coming from, but because of the almighty pea soup, it was impossible to find out. Despite this failure, it did cheer me up, though, and I set off with renewed vigour, thinking at least one other person was still awake – even if they were only watching ancient repeats on the telly.
“A quarter mile to go, Jeremiah,” I told myself. “Only a quarter of a mile, then you will be out of this terrible fog, safe from whoever is following you.”
My house, my home was getting tantalisingly close, as minute-by-minute, yard-by-yard, I trundled through the pea soup I was in. Suddenly, I saw a gate, and I shouted, “I know that gate! It’s Mrs Pereira’s front gate!” I was so happy, seeing it. I felt like kneeling down and kissing it, but I did not. No. Instead, I began to run; I began running as if my life depended on it. “No one is going to get me,” I yelled defiantly, “no one at all!”
Yes, it was still foggy, incredibly foggy, but I kept on running, dashing down the street to my house, my home. Like a man possessed, I sped through that fog as if it wasn’t even there, forward towards my final destination.
Stopping at a gate, MY GATE, I fumbled in my pocket, trying to find my key. Pulling it out, I inserted it into the door lock. Opening the door – my front door – I went in. I was home. NOTHING could harm me now.
“Excuse me,” a voice called out from behind me.
Turning round, I looked out from my doorway, into the fog. “Who’s there?” I asked, afraid.
“Oh, I’m sorry to be bothering you,” the voice continued. “I think I have something that belongs to you…”
My eyes narrowing, I said, “Where are you? Show yourself!”
Footsteps, I listened with trepidation to the sound of footsteps, his footsteps, getting closer and closer. Suddenly, from out of the fog, he appeared; a man, an incredibly old man, in a black coat so long it dusted the ground. He was smiling; the old man was actually smiling. With an arm outstretched, he said, “I believe this is yours?”
Leaning out from the doorway, I tried to distinguish the object. “It’s my hat!” I cried out, quite in surprise, “Where did you find it?”
“You dropped it, a mile or so back,” he replied, handing it to me. “I knew it was yours, because no one else was about. I would have returned it to you sooner, but in all this fog, I had quite a job trying to work out where you actually were. I had to keep stopping and starting, listening to your footsteps… You are okay with that, aren’t you?”
“Yes, yes, and thanks,” I replied, relieved that he was not an axe murderer.
“I’ll be on my way, so,” he said, turning towards the gate.
Feeling guilty for having such bad thoughts about him, I said, “You wouldn’t like to come in for a cup of tea, would you?”
“It depends,” the pensioner replied.
“On what?”
“On whether you have any biscuits,” he said, laughing.
“I’m afraid not,” I replied.
“Never mind...” he answered, once more heading for the gate.
“How about a glass of warm Madeira wine?” I asked.
If there is a moral to this story, I feel it must be this: When the night is so dark you yearn for the dawn more than anything else, when it finally arrives it might not be what you expected.
Like a Storm Trooper
George and Martha were married; they had been married three years to the very day...when George finally admitted that he had had enough. Now do not get me wrong, George loved his wife, he loved her dearly, in fact he adored the very ground she walked upon. However, there was a problem with their marriage; the marriage he had hoped would be the perfect uniting of their bodies and souls. This problem, that so many of you will almost certainly consider inconsequential, not serious enough for him to worry about, was the simple fact that Martha, George’s beloved wife – snored.
George had tried to ignore this one small flaw in his wife’s otherwise perfect state of health and being. For three years he had struggled so hard to overcome his own weakness, allowing it bother him so. You see, the problem, George’s problem, was the unfortunate fact that he was an incredibly light sleeper.
Every night, after the happy couple had retired and kissed the other goodnight, George lay in bed awake, waiting, listening, fearing, wondering when the nightly performance would begin. Sometimes it started straight away, the very moment his wife’s sweet head touched her pillow. Other times it began much later, well into the wee small hours, after George, having tired of waiting for it to begin, had drifted off to sleep. However, the one thing that each night had in common was the undeniable fact that his wife – Martha – snored with as much force and ferocity as a Storm Trooper invading Poland.
After struggling for three long years, without getting even one night of uninterrupted sleep, George had come to the inevitable conclusion that he had to do something about it. He wanted, he longed, he craved for the sensation of awakening each morning, feeling rested, relaxed, refreshed, instead of feeling tired, weary, worn-out from twisting and turning his way through the night.
As far as George was concerned, the nights of listening to the sounds of snoring were gone. They had to be gone or he would go mad – nuts. To stop his wife’s snoring George realised that needed a plan. The following is how it unfolded…
“Martha,” said George to his wife one bright summer’s morning, as she began preparing their breakfast in the kitchen. “Martha, can I have a word with you?” he asked.
“What is it, dear?” she answered.
George was sitting quietly, patiently on the settee in their lounge. “Can we have a little talk?” he asked politely.
“That sounds ominous,” she said, drying her hands on her apron. Taking it off, she hung it on the radiator although it was stony cold. Entering the lounge, she said, “I was making breakfast – your favourite, a nice big fry-up.”
This comment made George feel even shadier than he was already feeling. Patting the cushion beside him, he said, “Sit down, dear, this will only take a moment.”
Martha obediently sat beside her beloved husband. Being so close to her George watched the sun’s rays shining, glistering on her radiant red hair, reminding him why he had married her in the first place – her dazzling beauty.
“Martha,” he said slowly.
“Are you all right,” she asked, interrupting.
“Me? Yes! Why did you ask that?” he said, his planned speech knocked out of kilter.
“Oh, it’s nothing really,” she replied. “I just thought that you have been acting a little out of sorts, since you got out of bed this morning.”
She had said it, the dreaded word – bed – reminding her husband why he had wanted to have this talk with her in the first place. Beginning again, he said, “Darling, I have something to say to you.”
Yet again, his poor wife felt threatened by the ominous tone in his voice. “Yes?” she said, her eyes flashing green.
“I have loved those green eyes of yours,” he whispered, “from the moment we first met.”
“Why, that’s lovely. It’s so sweet,” she said, wondering if that was all
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