If you've read my previous ramblings, it will probably come as no surprise to learn that when it comes to advances in technology I'm a bit of a luddite. Nothing against the march of progress per se. Not at all. Thanks to the internet I've now got an infinite number of ways to go off at tangents and waste my time, whereas previously I had to think a bit in order to idle my hours away. And the invention of email has spared me that little frisson of trepidation I used to get when I saw an unsolicited letter occasionally lying on the doormat. Who needs excitement at my age. No, my main objection to the almost total domination of the digital age these days is that it's... well, just all too easy. Want a book? A couple of clicks of a mouse and you're away, downloaded to your slim ereader. A music track? On your music player in seconds. Information on how to put up a shed? Well that just yeilded about 38 million results when I just took the easy way out and googled it.
I'm as guilty as the next person (or shed builder) of course. I use a mobile phone and computer and sitting in my armchair and letting everything come to me via some deft key presses is an attractive proposition. But is it good for me? Well it's not good for my waistline or fitness levels, that's for certain. There was a time when serendipity was just around the corner on every shopping venture outside. Searching through record shops for a certain LP or cassette, or a dusty old bookshop looking for...well that was the point. You could come across almost anything. And physical books are just so multi-faceted. When you've finished reading them, they can come in handy propping up that wobbly table leg or pressing that flower your loved one presented you with on your anniversary. Try doing that with an ebook.
Anyway, before I start twitching and shouting 'Eee, when I wer a lad,' it's probably best to move on.
I have published a collection of Five Tales of Unease called 'Dark and Deep'. Being the dutiful husband I am, I dedicated it to my wife. She read one story, said that it kept her awake and I've noticed the book has mysteriously disappeared from her bedside cabinet. Charming.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from the one that kept my good lady wife up all night. It's called 'Echoes'.
ECHOES
Slate-grey skies stretched down to meet a stormy sea of similar colour. The coastal path was deserted, save for a lone figure muffled up against the elements progressing slowly along its course, pausing occasionally to gaze down from the cliff at the rough waters rolling onto the rocky beach below, their movement accelerated by a strong wind.
Rough steps cut into the cliff face led down from the path to the small beach, but such was the forbidding aspect of the shore as he watched that Taylor decided to continue his ramble along the cliff top and on this occasion not descend to the seashore.
He had only gone a few feet more when something below on the beach caught his eye and made him stop again.
The figure of a man was standing quite still at the water’s edge, gazing out at the turbulent water, arms dangling loosely by his sides. Despite the weather he appeared to be lightly clothed and as the walker on the cliff top watched, waves came in and lapped around the stationary man’s feet, covering his shoes up to his ankles, yet still the figure did not move.
The wind gave a sudden violent gust and Taylor grabbed a fence post for support, swaying slightly at the onslaught, but he did not take his eyes off the person below on the sand.
He watched with an incredulous fascination as abruptly the man on the beach began to walk forward into the water, the waves crashing into him as he waded deeper and deeper into the sea, spray and foam covering him from head to foot. He advanced like an automaton, unflinchingly, looking neither right or left but staring straight ahead as if his gaze was fixed on some invisible object far out to sea. The water soon reached his waist but still he continued.
Taylor, transfixed with incomprehension for a moment at this mystifying action, suddenly snapped into motion. He cupped his hands to his mouth and, leaning over the wire fence which lined the cliff edge for safety, began to shout as loudly as he could in an attempt to catch the man’s attention and divert him from what was almost certain death.
There was the briefest of turns in Taylor’s direction from the man’s head but he continued to advance into the grey waters, arms still motionless by his sides, the water now up to his chest.
Taylor ran back along the cliff top the way he had come and located the uneven steps leading down to the beach. He began to descend quickly, trying desperately not to lose his footing on the stony pathway yet also attempting to keep the man on the beach in view.
Halfway down he glanced across the sand and saw with a sickening feeling that the man had advanced further, only his head and shoulders now above the waves, appearing tiny against the massive swell of water heaving and thrashing around him.
Taylor knew that he could not possibly get to the man in time and deep down he knew that any well-meaning rescue attempt by himself once the man had disappeared must surely result in his own death as well. He was not a strong swimmer and the sea was as rough as he had ever seen in it.
In a last ditch effort to halt the man on the beach’s progress he once again began to shout, his frantic words competing with the blustery wind which seemed to whip them away as soon as they were out of his mouth.
“Wait! Stop! Just wait a second!” He paused on the steps, a terrible sense of inadequacy engulfing him for a second, hoping against hope that his pleas may have some effect on the figure in the water.
Slowly, as if in a dream, the man in the sea turned his head towards the source of the shouting. On the steps Taylor saw his face for the briefest of moments, pale and ghostly in the surrounding greyness, before he turned back to face the vastness of the water and within seconds had disappeared entirely beneath the waves.
Still shouting, his words now heard by none but the few seagulls which were wheeling overhead buffeted by the wind, Taylor ran down the remaining steps and across the beach to the water’s edge. He vaguely registered the man’s footprints in the sand leading into the waves as he reached the shoreline, still yelling at the dark water, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of the disappeared man, hoping against hope that he might yet be alive.
The tide continued to advance and soon even the footprints had gone.
Numbed with shock and disbelief, Taylor pulled his mobile phone from his inside coat pocket and with fingers which felt like sticks of ice punched the number for the emergency services. On the cliff top, the wind howled through the wires of the fence alongside the deserted path.
(Excerpt from short story 'Echoes' featured in the collection Dark and Deep available on the Amazon Kindle store).
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