Elegies & Requiems by Colin Insole

Author:Colin Insole [Insole, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Ghosts, Short Stories, Horror, Weird Fiction
Publisher: Side Real Press
Published: 2013-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

‘With a Thought I Took for Maudlin’

Miranda’s unaccustomed exertions made her fall asleep at once but her night was troubled by dream. She stood at dusk, upon a ridge, looking down on a landscape that was black and smoking. Little pockets of fire were still burning far into the horizon. On the opposite hill, the outline of the dead giant was scorched into the bare heath like a brand. Figures moved in the smoke and amongst them, she recognized the priest from ‘The Chapel of Fools’ and the woman with dying rose petals, like the wax of artificial flowers, melted into her clothing. They carried torches but these were no beacons of celebration and homage but pale corpse lights, glinting fitfully in the haze of smoke and ash. Each bore a mark, burned into their arms.

Their homes stood abandoned, empty of decoration and ornament, their facades of glass and metal teetering and flapping like a collapsing stage set.

Other things crawled in the desolation. At first, they appeared peripheral and tiny — a solitary’ black beetle regaining its footing, the twitch of a Caterpillar on a scorched branch and the stirring of roots beneath the feet of the wanderers. But gradually, the nests and colonies opened and the landscape was seething with their industry. Someone whispered, ‘Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind’, and as its roar increased, the distraction on the faces of the torchbearers grew to a terrible despair. A hive of insects rolled like tumbleweed towards the first property. The wall wobbled a little before crashing upon its neighbour, until one by one, the houses of the estate collapsed.

Miranda woke dull-witted and with a headache. But she was practical and hard-working. Paracetamol and black coffee soon banished the images of her dream. And besides, three more cases were waiting her attention. They included a complex child custody dispute which promised weeks of work. An extended winter holiday in the Caribbean beckoned. Quickly, she drafted her notes concerning Trevor Fernsby.

She could offer him no help. Depression or a mild psychosis would be the likely conclusion but she would await his doctor’s report. Drugs would alleviate his condition and he would sink, a grey furtive thing, swallowed up in prison routine and brutality’. The strange occurrences of the previous day were lost or sanitised in the jargon of her profession. As she switched her attention to the next case, she remembered the giant on the hill. She had forgotten to ask the priest why the church had tolerated his nakedness. She paused as she recalled his face at the window, surrounded by sheaves of torn paper and there was something from her dream that troubled her. But the thought passed and the file was closed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.