Snow

I cautiously peep out the bedroom window and immediately spy snow.

More snow!

Damn!

I have already been trapped inside this house for five days now and I am beginning to get serious cabin fever. Something has to break and it has to break soon. As I stand here I am mesmerised by these fanciful flakes as they fall seductively over a garden that has long since been abandoned.

The garden itself is actually heaving a huge collective sigh of relief at all this unwanted attention. Someone or something has finally acknowledged its hidden existence after so many many long years of neglect. The garden is stirring; there is a new vibrancy in the air, an unknown quality has begun to tease and tantalise the remains of a life once lived.

It’s funny the things that you notice when you have too much time on your hands. The old derelict outhouse, for instance, forsaken since Freddie left back in ‘72 takes on an almost ethereal quality. Gossamer threads subtly woven together now delicately frame and highlight his old stomping ground with a wicked wildness and urgency.

I must close the curtains and return. Return to what?

“Right …. stop your maudlin girl, time is only relevant now, remember that, always.”

I slowly walk through to the front parlour and collapse into the battered old fireside chair. It stills my beating heart. I so love to read and interpret the intricate patterns stitched so expertly into the very fabric of its soul. I have a very vivid imagination and can spend hours recreating different scenarios courtesy of my patterns.

My patterns.

Sometimes for example I imagine a paddock full to bursting point of millions and millions of tiny back spiders. Each one hell bent on weaving the perfect and foolproof web. Millions of eyes darting here and darting there. Cautious of their peers. Always cautious. Consumed and driven with the need to spin. Their seedy beady eyes are very dark and very seductive. It is a rather a frantic scenario, I grant you, but it does sort of lend itself a certain amusement. Honest!

Another one that amuses me is the one that involves ‘The Butcher’, should I go on? Ok I will. Well, initially I was unsure until that one bright spring morning when it finally showed itself. Cheeky really! Actually, funnily enough it was just after the last heavy snowfall, what some three years back now. I was sitting down eating a particularly nice plate of kippers when it just jumped out at me. I can honestly say that I do not know where it appeared from but appeared it did none the less. Quite shook me up really.

There he stood (The Butcher) in all his glory, in all his garb, with the biggest meat cleaver this side of the county. There was blood a plenty. Dripping of his face. Dripping of his hands. Dripping of his arms. I guess you get the picture. I laugh now, off course, but not initially. He also has these big huge bulbous eyes and a squashed boxer’s nose. And if this is not scary enough, at his feet are the remains of the entire cemetery of Standfield. All in various different stages of putrification. Nice! Bones and flesh merge and spurge forming a sea of rotting corpses. One huge heaving mass writhing at the filthy dirty feet of The Butcher. It makes me smirk!

I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. That can’t be right. It says that it’s nearly 2pm. How can that be? I have only just sat down and I know that when I woke up and peeped out of the window it was just after 5am. Strange! Still, I guess the clock has simply stopped and maybe needs re-winding, that’s all. I’ll sort it out later. These things are sent to test us, aren’t they? Been happening a lot of late. Bless.

“Oh, that’s right listen to Freddie and not me. What’s new? This is all so bloody pointless. How dare you ask me my opinion if you are not actually interested in the response? Why bother? Look Freddie, I know it’s not your fault but you do so enable the old fool. How about supporting ME for a damn change? Look at me Freddie, not him, look, what do you see? It’s ME Freddie, open up those blind eyes of yours. I am here. I am real. Touch me Freddie. Please, please ….”

The clock strikes six times. Six! Does that mean that it is now six in the evening or is it six in the morning? I feel confused. I don’t like the snow. It scares me. Reminds me. I do not want to be reminded because I live in the here and the now. Now is all that is relevant to me. Time is only relevant now, see I remembered.

I attempt to stand up from the battered old chair but immediately collapse back down into it. Defeated. The curtains have not been drawn correctly in the front parlour and I can see through the tiny gap straight into the garden. A winter wonderland assaults my eyes. I try to shut it out. It is bearing down on me. I am struggling. I am struggling to breathe now. My heart is pounding and desperately trying to escape from my body. What shall I do? Help me? What, you think that this is funny. How? What part of a fellow human being having breathing problems is actually funny, prey tell? That’s right then, pretend it’s not happening. Maybe it will go away ….. just like Freddie did.