***
I write to you now, having finally escaped from the confines of my prison. I can finally look out of my window at the people who frolic to and fro, with their children and their pets, all the while oblivious to life's challenges. Even if it begins to rain, they will simply lay out umbrellas over their picnic tables; they will allow nothing to interrupt their quiet Sunday afternoons. These joyous scenes of normality bring me great peace. I need only look past the iron bars that stand in my window and block my view, all the while being wrapped snugly within the warm, comforting arms of my straitjacket.
The End
© 2013 Madhu Kalyan Mattaparthi
DEATH’S TRACK
By Alan Hardy
The first time it happened was on a very cold night in early winter. It didn’t scare George particularly, and he certainly had no presentiment that he was going to die.
He’d just gone to bed and, shivering, tried to pull the bedclothes snugly around him to keep out the cold. There was a tug on one side of the bed as if the sheets were being held back. He gave a forceful tug in return and they were released. They had obviously got caught up under the bed and he had had to ‘unjam’ them, so to speak.
That’s what he thought at the time, although even then he sensed just for a moment that a figure by the side of the bed, obscured by the darkness, had been holding the bedclothes back. He laughed, and drifted off to sleep, though not without a sideways glance or two.
He chuckled about it in the morning, as he munched his breakfast cereal in his lonely bed-sit. He’d had a lucky escape from the devil’s clutches. He giggled stupidly.
He’d been living alone for a couple of years now, ever since moving to the big city from the village he’d grown up in. It had been a wrench leaving that village, with its tiny, winding street, handful of shops, quaint old single-track railway station, and people who all knew each other. He had never got used to the chilling anonymity of the city. He’d never settled into a long-term job, just a succession of unsatisfying temporary positions, and had only had one proper girlfriend, Jennie. Although he had been crazy about her, and still was, it hadn’t worked out.
He missed the security of the village. Even the ‘dares’ he and his mates used to get up to on Saturdays, like running over the track in front of oncoming trains, now seemed cosy and safe. It was so unlike the big city, where he felt totally lost. He just couldn’t make a go of it. He couldn’t progress in life. It was as if an invisible hand were holding him back.
He often got that feeling. The feeling he was being pulled back. He would sense somebody or something behind him who was tugging on him, who had grabbed hold of a piece of his clothing (his coat-tail or coat-sleeve maybe), or even his body (his arms, legs or neck) and wouldn’t let him break loose. He would be walking by shop-windows and catch strange glimpses of a shadowy figure close behind him, overwhelming him with its scary presence. ‘Glimpses’ was the wrong word. Whenever he stopped and stared closely in the shop-window, or spun nervously round, he saw nothing. It was more a sensation, a fear, a premonition.
One day he was sitting in a café, still wearing his coat and eating some badly-cooked sausage and chips. He was intrigued by a figure sitting at a table in the far corner of the drab, damp-feeling room. What with intervening tables seating other people, coughing and spluttering their way through the unwholesome grub, he couldn’t see clearly but the figure seemed to be clad in black, hooded in some way and just broodingly sitting there. George was distracted as a couple of other diners suddenly laughed out loud and, when he looked again into the corner, the black figure was gone. George shuddered and passed his hand over his forehead to see if he was hot. Maybe he had a fever. He shuddered again; he was icy-cold.
He swallowed a bit more of the grub, paid the surly-faced waitress and rose to leave. As he tried to move away he felt himself being held back. He yanked at whatever was tying him down. His hand instinctively moved to a button of his opened coat which had caught on the rim of the table. He disentangled it and stumbled a bit as his body was released. Red-faced, and acutely aware of one or two strange looks from his sour-faced fellow-diners, he tottered to the door, fearing he were about to topple over. Outside he drew in the cold, invigorating air.
“Get a grip, George! Get a grip,” he told himself.
Other similar incidents took place. An evening spent in a pub drowning his sorrows ended badly when, drunkenly staggering away from the bar with yet another pint of beer in his hand, his legs collided with a stray chair that some oaf had left in his path. The momentum of his initial movement propelled his body forward and he was forced to hold himself back from toppling over. Once back in his seat, he broke out in a cold sweat and stared ahead with unseeing eyes.
He was being held back; he couldn’t move forward. He couldn’t carry on with his life. Something was stopping him. Some sort of being was grabbing hold of him and not letting him go. He knew what it meant. He had no future, except for…Death.
There was always somebody near him, behind him, watching him. A sinister presence, an unimaginable creature was after him. Something was snatching him away from life. He wanted to scream. He was so alone. Who could help? Who could save him?
It was like perpetually being in that nightmare where you couldn’t escape the clutches of some pursuing phantom or monster. The more he tried to run, the more he was held back.
Reality and his dream-world of fear and shadowy shapes became confused and mixed. He remembered once leaving a department-store and somehow, in his panic, trying to rush through the revolving doors out into the fresh air. He misjudged everything and got caught in the ever-closing exit. He felt suffocated and trapped, squeezed between the jaws of the doors. Had that happened or had he dreamt it?
He felt the ghostly presence of the thing which was following him more and more. It was always there. It was as if it mimicked every step he made, as if it followed him like a rabid dog. Its blackness, its sombre, hooded shape never left him. He couldn’t escape; it wouldn’t let go until he was dead.
Memories of his life in the safe, old village flooded back to him and, in particular, the tiny single-track railway-station where he and his mates used to dare each other to run across the track in front of approaching trains.