Friday 22 August 2008

On Brocking Avenue




A strange street it was, but in the dusky light it seemed to ghost in and out of existence. A cold trail of cloud hung upon its bushes and fences, the street lights flickered and pulsed with strange energy.
Harry had been living in his new apartment for two weeks when he spotted the girl wandering down the centre of the street. She roamed in strange snake-like curves, veering toward the cars and then the curb on the other side of the road.
She must have been drunk, that was the assumption you would have made. But Harry was transfixed, amazed at her movement: so smooth, like she skated upon the tarmac, effortlessly dancing down the street.
Then, as she neared the mid-point of Brocking Avenue, this girl leaned to the right, almost as though she would tip over, and wheeled at high speed first through a fence and then the wall of a house.
When she was gone Harry looked away. He turned and supported himself against the grey-beige of the paint-peeling wall. He'd seen a ghost.
Slowly turning to peep out the window again he saw that an upstairs light in the house had come on. He watched in wide-eyed minutes, imagining horrors unfolding in that poor house. But, as suddenly as the girl had veered right through the brick of the house, off flicked the light and the street was quiet once more. Vacuum hours passed, with only traffic to watch, and then sleep.
The next evening though, this evening, Harry's curtains will part once more as he begins another vigil. Silent Harry, waiting there at his window, waiting for the night to creep and come and perhaps impart a few more of its secrets.
A strange, spectral sight he would be, no doubt, to any who would look up from the street below and spy him there.

1 comment:

Alexi Frest said...

Nice posts, really. Literature.

May I ask you something if you would not mind answering - where could you copyright your name and your writings (blog)?
Thank you for your answer,
yours cordially,
Mina Jade from Hungary