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GOLDEN SHADOWS, SILVER CHAIRS

By Jemima Slimfast

Suff’ring from a Quinsy I was advised to travel to a warmer climate, and thus set forth to the Spanish Main, via the uneven and unforgiving land of Scareforth.

Beyond the gray Susan Hills, the mountains ran agape like giants’ grinders along the horizon, and the charred silhouettes of winter trees drew abruptly past the equipage as the moon kept pace beyond. Then the moon went behind a cloud. This made me feel scared, afraid and fearful. I thought about how the moon had gone behind a cloud, and how scared it had made me feel. Then I saw a little robin redbreast, and that made me feel happy. I smiled. I thought about how the joyful innocence of the robin had made me feel happy, pleasant and smiley. Not like the moon going behind a cloud, which had made me feel scared.* I thought about the contrast between the two experiences, and it made me think about how there are both happy and sad things in the world. I thought about the Spanish Main. Is it happy, or sad? What is it, anyway? To this day, I do not know.

Presently I noted that the cart was slowing down with alacrity, and meandering towards the ditch. “Hi!” I cried. “Hi, Mr Horsetrap!” (For Horsetrap was the driver’s name). But answer came there none. I leaned out of the window and addressed his hunched, motionless and somewhat Dickensian figure. “Mr Horsetrap, I say!” The reins hung slack in his hands like exhausted tapeworms. I noted with alacrity that although my breath steamed forth from my chill lips like steam from a dragon’s nostrils, the air about Mr Horsetrap’s proletarian jowls was unbesmudgeoned. “Are you quite well?” I hallooed, as he tumbled into the ditch.

Some three or four miles further up the Daphne Du Maurier-esque trail, my feet sore with traipsing, I saw dim lights peering through the branches ahead. I decided to head for the lights with alacrity. It was a bit like being in an M. R. James novel.** In four and twenty minutes I had reached the grounds of a stately home. Affixed to the iron ribs of the entrance gates was a plaque engraved with the words, “BAD MANOR”. Through the gloom I perceived the façade of the edifice. And it resembled a scary face.*** My nether regions helplessly betrayed an odorous secret.

*I’m not scared of clouds, as such – it would, I allow, have been scarier had the cloud been a shark, say, and the moon a clown with holes for eyes.
**I tell a lie. The atmosphere did not evoke his works by any stretch of the imagination.

***Two of the windows were the eyes, the portal was the mouth – I suppose there wasn’t really a nose - but you get the picture.

To Be Continued…

Posted by rosy at juin 16, 2004 09:27 PM | TrackBack