I walked up to the bar and sat down on the empty stool.

“You don’t want to sit there,” said the bartender.

“Oh? Why not?” I replied.

“It’s haunted.”

I laughed, but then stopped when I saw he was not laughing with me.

“You’re serious?”

He nodded.

“Well get me a drink and tell me more.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“What’ll you have?”

“Pint of Guinness, and pour yourself one too.”

He thanked me and I watched as he pulled two draughts. He was a large, portly, red-faced man – standard bartender stock. His large meaty hands dwarfed the glass as he placed it in front of me. I took my first sip and looked at him expectantly. He leaned forward earnestly.

“I’ve been the landlord of this here pub for nigh on ten years. We don’t get very many visitors, not since they built the bypass, you see. In fact, you’re the first stranger we’ve had in months.”

“I’m not a stranger – I grew up here,” I protested.

“I know, Joe, but then you moved to Dublin and got educated and all, and you know how that puts you in the minds of the people around here. Anyhow, let me finish. When I first started we had a fella by the name of Henry Mallone what used to come in here, every night, always sitting on that stool. I don’t recall him ever missing a night. Then, one night, just for a laugh, one of the other punters, a fella called Toby, Toby McGuire, sits in Henry’s place. Henry comes in, sees Toby on his stool and tells him to move, on account of how its his seat. Toby was a young fella like, and didn’t take kindly to Henry’s tone. I think he’d had a few too many too. So, he tells Henry to feck off, and Henry goes ballistic. I tell you, I never seen anything like it. He was such a quiet man normally, but that night he were like a crazed beast, effing and blinding, and then he starts to lay into Toby. I tried to stop things, but they fought like animals, breaking up the place, until suddenly Toby lands a lucky punch and decks old Henry. Henry fell like a stone but knocked his head on a table and died there in then. It was a terrible thing to be sure.”

He paused, wiping the sweat from his brow and took a long drink.

“There were an inquisition and all, but the tribunal decided it were accidental death and nothing further happened. But Toby was a heartless bastard. He showed no remorse, and fool that he was, he decided he’d take Henry’s seat for his own. I remember telling him off but he didn’t listen to me. I’m just an old fool, right? The thing is, a few weeks later he disappears. He’d been living with this gal, Mair, a pretty young thing, complete waste on the likes of him. She came in here asking after him, but we’d not seen anything. The polis came later, but he were never found.”

“What do you think happened?” I asked.

He raised his hand. “Not long after, there was this other fella, also a young ‘un, Jerry was his name, arrogant as they come. He started to come to the pub and made himself right at home in old Henry’s seat. No respect for the dead these youngsters. Two weeks later he’s missing too. But they found him, mind you, not two miles from here, in the moors, dead as they come.”

I nodded, “Yes, those moors can be pretty dangerous if you’re not careful. Suck you right under.”

“Indeed,” continued the old man, a queer look in his eyes, “except that he weren’t drowned. They found him sitting next to the dead willow tree, hugging it with all his might, his face full of dread, like he died of fright.”

I smiled to myself. Superstitious old codger.

“So what do you reckon scared him like that? Henry’s ghost?”

He looked at me.

“You may sneer, young man, but that’s two deaths unexplained. I tell you it’s old Henry being possessive about that stool you’re sitting on.”

I snorted, but will confess to being a little less cocky. However I stood my ground.

“Pah! Ghosts. No such thing.”

“That what they teach you in Dublin?” he asked before shrugging and returning to his duties. “Suit yourself.”

I had another few pints and chatted to a few of the locals, before finally calling it a day. I bade them all good night, and was about to leave when the bartender called me over. He had a queer look in his eyes.

“Watch yerself out there, lad. Its a grim night for believers and unbelievers alike.”

I smiled, thanked him for the story, and left.

It was a chilly, moonlit night, and I was not looking forward to the half mile walk back to the B&B along the old Clairin road. A fine mist rose from the moors on either side of the road, swirling around my feet as I walked. I was thankful for the intermittent moonlight because apart from the twinkling lights of the village far ahead the road was dark. I walked briskly, the warm glow of alcohol buzzing pleasantly in my head while I mulled over the evening’s strange, implausible story.

Suddenly behind me I heard the sound of gravel being trodden under foot. I spun around to look but the road was empty.

“Who’s there?” I called, but the night was deathly silent, pausing it seemed to watch the scene unfold. I could see my breath clouding before me, the air suddenly feeling very icy. Then I smiled at myself – these moors had an eerie effect on locals and visitors alike it would seem – and resumed my journey home.

Then I heard the sound again, but this time right behind me. I froze in my tracks and turned around slowly. My spine tingled with anticipation and I felt every muscle in my body tense with the primal desire to flee. A shadow, large and looming stood before me, the moon glinting off dark, hollow eyes.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

The shape didn’t speak at first, then approached, slowly, reaching out large, familiar, meaty hands, a large amorphous shape in one them, and I braced myself, wanting to scream, but somehow unable to.

He spoke.

“You forgot your coat.”

He reached out a large, meaty hand. “Hello, name’s Riaan.”

He had a thick Afrikaans accent, a giant of a man with long, curly, somehow inappropriate hair atop his bulky frame. I took his hand reluctantly and introduced myself.

“Adam.”

“Can I buy you a beer?” he asked.

I shrugged non-committally, pointing at my half-full pint, hoping to discourage further interaction from this stranger.

“Look,” he said. “I know I’m being forward, but this is important. Let me buy you a beer, dammit.”

I did not want to anger this hulk of a man so I assented.

“You see,” he continued as our drinks arrived. “the thing is … I know you.”

I looked at him, startled, and spluttered, “Look, I think you must have me confused with…”

“Ja, I know it must seem odd, but I do know you, from my dreams.”

Right, I thought. Time to make an exit. I stood up and was about to leave when he put his hand gently on my arm.

“Please,” he said. “I am not mad. Hear me out. What have you got to lose? And the beer here is very good, as you know.”

I looked at him for a moment, observed his eager, intelligent eyes and warm smile, and sat down smiling. “I’ll listen as long as there is a beer in front of me.”

He guffawed, “Good man!” and slapped me heavily on my back, rattling my bones to the core.

“Every night I have this dream,” he began. “I walk up this street and am stopped at the door of this pub by a man dressed in white. He has an unnatural glow about him so I think he must be an angel. He tells me to go inside the pub and give a man a very important message. I protest but he insists, so we go in together and he points you out. Then he leaves and I wake up.”

He paused, reflective.

“I know what you are thinking, but I am not mad. I never dream, well hardly ever that I can remember, and when I do they are incoherent collections of strange scenes, nothing like this. I believe God has given me a message for you.”

I looked at him.

“Look I know you mean well, and I appreciate the beers and all, but I don’t believe there is a God, and even if there was, he certainly would not care enough about me to send me a message.

The big man smiled. “I know it’s from God.”

“How you know?” I asked.

He stared at me intently. “Do you have a wife?”

I nodded.

“She loves you right?”

“Yes.”

“Well how do you know that?”

I frowned. I could see where this was headed. “By the many things she does and says to prove it.”

“Well,” he replied, “it is the same with God.”

“I think that’s debatable. There is a difference between a wife you can see and touch and a God who hides behind probabilities.”

He laughed. “I was once like you. I had to see and touch everything. But at the end of the day you can’t see and touch everything you know is true. We life our lives by faith in the simplest things. The universe for me just makes more sense with God than without Him.”

I shrugged, “Well that’s where we differ.”

“So do you want to hear what the message is?”

“May as well,” I replied.

He looked serious and leaned forward intently, looking about warily.

“You have left your car lights on.”

(A joint venture over coffee and smoothie by Daughter and Dad)

 “They don’t understand! They’ll never understand!” I said under my breath. I stormed into my room and sulked on my bed. I started to drift into a deep slumber. I dreamed I was on a cloud, floating above a magical land with waterfalls, lakes, forest and mountains. It was beautiful. All of a sudden I was entering a lightning storm. I woke up. It wasn’t a dream.

I began to worry because it couldn’t be real. I could not be floating on a cloud. Yet here I was; there was no denying it! The cloud floated on through the storm and I found my self surrounded by terrifying bolts of lighting and bone shaking rolls of thunder. Not long after, however, the storm passed and the sun shone gloriously over the magical landscape. Ahead of me a tall mountain loomed, on top of which sat a majestic castle. The cloud drew nearer and I knew I’d be able to get off on the ridge below the castle. I waited for the right moment and leapt. Unfortunately I misjudged the distance and fell many hundreds of feet to my death.

I’m afraid I left quite a mess on the magical landscape.

The sun beamed brightly through the bay window, casting broad unwelcome rays of dust into my lounge. I had often wondered where dust came from, but now it was clear: the sun had been caught en flagrante delicto as it were. So I did the necessary, and wrote a letter to the relevant authorities about this wilful misdemenour. I must confess, I didn’t expect anything to be done and forgot about the whole thing completely, until one fateful day when the sun did not rise. Rumour has it that they sent it to the naughty corner in the Magellan Clouds.

An ironic dustice.

“She loves me, she loves me not, …” I pulled the petals off one by one, seeking to answer the eternal question; it had been my brother’s idea, to seek the answer in this humble daisy, but alas the answer as I reached the last petal, was ‘not’. The truth grieved me greatly but there was nothing to do, the Fates had spoken and she was not to be my love. I threw the stalk into the bushes and turned in disgust to my brother who had been watching. He smiled sympathetically, “I guess it was not meant to be, Brother”, but I just shrugged and walked off to console myself. Perhaps if had I stayed a little longer I might have seen the gleam in his eye, and the clenched fist behind his back that held the first petal of my flower.

She had given it to him the last time they’d seen each other, a little red poppy, her favourite. They had just made love under the big oak tree on the hill, surrounded by a sea of swaying, sun-touched corn fields, when she saw it and suddenly leapt up in innocent naked splendour to fetch it for him.

He left for the Great War the next day, cherishing the little flower next to his beloved’s picture in the leather bill fold his old father had given him. The trenches were all they said they would be: dark, wet and terrifying, but the little flower kept his spirits up, reminding him of happier times, the woman he loved, and giving him hope where there was none.

But now the flower had served its purpose as it fluttered in the icy wind, held listlessly by the lifeless young, hand that had served so well in the name of some ignoble political agenda.

I began the story game: “I walked along the long, dusty road, barren fields on either side littered with dead sheep.”
My young daughter looked at me, thinking what happened to “Once upon a time?”, but going with the flow responded, “Suddenly, from behind a ridge a group of wild gnomes appeared and ran, shouting, towards the man.”
I smiled, and responded, “Luckily I had my trusty light sabre with me and was able to fend them off, killing every single one.”
She replied, “But then all their friends came, millions of them, from every direction.”
“Ah,” said I, “but I also had my transporter with me and was able to just in time teleport myself to the Pearly Gates where St Peter looked at me with some astonishment.
She looked bored, so I continued, “I told him my story, all about the road, the barren wasteland, the sheep and the gnomish hordes, but he looked at me with saintly scorn and said that he had heard many tales before but never one so ridiculous, and didn’t let me in.”

“What a cool house, Joe!” cried Tom.

I smiled, not really knowing what to say. I’d lived in the old manor house for so long that I guess I took its size and lavish gardens for granted. My father is the warden of Farley Manor and I am his only son. I don’t know my mother – she died when I was very little, my father says of cancer. I have a picture of her: a beautiful, slender young woman with sad eyes and I imagine those eyes knowing that she wouldn’t see me grow up and being sad because of it, but that’s silly, I know. My father is an earnest man of few words, and has been as long as I can remember. He is tall, lean, with cold grey eyes that leave one with no doubt as to who is in charge. I suppose I love my father, but it is a strange sort of love; kind of a mixture between awe, respect and fear. He never hugs me and I sometimes feel he thinks I’m a nuisance, a left over part of my mother.

Tom is my only friend from school, Pembury Grammar School for boys – a “serious establishment” our headmaster always tells us – and his being here at my house is a rare treat indeed because father is not keen on people visiting. He says its because he has to look after the place and doesn’t want any of my hooligan friends damaging anything – it took me weeks of nagging to get permission.

I like Tom. He is serious like me, but like me has a wickedly fun streak and the two of us get along famously. Father had allowed use to roam around the whole gardens, so we were engaged in a very splendid game of hide and seek, too young for our teenage years, but who cares? I had just found him hiding in the maze and we were sitting resting on the edge of the fountain, looking back at the house.

“Really cool, Joe. You are so lucky.”
“I suppose, Tom, but it gets a bit lonely sometimes without anyone to hang out with.”
“You have me.”
“Yes, but that’s hardly ever. I wish father would let you visit more.”
Tom nodded, staring vacantly into the distance.

“Hey, what’s that?” he shouted suddenly, pointing towards the house.
I looked to see what he was pointing at. “What?”
“There! The attic window. A face!”
I looked but couldn’t see anything. “There’s nobody up there.”
“I tell you, there was someone, a girl with black hair. Very pale.”
“Woooooo… a ghooost…” I teased.
“Stop it!” he said, getting annoyed, “I saw someone!”
“Sorry.” I replied. “We do actually have a ghost, you know?”
“No way!”
“Yes. Father says it is a young woman who was murdered here long ago. She was locked up in the attic by her father and left to die.”
“Ugh. That’s horrible.”
“Definitely. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“So shall we go have a look then?”
“What? No!”
“Oh come one. Be a sport!”
“I would but my father doesn’t allow me to go up there.”
“Why not?”
“He says there are precious vases up there and I’m not to go there.”
“Oh, OK…”

I could sense the disappointment and really did want to be a good sport. “Listen … well … my father is doing his rounds of the estate so we could take a quick look.”
Tom’s face brightened immediately. “Cool let’s go” and ran off towards the house with me in hot pursuit.

We reached the house at the same time and stopped, listening. Its weird how something can be a home one minute and a source of thrilling terror the next. I did actually believe in ghosts, despite what I’d told Tom. From earliest childhood the house had been full of creaks and distant noises, and sometimes when I lay in my bed trying to fall asleep I imagined I heard crying coming from the attic two floors above me. I’d asked my father about it and that is when he told me about the ghost, the girl called Isabelle who didn’t listen to her father and was horribly punished for it. It was a cruel story to tell a little boy, but he was like that, my father: very tough, and he expected the same from me I guess.

We climbed the flights of stairs quietly, listening both to the house and for my father, who I knew would skin me alive if he caught us. We soon reached the top floor and crossed the landing towards the final set of stairs that led up to the attic. I looked over towards Tom and could see that he was not looking as brave as he’d done before. “You OK?” I asked. He looked at me and nodded grimly. This was serious business.

We were about to start our ascent when I remembered that we would need a key to get into the attic. I once before had “explored” this area and found the way into the attic barred by a very solid, locked door. My courage had left me then and I had not returned, at least not until today. I did however look for the key and found it finally in a box at the back of my father’s cupboard. I told Tom to wait for me while I retrieved it and returned within a few minutes.

We paused before the final leg of our adventure, listening for the ghost, and for my father. I’m not sure who I was more terrified of, but I lead the way, quickly climbing the stairs. We stood at the door, ears pressed to its ancient panels, listening. Nothing. Just the wind sighing sadly as it drew its breath through the cracks.

I put the key into the keyhole and turned it slowly. I was surprised to find that it actually turned very easily. I thought nobody, including my father, ever went into the attic. My heart pounded in my throat as the door creaked open slowly, revealing a vast dimly lit space littered with clutter from yesteryear. Cobwebs hung everywhere between the clouds of ancient dust. In the middle of the attic was an old four poster bed bedecked with a thick veil. Tom nudged me and nodded towards the bed. I’d seen it too: the outline of a person, sleeping or perhaps worse, dead. It took all my courage to take a step forward rather than run for my life. Here at last was the answer to the question that had been burning in my subconscious for most of my life, the source of that presence I had always sensed and sometimes heard.

We reached the bed and with trembling hands slowly drew the veil back.

Before us lay, not a child, not a ghost, but a dead woman dressed in a long, faded red dress. She must have been dead a long time because the skin hung tautly on gaunt bones and her fingernails extended grotesquely beyond their usual boundaries.

“Ugh!” hissed Tom. “Who do you think she is?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “but she’s got something in her hand.”

We leaned forward, expecting her to leap at any minute, and inspected the item in her hand, a gold locket. I reached and took it from the wizened fingers, then opened it to find two pictures, one of a woman, the other of a little child. The child was I, and the eyes of the woman were sadly familiar; this was my mother.

I stood staring at the photographs, unable to move, struggling to comprehend the awful horror of what lay before me. Tom hissed impatiently “What is it?”

Suddenly behind us the floorboards creaked and we turned to find my father standing, cold fury in his eyes. “So you found her.”
We looked at him fearfully.
“I told you not to come up her, Joseph. You should have listened to me.”
“Sorry Father” I mumbled.
“Yes, very, very sorry Mr Brands,” offered Tom hopefully.
“Sorry, doesn’t cut it. Joseph I’ve told you so many times what happens to the disobedient, haven’t I?”
I nodded mutely.
He lunged forward angrily. “Give me that key!”
I managed to step to one side, causing my father to fall forward on his face. Tom shouted, “Let’s get out of here!”

We ran for our lives, fleeing from the attic, pausing a moment to lock the attic door, sprinting down the flights of stairs out into the glorious sunshine and freedom from the nightmare. We kept on running, even though I knew my father would not be in pursuit – the attic was used to confining its occupants.

We reached the front gate and I turned to look at the house one final time, and saw my father at the barred attic window, shouting noiselessly, pointlessly, while behind him I saw the sad familiar eyes fade into oblivion with a gentle smile.

These are my days.

I’ve lived well. I’ve lived badly.

Now I just live, and write.

[Work in progress...]

Two guys, Cameron and Nyiko are sitting at their favourite bar, drinking
beer.

Cameron turns to Nyiko and says, “You know, I’m tired of going through
life without an education. Tomorrow I think I’ll go to the community
college and sign up for some classes.” Nyiko agrees that it’s a good
idea.

The next day, Cameron goes down to the college and meets the Dean of
Admissions, who signs him up for four basic classes: Math, English,
History, and Logic.

“Logic?” Cameron asks, “what’s that?”

The dean says, “I’ll show you. Do you own a lawnmower?”

“Yeah.”

“Then logically speaking, because you own a lawnmower, I think that you
would have a yard.”

“That’s true, I do have a yard.”

“I’m not done,” the dean says. “Because you have a yard, I think
logically that you would have a house.”

“Yes, I do have a house!”

“And because you have a house, I think that you might logically have a
family.”

“I have a family.”

“I’m not done yet. Because you have a family, then logically you must
have a wife.”

“Yes, I do have a wife.”

“And because you have a wife, then logic tells me you must be
heterosexual.”

“I am heterosexual. That’s amazing, you were able to find out all of
that because I have a lawnmower.”

Excited to take the class now, Cameron shakes the Dean’s hand and leaves
to go meet Nyiko at the bar. He tells Nyiko about his classes, how he
has signed up for Math, English, History and Logic.

“Logic?” Nyiko says, “What’s that?”

“I’ll show you,” says Cameron. “Do you have a lawnmower?”

“No.”

“Then you’re gay…..”