Yeah, it’s been a while since I have posted anything here. Life’s like that sometimes. Still, here’s something of note; it looks like my local branch of Iceland has branched out into selling cheap clothing. I assume that this is down to their rivals also selling cheap clothing; they don’t want to be left out.
I’m not sure about their product names though; I don’t see Tesco selling such niche items, and insulting their customers at the same time. Hmm.
I suspect Jim Davidson was involved in the marketing meeting.
(Folks who are not from the UK may wonder just what the product I bought really is. Suffice to say, Mr Brain’s Faggots are a delicacy of sorts. Indeed, there are whole faggot families nowadays. Or five years ago, depending on your perspective. Which should be from a person in at least the year 2008.)
“Hi there, when I’m not getting fat lasses to dress up in clothes that give them the appearance of a muffin in the sun, I like nothing better than a good horror story. So join me, as I relate to you another tale of dread.”
Widower Edna Cribbage, 82, of Cleethorpes recently moved from her home of 81 years to a retirement bungalow five minutes walk from the picturesque seaside town’s promenade. Having struggled with the stairs of her family home for a couple of years, her sons and daughters had helped her with the arduous task of moving her possessions and selling her jewellery to free up the space required to downsize into a more convenient home for her. But the dream was rapidly to become a nightmare, as Edna continues.
“Well, the bungalow looked right for me from the start, what with the lack of stairs, a small but lovely garden and an offie across the street,” says the sprightly octogenerian, “and I could see I would be happy here.”
But Edna claims her happiness was short lived.
“Well, I’d been living here for a couple of months; I moved in during February and it was lovely at first. The heating was cheap, and the offie was doing three for a tenner on four packs of Irish stout. I still get them in now, even though Cecil, God bless his soul is long gone. He used to get through three or four cans in an afternoon, and he’d never strike me under the influence of the ale, except when I was asking for it. And he’d be right to do so.”
I gently prod Edna along.
“Of course, now he’s not here, I have to drink alone. It’s not quite the same, but it is cheap, and it does keep my old bones warm. I don’t have any heating you know.”
“So it was quite good for the first couple of months.”
But things were to take a horrific turn at the end of March.
“Eeh, it was horrible. I was sleeping one night when all of a sudden I was woken up by this awful chirping noise. Now I know what you’re thinking, just birds, but I’ve got my head screwed on laddie, I know birds when I hear them. And if these were birds, they were birds from hell.”
Getting excited, Edna presses on.
“Now as if the noises weren’t enough, I noticed a bright line on my wall. I was terrified, I can tell you, so terrified I almost had to get a new Tena from the cabinet next to my bed. But I couldn’t reach, so I knew I had to hold on. I didn’t dare get out from under the quilt.”
By now ashen-faced, I am unsure whether or not to put Edna through any further trauma by asking her to continue. But continue she does, unabated.
“I was completely gripped by fear, so I’m lying under my sheets and the chirping is continuing and then I notice the bright line on the wall is moving. Only slowly, mark you, but moving for sure. I didn’t know what was going on, and I daren’t get out of bed.”
Taking a quick sip of stout, Edna seems reluctant to elaborate. But then she does anyway.
“Well, I knew I couldn’t stay hidden all day. My son said he might phone me that evening, and I needed to be up and smart just in case. So quickly I sat up and screamed for help; I opened my curtains and the window, and screamed and screamed. Then, out of breath, I quickly drew the curtains and got back under my quilt. I pulled those curtains so tight, you wouldn’t believe. And I hid.”
I asked Edna what happened next.
“Well, after a few minutes I had the courage again, so I got out from under the quilt. I’d noticed the chirping had stopped, but also I now saw that the slowly-moving, bright lines on my wall had vanished.”
“A short while later, a lovely man from warden’s office came along and checked everything was okay. But I knew I couldn’t stay there, it was too scary. So I asked my son, Terry if I could move in with him, but he said it wouldn’t be right, his house had three spare rooms but I was too independent and wouldn’t feel right living under his roof. He was right, of course. So I’m moving into the Cleethorpes Valleys Rest Home. It’s not as nice as Terry’s house, but he’s right of course; I get to keep my independence as long as I take my medicine and am in bed by nine. And they let me have stout on a Sunday!”
What really happened in that seemingly normal Cleethorpes bungalow that spring morning? Had Edna been visited by an alien menace, attempting to communicate with her through chirping? Or was she merely awoken by a nest of sparrows found by experts in the guttering above her bedroom window? Was the light the alien’s probe, or was it simply a gap in the curtains through which the spring sunshine was casting shapes onto her walls?
But if it really were that mundane, why did the menacing stop when Edna finally got the courage to scream?
Sceptics say the birds were startled by the sudden noise, and flew away, and that the lights on her walls vanished as she simply pulled her curtains tighter.
I’m not so sure. We can never be truly certain of the paranormal world. It’s not like the world of fashion!
