I can remember two incidences when I was a teenager that made me jump - not quite out of my skin but a definite shift to the side.
The first was when I was walking back from a friends house late at night down some narrow country lanes - single track winding road with high hedges typical of Mid Wales. It was a moonless night and really dark, I was having trouble seeing the road and keeping out of the hedge. Usual things running through your mind.... am I alone out here, what would I do if someone/thing jumped out at me, etc and having just about convinced myself that there would be no one else out at that time of night when a wheezing cough barked out from behind the hedge right next to me! I think I managed to jump midstride and twist to face my potential murderer in a split second while trying to work out my escape route (adrenaline is great stuff!). Before running like a loon I waited for what seemed like ages until the culprit coughed again and then bleated.............. it was a sheep.
If you have never heard a sheep cough, take it from me it sounds just like a psycho deliverace will make you squeal like a pig before I eat you type person on a dark night.
The second one was on the same road but on a different night and different part - lots of moonlight this time
As a rounded a bend in the erie half light again wondering will i get home OK and why the hell do I always go to my friends house and why does he not come down to me? When in front of me, standing on the side of the road was a ghostly all white woman with her arm raised and pionting straight at me as if to say your soul is mine! To say I panicked would be a slight understatement - my heart skipped big time! Running through my brain was the story of Sabrina the spirit of the river Severn (a few miles away but I had mocked her existance many times while swimming and fishing in the river - enough to make her walk a few miles for revenge and I was not far from a tributory stream) and the fact that I could see the moonlight shinning through the trees on to the road was a completely different colour to the apparition who was clearly going to take me away....... flight or fight what was I going to do?! Can you fight an angry spirit - or run from them? What saved my life that night was the security light in the nearby house turning off and magically banishing the spectre who reappeard when their cat or other animal tripped the sensor again. My nemesis was just the light from the security light shinning through the hedge onto the bank on the side of the road. Yes I felt stupid and blamed my parents for not allowing a TV in the house until I was 7 and cursing me with a vivid and over active imagination (when the eventually relented they said that it was a special model that only worked when it rained)
The only fear in the night is the fear we bring with us.
The first was when I was walking back from a friends house late at night down some narrow country lanes - single track winding road with high hedges typical of Mid Wales. It was a moonless night and really dark, I was having trouble seeing the road and keeping out of the hedge. Usual things running through your mind.... am I alone out here, what would I do if someone/thing jumped out at me, etc and having just about convinced myself that there would be no one else out at that time of night when a wheezing cough barked out from behind the hedge right next to me! I think I managed to jump midstride and twist to face my potential murderer in a split second while trying to work out my escape route (adrenaline is great stuff!). Before running like a loon I waited for what seemed like ages until the culprit coughed again and then bleated.............. it was a sheep.
If you have never heard a sheep cough, take it from me it sounds just like a psycho deliverace will make you squeal like a pig before I eat you type person on a dark night.
The second one was on the same road but on a different night and different part - lots of moonlight this time
As a rounded a bend in the erie half light again wondering will i get home OK and why the hell do I always go to my friends house and why does he not come down to me? When in front of me, standing on the side of the road was a ghostly all white woman with her arm raised and pionting straight at me as if to say your soul is mine! To say I panicked would be a slight understatement - my heart skipped big time! Running through my brain was the story of Sabrina the spirit of the river Severn (a few miles away but I had mocked her existance many times while swimming and fishing in the river - enough to make her walk a few miles for revenge and I was not far from a tributory stream) and the fact that I could see the moonlight shinning through the trees on to the road was a completely different colour to the apparition who was clearly going to take me away....... flight or fight what was I going to do?! Can you fight an angry spirit - or run from them? What saved my life that night was the security light in the nearby house turning off and magically banishing the spectre who reappeard when their cat or other animal tripped the sensor again. My nemesis was just the light from the security light shinning through the hedge onto the bank on the side of the road. Yes I felt stupid and blamed my parents for not allowing a TV in the house until I was 7 and cursing me with a vivid and over active imagination (when the eventually relented they said that it was a special model that only worked when it rained)
The only fear in the night is the fear we bring with us.
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