Someone Else’s Story
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The sun is down and the kitchen is tidied up. My wife is putting our daughter to bed so I step out the front door to smoke a quick cigarette and think about tonight’s story writing.
There are no streetlights in this part of our village so the darkness is deep and so still. The calm is broken briefly by the rumble of a lorry managing the hairpin curve that marks the edge of our village, down near the pub. It then gives a long, low roar as it lumbers up the hill to the next town.
There are low patchy clouds drifting by. The night stars and crescent moon break through and illuminate the farms across the valley. I can make out the sheep in the fields, quiet, leaning on one another for warmth, dreaming their sheep dreams.
I mull over my story, the plot, the various arcs, the interesting tropes. It will be a heavy lift but I am feeling good, struck with a rare level of clarity. As I stub out my dog-end, I turn and look up at our bedroom window where I see the soft light of the lamp on my wife’s nightstand shining on the pulled curtains. I forget about the story and go back inside. Maybe I smoke too much.
