Ode to the Stories that Never Were

If.

If you had been travelling that dusk down the snake-like lane that leads down the hill to the old village. The long black shadows cast by the setting sun would have stretched themselves painfully out over the fields to your left, for the fire-streaked sky to fear.

If you had noticed the gate set into the low hawthorn hedge to your right. You wouldn’t have paid attention to the appearance of the gate itself. It is fairly nondescript. Just a five-bar, wooden gate, strung with spider-webs, plucked at by the wind. You almost expect this to sound like an orchestra. An orchestra of spider-webs. But they make no sound.

If you had succumbed to the strange magnetism of the driveway beyond, enhanced by the slow opening of the gate as you approach. Your shadow would have rippled across the grass covered hillocks behind you in the field, distorting strangely. But you would have been facing away from that, towards the setting sun. You wouldn’t have seen what happened to your shadow as you went through the opening.

If you had made it to the end of the visible part of the driveway before it curves round to the left. The ground is cracked concrete. Some straggly blades of grass are trying to eke an existence out of the fissures.

You still wouldn’t have been able to see the house round the corner. But if you hadn’t turned back, worried about missing an appointment, or trespassing, you would have seen, at the end of that part of the lane, a cat.

You would have wondered how you’d missed it before.

The cat would have been seated in an attitude of mingled expectation and arrogance, as is so often the way with cats. It is black. Don’t worry though, it doesn’t have green eyes. That would be too cliché. Even for the cat.

When it was sure it had your attention, the cat would have pinned you down with its piercing yellow stare and blinked once. You really should have bowed back.

But you’re right- whoever bowed to a cat. Ridiculous.

You’re right. It would probably be better if you left. Forget about the black cat and the cracked driveway and the wooden gate. Forget the shadows. Forget the inexplicable lure of the place.

Leave the way you came.

I wish you good fortune.

Goodbye.