Night To Remember

Ghost Writers in the Sky
(A Cautionary Tale)

One dark and windy night I ran across the quadrangle, nodded to the porter in his pool of light as I passed, and headed out of town. I had long sought deserted places as they suited my melancholic nature. Looking back over long years I realize that to see ‘poetry’ in rubbish tips, derelict factories and overgrown cemeteries was a symptom of my illness not sign of genius. A little later I entered a Victorian park which I hadn’t seen before and, being a country boy, was enchanted by the ordered beauty. I would have been embarrassed if others had known of the poetic moods that so unfashionably easily invaded my body. I skipped, like a child.

I caught an old man’s voice reciting an ancient tale and peered around to discover his whereabouts, hoping I hadn’t been observed. He was suddenly by my side and grabbed my sleeve.

‘There was an ancient copse’ quoth he, ‘ writhing with the spirits of country lads and lassies, where, on a night like this, I sat musing. All at once the sky just above the trees was filled by a thundering herd of Holy Cows. Their brands were still on fire and a bolt of fear transfixed me as I felt their hot breath. Their hooves of steel shivered the air like thunder.’ He did not unhand me.

‘Listen well’ he commanded, his eyes glistened as he continued in a voice which spoke of both enthrallment and dread. I was transfixed.

‘Fearsome was the leader of the herd; half beauty, half death; dreadful was the next, half truth and half madness. Oh they were all there in this mighty herd – feminine beauty alloyed with witchcraft, love with agony, knowledge with hate and poetry with scorn. Life itself, the true life that has shone ever more dimly since the Zeus created the world, was knotted in these beings.’
Then grabbing my shoulders and with his face touching mine, he pierced my life with hideous laughter.

Backing off an arm’s length he continued more quietly as if talking only to himself, unaware of my paralysis.

‘Oh dread! I saw the pursing Ghost Writers in the Sky. In the van was my friend the black-bearded Kit Marlow, unmistakable in Elizabethan dress and his horse snorting fire. By his side Catullus and close behind as the writers swept by were Keats and Donne and a multitude of the famous and the unknown. Their faces all were haunted, their eyes blurred and clothes soaked with ink and tears.

‘The Ghost Writers had to catch that herd; they ain’t caught it yet. They’ll write forever, forever.’ He shuddered and I tried to run but couldn’t move.

‘Yippie-yi Ooohh.'

“As the writers pounded by I heard one call my name, ‘If you want to save your life think of simple things like money and sport or with us you will forever labour to pen the Devil’s herd which roams these endless skies.”
‘Yippie-yi Aaaay.’

Then silence.

‘It was on that memorable night that I became an alcoholic. Alcohol is a powerful defence. I sense you will need it one day.’ with that he was gone.

' THE END', I said

As I finished reading my account every member of the writers’ circle stared at me as though I were the grey-bearded loon of an earlier time.