Day Five of My500Words
My 500 Words - Day 5: Write What you Know
Todays #My500Words challenge is to write what you know. Assuming that nobody knows more about what you know than you do... or something like that. As someone with a particular penchant for horror, sci and fantasy genres, I'm not sure I wholly agree with this sentiment, because if every human only wrote what they know, books would be very boring. Actually that might explain why I find many books, plays, TV programmes and movies exceptionally boring. But that's a discussion for another time.
Adding the usual disclaimer that the point of these daily challenges is to write freely and to flow creatively without self censure, without pausing to check grammar, spelling or punctuation. So there may be horrific examples of both.
The prompt for today is:
Describe a day in your life you will never forget
Ramblers, the irony of which may become apparent shortly. Not the first conference I have been too and it most certainly won't be the last but it was definitely the most scary.
Now I have already mentioned my love of the horror genre. I grew up through the time when it was not unknown for a bunch of us to grab a few beers, some munchy food and pop to the local video shop, pick out three or four of the funniest or scariest movies we could get our hands on and have a full on film fest night. As a result, I have built up a fair bit of immunity when it comes to being scared. I don't have any phobias and I when I watch a movie hoping that it will scare the pants off me, I am usually quite disappointed despite all the hype. Feel free to leave a movie suggestion in the comments below if you think you know what that can prove otherwise.
Anyway, I set off from Norwich by train to Kendal. An epic journey. I could have got halfway across the world in the time in took me to get there. I arrived excited but exhausted. The hotel had looked a fair walk from the train station but nothing major for me. I walk everywhere. Walking to the uni and back was a six mile round trip every day. I had checked my route before setting out the night before and knew that once I'd got out of the station and through an housing estate I just had a short work out of town and that the hotel would be up a road on my left.
So I found the left turning and lugging my backback, headed up the hill. My phone was threatening that it was due to die on me any moment but I wasn't all that concerned because I was almost there wasn't I. The houses began to dwindle and the path faded into the grass verge and before I knew it I was walking on the road. But I must be almost there, probably around that next bend at the top of the hill. But when I got to the top, the road kept going.
I started to get a little worried it was almost dusk and I had been walking for a while. But no point turning back and looking daft asking for directions. There was a little bunch of cottages on the turning on the hill. I gently knocked on the door hoping I could find out how far I had to go, I knocked a little louder, but in spite of there being lights on in the house, no one came to the door, or even so much as glanced from a window as far as I could tell.Probably don't answer the door if they aren't expecting anyone. I wouldn't. I'm probably almost there. I will go a little further and then I will turn back.
As I turned the top of the hill I looked over in the distance. It was dusk now and the lights in the hotel shone up to me guiding the way. I was exhausted by now, but picked up my pace as all I could think of was that I hope I hadn't missed dinner. I was starving by this point and would really love to get a shower to wash off the grimy feeling of travel. It was further away than it looked and it took some time to walk around the twists and turning descent and back up to the hotel. Except when I got right up to the gate, it wasn't the hotel afterall. It was a farmhouse or similar, with those outside security lights shining obscenely brightly across the landscape.
By this point I was exhausted and cold. There was a dampness in the air, the sun had gone and a mist was enveloping the open spaces. I carried on walking past what looked like a constructed water fall. Well, I could hear the powerful rush of water somewhere behind the large concrete wall. My eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and I could see surprisingly well. I was wondering why I wasn't in pitch blackness. Then I started to worry if I would soon be plunged into complete darkness. I started to think of how little traffic had passed me by since I choose my path. That if someone drove this way and I got knocked down, I might never be found in time. I could die from exposure before anyone found me. I could see a road in the distance now, I was coming up to a junction, visible only because of the traffic I could see occasionally passing. By now I had to admit to myself that I was afraid. That I may have made a terrible mistake. I felt miles away from the train station and it was dark. I was on a road with no paths in the middle of no where and my phone was dead.
I heard the familiar sound of tyre on tarmac before I saw that brilliant white light of the cyclists front lamp. Like a daft, very British, dormouse I shouted "Excuse Me" as the cyclist went by. Thankfully he stopped and I explained that I was looking for the hotel. He explained that I had taken a left too early and I had come quite a way out of my way. That if I had carried on before turning left I would have seen the hotel. I couldn't thank my velocipede saviour enough and turned back as he cycled on his way.
It wasn't until I finally got to the hotel that life felt real again, as if time restarted. I felt like I had, for a moment, accidentally stepped into a story that was not going to end well. It was intensely invigorating and for a few hours I felt incredibly alive. The day I felt fear for real, when the comforts of civilisation fell away, when the reality of total solitude and darkness and absence of warmth became all encompassing is a day I will not quickly forget.
1204 words
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