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I am a writer of novels, plays and film scripts. I live in Manchester England with my partner Andy and our teenage son Jack. Andy and I started my Newsletter Raw Meat and began publishing with Rawprintz in 1999 to showcase my work. Some of you may be confused by my continual references to Ziggy, that’s my wheelchair! Both Andy and I are writers. I’ve recently lost my sight – hence the continual reference to my being confused! Thanks for visiting.

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11.3.11

Writer's Island Secret

The prompt at Writer's Island this week is Secret.

SECRET

As a child, I was drawn as if by an invisible thread down to the cellar which was a place of secrets. Cold stone walls with damp dripping down, dim light and silence, just a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling… cobwebs of course, and the smell of mushrooms musty with age and decay. My skinny arms struggled to lift the button cover I found high up on of the walls, for I knew with my child’s perception that the cover must hide a secret. I laid the cover down on the floor, and stared into the dark space behind it… what was inside the space? I had to find out - there was no two ways about it. Searching round the cellar I found a small ladder, which I used to climb up and enter into the Black Hole… I wasn’t frightened, just intrigued to know what secrets the space held.

There was no room to stand or even sit up - I was forced to wriggle on my belly into the darkness… there was a brick roof immediately above my head and as I stretched my fingers, I could feel more bricks separating the space into different areas. It was all very strange… especially because I couldn’t see a thing… only feel the bricks and the soft cobwebby substance which covered the bottom of this space along which I wriggled… my greatest fear was that my groping fingers would make contact with a dead rat or some other horrible corpse, perhaps even human. As I wriggled further and further away from the opening, deeper into the foundations of the house I became a little anxious that I would be unable to breathe in such an atmosphere of decay and secrets, for the cobwebby substance began to fill my lungs. This place, this dark space of secrets … I began to panic, though at the same time I just wanted to go on, to go further and stay down there forever, to stay far away from the old mundane life at school. I wanted to stay down there where there was always a secret to be found… I didn’t want to return. Yet at the same time I knew that I had to, I had to turn round if I wanted to stay alive and breathe.

So eventually I retraced my wriggling movements back to the dark opening back into the cellar. It was impossible to tell exactly how long I had been inside the foundations, for time had ceased to have any real meaning since I’d entered the Black Hole. As I climbed carefully down the ladder and stood there, brushing the cobwebby substance from my T-shirt and jeans I knew that the secret in the cellar would have to remain. With my skinny arms I lifted the wooden cover reluctantly and replaced it over the entrance to the foundations. I turned away, leaving the secret safely stored away from prying eyes.

1 comment:

  1. I have been there, well captured emotions about how childhood curiosity and secrets play the game...

    Happy Writing.

    ReplyDelete

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