Yeah, it’s been a while since I have posted anything here. Life’s like that sometimes. Still, here’s something of note; it looks like my local branch of Iceland has branched out into selling cheap clothing. I assume that this is down to their rivals also selling cheap clothing; they don’t want to be left out.

I’m not sure about their product names though; I don’t see Tesco selling such niche items, and insulting their customers at the same time. Hmm. 

“Hi there, when I’m not getting fat lasses to dress up in clothes that give them the appearance of a muffin in the sun, I like nothing better than a good horror story. So join me, as I relate to you another tale of dread.”

Widower Edna Cribbage, 82, of Cleethorpes recently moved from her home of 81 years to a retirement bungalow five minutes walk from the picturesque seaside town’s promenade. Having struggled with the stairs of her family home for a couple of years, her sons and daughters had helped her with the arduous task of moving her possessions and selling her jewellery to free up the space required to downsize into a more convenient home for her. But the dream was rapidly to become a nightmare, as Edna continues.

“Well, the bungalow looked right for me from the start, what with the lack of stairs, a small but lovely garden and an offie across the street,” says the sprightly octogenerian, “and I could see I would be happy here.”

But Edna claims her happiness was short lived.

“Well, I’d been living here for a couple of months; I moved in during February and it was lovely at first. The heating was cheap, and the offie was doing three for a tenner on four packs of Irish stout. I still get them in now, even though Cecil, God bless his soul is long gone. He used to get through three or four cans in an afternoon, and he’d never strike me under the influence of the ale, except when I was asking for it. And he’d be right to do so.”

I gently prod Edna along.

“Of course, now he’s not here, I have to drink alone. It’s not quite the same, but it is cheap, and it does keep my old bones warm. I don’t have any heating you know.”

“So it was quite good for the first couple of months.”

But things were to take a horrific turn at the end of March.

“Eeh, it was horrible. I was sleeping one night when all of a sudden I was woken up by this awful chirping noise. Now I know what you’re thinking, just birds, but I’ve got my head screwed on laddie, I know birds when I hear them. And if these were birds, they were birds from hell.”

Getting excited, Edna presses on.

“Now as if the noises weren’t enough, I noticed a bright line on my wall. I was terrified, I can tell you, so terrified I almost had to get a new Tena from the cabinet next to my bed. But I couldn’t reach, so I knew I had to hold on. I didn’t dare get out from under the quilt.”

By now ashen-faced, I am unsure whether or not to put Edna through any further trauma by asking her to continue. But continue she does, unabated.

“I was completely gripped by fear, so I’m lying under my sheets and the chirping is continuing and then I notice the bright line on the wall is moving. Only slowly, mark you, but moving for sure. I didn’t know what was going on, and I daren’t get out of bed.”

Taking a quick sip of stout, Edna seems reluctant to elaborate. But then she does anyway.

“Well, I knew I couldn’t stay hidden all day. My son said he might phone me that evening, and I needed to be up  and smart just in case. So quickly I sat up and screamed for help; I opened my curtains and the window, and screamed and screamed. Then, out of breath, I quickly drew the curtains and got back under my quilt. I pulled those curtains so tight, you wouldn’t believe. And I hid.”

I asked Edna what happened next.

“Well, after a few minutes I had the courage again, so I got out from under the quilt. I’d noticed the chirping had stopped, but also I now saw that the slowly-moving, bright lines on my wall had vanished.”

“A short while later, a lovely man from warden’s office came along and checked everything was okay. But I knew I couldn’t stay there, it was too scary. So I asked my son, Terry if I could move in with him, but he said it wouldn’t be right, his house had three spare rooms but I was too independent and wouldn’t feel right living under his roof. He was right, of course. So I’m moving into the Cleethorpes Valleys Rest Home. It’s not as nice as Terry’s house, but he’s right of course; I get to keep my independence as long as I take my medicine and am in bed by nine. And they let me have stout on a Sunday!”

What really happened in that seemingly normal Cleethorpes bungalow that spring morning? Had Edna been visited by an alien menace, attempting to communicate with her through chirping? Or was she merely awoken by a nest of sparrows found by experts in the guttering above her bedroom window? Was the light the alien’s probe, or was it simply a gap in the curtains through which the spring sunshine was casting shapes onto her walls?

But if it really were that mundane, why did the menacing stop when Edna finally got the courage to scream?

Sceptics say the birds were startled by the sudden noise, and flew away, and that the lights on her walls vanished as she simply pulled her curtains tighter.

I’m not so sure. We can never be truly certain of the paranormal world. It’s not like the world of fashion!

People. Who invented those bastards? He must have been a right sadistic git.

I hate people, and the problem is that they are everywhere and it seems to be that the more that I try to get away from them, the more there are around. I’m travelling as I type this; I’m going to see my parents for a few days, because I am a good boy and make sure I go to see my mother and father every few months, time and finances permitting.

The problem with travelling is that other people want to travel at the same time, the damned inconsiderate bastards. It’ll start on the train platform; people seem to want to crowd around where I am standing. I don’t know why. I’ll usually be there for the train fairly early, as I am mildly obsessive and hate missing the train, especially as I’ll have to change trains two or three times on some journeys, so any delay means the whole journey can be delayed by three or four hours.

I’m usually at the station approximately six hours before my train. I’ll stand there watching earlier trains to my destination leave, until mine arrives.

But I digress. The crowds. These people tend to smell, they tend to be shouting down their mobile phones, they tend to have groups of unruly kids. So I move down the platform, right to the other end.

They follow.

Eventually, the train will have arrived, and I’ll get on and be quite content. I’ll chuck some music on the iPod, and relax for a bit. I will note that the train is surprisingly empty. And the train will pull in at a station, and more people will get on, and the train is still surprisingly empty, free seats abound. Two-seaters and four-seaters, all available.

So what has happened now is that against all available evidence, a pensioner who genuinely smells of (and I make no bones about this,) shit, he has decided that his journey will be most comfortable sat right next to me. Despite the fact that my six-foot frame is already awkwardly cramped into a space designed seemingly for a pygmy. So now I’m stuck here for the next two hours, and I’m hoping for two things.

First, I am hoping that this man, this feculent, disgusting being will get off at the next station. I think it’s Leicester or Nuneaton, both fairly large stations, so the odds are quite high.

Secondly, I am hoping that if he does not get off, he can read what I am typing.

 “Hello, Mr Pensioner guy. I appreciate times are hard, but soap costs barely anything. You can get eight bars for a quid in Poundland. If you wash only twice a week, that is probably enough soap to last you until October. That’s certainly an improvement on the twice a month that seems to be your current rate.”

He can’t read it though. This font is tiny.

I am a coward.

I do however have a couple of days now where I probably won’t have to deal with people. I hope so.

When I get home though, I’ll have to go shopping.

Supermarkets attract people like anything. Christ knows why. They’re awful places, bedecked with gaudy neon lighting designed to make you feel sad and make you buy things you don’t need.

I have around 30 slightly different chilli sauces, most of which I will never use because of mood-changing neon lights.

I am a conspiracy theorist. And not a very good one.

People will stop in the middle of aisles to chat to Mavis from down the road, who they haven’t seen since bingo yesterday evening. I’m polite; if I need to get past, I will ask politely. And they will usually ignore me. So I’ll be a bit firmer, a bit louder. And still they’ll ignore me. So I’ll ask a third time; this time, I will be clear, I will be vocal.

They will stare at me, briefly. They will go back to their conversation.

They will find that a trolley pushed through them is surprisingly painful, but then, they had the option to not be ignorant. I can only assume they prefer a bruise or two. 

Ditto their kids. They’re running around all over the place, and I’m tall, and they’re small. I generally don’t look at the ground below my knees much these days. It’s a bit dull down there, and in a supermarket I can’t see much in front of me anyway because of the trolley. It’s full of food, and it’s about a metre in front of me. Even if I wanted to look down, perspective means that all I would see is the top of a punnet of mushrooms and probably some chicken.

When a kid is inevitably caught face-first by my trolley, it’s apparently my fault. I am supposed to expect someone’s kids to be running around (often now on skates), and be able to react to a tiny, invisible horror.

It’s like some kind of science fiction, but more realistic, and more horrific.

So I will then have to pay for my shopping, but not my actions. I am a sane man, and I am always right.

I’ll have to put up with the woman (always a woman) who has done an entire month’s worth of shopping, and has stared at it as it all moves slowly down the conveyor. Then she might start packing it into bags, if I’m lucky. If I am unlucky (I am unlucky), instead she will be chatting about nothing to the person on the checkout. And then she will look shocked when she is asked to pay. And she’ll have to dig to the bottom of a cavernous handbag to dig out her purse.

At least most shops no longer accept cheques. I appreciate that. Whoever came up with that rule change deserves a knighthood. And I mean that.

If it’s not a woman in front of me at the till, it’s someone who is in there for their only human contact of the day. And they’re going to drag this social experience out by chatting to the checkout girl for as long as possible, perhaps even long after their transaction has concluded, and I’m trying to pack my shopping.

God, I hate people.