Thunder lies muted beyond the panes of glass in the old window. Rainfall makes its drumbeat and rattle. Rivulets form and warp the mountains of forest outside as they trickle down.
Inside is warm enough. A thick jumper. Hot coffee. A crackling fire. Inside feels locked and safe and entirely separate from the world outside. You can press your nose to the glass and be a hair’s breadth away from the storm and not feel an ounce of its fury.
It seems impossible that anything could live out there. In the cold and the damp. In the howling misery of it. If something did live out there, then it would be angry. It does. And it is.
In the brief illumination of stellar discharge you see the shape of it, swinging with the trees, a head above the largest pine. Staring into the house.
Paddy Dobson
11th October 2021