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Four lane ends

Photo prompt from C E Ary
Photo prompt from C E Ayr

High on the moors four lanes come together. Nearby a neglected farm seems to be sinking back into the moor. A Manor House has its doors locked and barred and stone flags missing from the roof. A small church seemed to have fared little better, its linch gate hangs from one hinge.

Almost bent double and battling to make headway against the niddering wind appeared a individual dressed in threadbare clothes. Appearing intoxicated after taking a few steps forward the man collapsed in an untidy heap. Patrick was home with his blood stained face and blooded knuckles.

A fine day at Mevagissey
A fine day at Mevagissey
This Post Has 38 Comments
    1. I feel the Lake District calling today; perhaps it is time for a little Wordsworth and Ruskin. The landscape of Devon and Cornwall will have to wait. But then Scotland is also calling to me… perhaps it is time for a gipsy caravan, but it will have to have a wood burning stove and a supply of Whiskey

  1. Great descriptions conjuring up the harshness of life on the high moor, and they tell us such a lot about Patrick. Like everybody else, I loved ‘niddering wind’. I was also impressed by the conciseness with which you told us he’d been drinking and fighting.

  2. I had to look up “niddering,” and seems to mean “cowardly, weak.” So was it just a pesky little wind? Anyway, I love the word and in my own mind I translated it to “bothersome,” And what a bleak picture of poor Patrick, not much of a future. Lots of pathos in this story, Michael.

    1. Thank you Linda, for me niddering mean evil and cold, a wind which finds every gap in clothing etc. Patrick has arrived back at his birth place to find the hamlet in a worse condition than himself !

      1. I suspected the word had a different meaning from what I found online. Many of the comments made it clear that they think of it they same way you do, and it makes lots more sense for your story.

        You did an excellent job of describing both the hamlet and poor Patrick. Visual writing.

    1. Desolate is a great choice of word… however when the sun shines the area surrounding this hamlet can be beautiful. When I wrote this piece I had a moment in time just at the end of 1918, when the hamlet had lost most of its men. Hopefully Patrick will sober up and put things to right

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