Johnstown Castle - part 12

“...thus men will speak of us no ill...”

“Hello…”
I could hear someone’s voice close to where I was and I also a felt fresh breeze of air and a shimmer of light on my eyelids.
“Hello, would you open your god damn eyes already?”
So I did and what I saw was somewhat surprising - a familiar face looking at me from my right hand side surrounded by a halo of light. Even his voice was familiar. As my vision progressively cleared I could make out it was Mr Grogan leaning towards me in my bedroom.
“There you go little fellow! I told you he’d be fine”
It was Mr Grogan speaking, but to whom? Just a few steps back from where he was standing, a man in a white coat stood up and headed to my side.
“How are you feeling,” he asked me.
That very instant I started feeling a pain in my head and also the same suffocating feeling I had felt, well, in my coffin. I pulled my hand out from beneath a pile of heavy blankets that had been layered on top of me and felt for my head. Well it was there all right, but it hurt like hell and as I also discovered – covered in bandaging.
“What happened?”
“Ha-ha…Well I asked the very same question right when I had returned from Ferns, being greeted by two hysterical maids. But I think that Loretta can tell… or maybe not. She didn’t handle it that well.”
I was puzzled enough to mix up everything at that point. Had I done something to Loretta or not, had I been in a coffin? I had no idea, whatsoever. I started saying something, but My Grogan continued abruptly.
“She told me you were looking sick in the morning and while she was cleaning your room you decided it’d be best to fall over and assault some furniture with your head.”
Well, wasn’t he the funny one today? I noticed he was pointing towards a wooden spike in the corner of my bed where a figurine had been standing before. Just Like the one that was still present in the other corner.
“Don’t worry, I know an excellent craftsman who can take care of that.”
So maybe I hadn’t done anything to Loretta after all. Cornelius was quite chatty and didn’t seem at all concerned. But then the doctor spoke.
“You know, you have lost much blood. It is best you lay down and try not to move your head to much.”
His voice sounded spiteful to me, yet his face was completely emotionless. At least he was old - grey hair - I couldn’t really trust too young of a doctor usually.
“I also think we should remove some of these blankets. They said you were shivering but that is ridiculous overcompensation. I guess that is why you started screaming in the first place.”
“Yes,” was the only thing I managed to tell him and they proceeded to lift some of that weight away. As far as my reasoning was concerned, I had done everything I remembered doing and, after losing consciousness, I had dreamed of being buried while I was in my bed in reality.
“Alright,” said the doctor in his spiteful voice, “now get some rest.”
He and Cornelius then left the room and I was finally alone. I let my eyes wander the room while my mind started chewing through what I had heard. I looked at the balcony and noticed the sky was red of colour - the sun was setting. That means I had missed not more than half a day.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them again it was dark outside. Loretta had just entered the room with a silver waiter and a candle. I looked at her in an ambiguous manner as she stepped lightly towards my bedside and placed the waiter on the table.
“How are you feeling now?”
I noticed she didn’t follow it up with a “, Mr” that time. That rolling r sound was still there, however. Loretta was looking genuinely concerned of me and I managed to reply.
“I’ve been better.”
The back of my head was still hurting but it had been much worse before. My throat was dried up and my back hurt as well from all that lying.
“Do you want something to drink?”
She knows everything, does she not? I tried to nod but discovered it would be much less painful to say “Yes.”
She managed to pour water into my mouth slowly and I didn’t have to move as much as a muscle - I felt better instantly. Loretta put down the glass and kept on looking at me. I kept on looking back yet couldn’t help but start blinking furiously. That dim candlelight wasn’t helping matters.
Loretta’s hair was undone - I didn’t notice it before but, there she was, sitting on my bed in a light dress, with her hair flowing down from her shoulders, glistening in the candlelight.
She was beautiful…

To be continued…

Johnstown Castle - part 11

“...you are but a shadow of your former self, yet still a light...”

Unnerving and horrible, more so than all ill I’d ever felt, was the burden of fear when regained consciousness and opened my eyes. My head was aching still and the heat combined with absolute darkness, which rendered my sightless, felt unbelievably smothering - I could only hardly breathe. I gasped for air instantly but to no avail, there was not much left. I tried to move my arms yet found them obstructed by solid wood which suggested I had been enclosed in something. Where I had been placed was unclear to me and I was close to panicking.
“Hello, is there anybody?”
The first thing I could think of was that I had been placed in a coffin for my container was just of the appropriate size and even more because I feared it could be the only explanation.
“Is there anyone, please?”
As I heard no response I figured I would have to get out on my own. I tried to force the lid open with my hands and knees but achieved nothing – it wouldn’t even budge.
“Help me!”
I was screaming at the top of my lungs but even then I only hurt my own ears and completely failed to reach any others willing to respond and save me. Would only death deliver me from this? Slowly but consistently I started losing my consciousness again yet probably for the last time. There would be no more decisions to do, no mistakes to make. Was I in this situation because of a mistake? Was I being punished, did someone kill me or leave me to die? I had been buried alive and my death was imminent. I had betrayed my future wife, committed adultery – I was a cruel person. So I would disappear then and no one would know of my fate. I’d call it getting what I deserve.

To be continued...

Pre-JC post

I'm posting this in order to make sure that at least something gets posted today. It turns out I had much more to do than I had anticipated and therefore there could be a slight delay before JC11 appears. Trust me, I won't sleep until it is done.

Daigaku ni iku...

Today I don't have the energy nor the time to write another part of the story. I'll do it tomorrow morning at the earliest, however. To think that I travel more than twice as many times a week by bus than there are days in the week itself and that within the first three days of the week seems horrible. And if in the whole last term my lectures where somewhat spread out then in this term its quite the opposite - three long days of work followed by four days of complete nothing. Anyway...
I was wondering if any of you liked what the blog was like in its early days more than it's current state. And by state I somehow mean "a state of being filled with a short story instead of separate thoughts". What should be the content? What fits you most? I can do anything...
About the story... I do like it and I appreciate that you do too. Sometimes I think, however, that I'd like to dwell on certain details and stretch the whole thing out some more. I'd like to have the opportunity to research and compose and edit and rewrite everything tens of times before publishing so as to make it worthy to be called a novel and not a short story that it is. Yet, I don't have the time to write passages as long as I'd need them to be, to be able to hold content of that caliber and density. It'll remain a short story until the very end of it - whenever the end comes.
Currently the story hasn't developed that much... it'll take a lot of time to work out the plot and it's nuances. We will see...
So please take time to tell me, kind reader...
what can I do for you?

Johnstown Castle - part 10

...I know not life as do you or your kin, but regard death my deliverer...

I went down on my knees and observed the petite creature at my disposal, delicate a feature one after another. My heart, one of a well-mannered man, continued to beat in most agonizing fashion, in thrill and ecstasy, while my mind without as much as a care neglected my betrothal as if I had been freed of fetters by the very fact that others had no way of learning of my actions here.
The sun which had at that point reached the uppermost branches of the surrounding forest now cast a warmer and brighter light through the rustling foliage. Flickering spots of gold painted the room and us - myself and Loretta. What the eye lingers on, the heart desires. What the heart desires, the hand seeks. One hand accompanied by a pounding heart and wide-opened eyes, the other - following a brief moment of hesitation - accompanied by mad desire and nothing more.
Loretta didn’t utter a word, yet pulled back to free herself from underneath the bed. I closed the gap between us and restrained her in a warm embrace. I startled her as far as I could tell and she made me unsure about my conclusion of Mr Grogan which I had called foregone maybe too soon. But even if she was no less than a perfect illustration of my theory, I was keen to dwell on the idea that she had been untouched by him, and least there had been other visitors like me, she could be mine entirely.
I slid my hands tight along her sides meanwhile observing how the gray stripes on her dress formed silvery curves as the fabric gathered around her waist.
“No, please!”
Loretta’s voice was uneasy and scarcely audible. As a maid she would have no problem obeying orders I thought. She was young and shy with a bare minimum of self-confidence and also self-awareness as it seemed.
“Hush!”
It silenced her so easily I was surprising - a mark of obedience and inevitable submission founded by helplessness. I let my hands wander slowly across her bosom and thighs. My heart was beating so frantically I was sure that even she could feel it and I knew I couldn’t stop even if my life depended on it. She was mine and that moment was ours. Like a couple in the summer - the sun was getting ever brighter and the once flickering rays turned gradually into a bright and all-consuming hazy cloud of light and dust – we could be in our very own realm of pleasure.
“Lay down, Loretta.”
She didn’t at first, but Loretta’s futile acts of resistance faded in time and the shy maid became, above all, a servant of herself. So even if I had to force her, she placed herself on the bedside and gave me free reign while her forest-green eyes which glimmered in the sunlit dusty room looked at me almost daringly. At one point I could read an expression of sadness, then one of delight, but lastly one of fright just before I received a blow to the head and passed out.

To be continued...

A formal apology

Dear readers,

I, A Sir all mean, hereby apologize for having in a continual fashion, or continually, failed to attend to duties seen fit for one who is established to meet a readership's necessities of the literary kind day by day. Many a day by now has passed in silence for I've not met my own rule - the one of posting every day - nor have I kept my promise to publish Johnstown Castle part 10 around Thurstay - presuming I didn't mean just any Thursday but the one of three weeks ago.
The story is about to develop in a manner I hope is surprising and thrilling and I will do my very best to write and edit the next part and several following ones by the end of this week - it is due time to write more.
Thank you, for showing interest and being patient with me.

With regards,

A Sir all mean