I was driving up the wrong side of Loch Awe ...
... not the main road, the sensible A819 that cuts up, cross country, from Loch Fyne before hitting Awe's north end, nor indeed the B840 that goes alongside the loch's eastern shore ... but the single track logging road, full of potholes, that runs from the tiny village of Ford to the hamlets of Dalavich, Inverinan and Kilchrenan among others, seldom visited places, quiet always except for the rumble of forestry lorries and the exclamations of affronted sheep ... the road does eventually wend its way back to something that might be marked on a map ... eventually

it was a curious route but i was heading from the old neolithic stones in Kilmartin to the hotel at Ardanaiseig and main road options would have added many, many miles to the journey ... the pitted, holed, single track was the best and shortest bet and since it was night time there was no need to worry about the view; this was an issue of time and efficiency, not aesthetics

i tempted fate with the hire car's suspension on several occasions, bouncing and crashing through unseen potholes, and was most of the way to Ardanaiseig when a thought occurred ... if i slowed down and turned the beams off on this lonely road, i would be in perfect darkness... so i did

there were clouds scudding by in the winter sky but stars were clearly visible: bright, faraway, tempting stars ... sky gems for tales and projections, fantasies of old gods and future, empirical possibilities ... they were beautiful, so i thought i might get out of the driver's seat for a moment, stand on the tarmac, smell the trees and the heather, damp at night, and witness the speckled sky at first hand rather than through a pane of safety glass ...

as i stepped out, i felt a sudden unease ... as if i was immediately vulnerable, naked outside my little metal bubble ... although i could see the stars and the cloud shapes, the land around was as dark as can be imagined - ancient, boreal darkness ... and perhaps my unease reflected a deep-seated genetic memory of beasts and predators crashing out from the gathered gloom to trouble our less fortunate ancestors; perhaps i'm just scared of the dark ... i was thinking about this, telling myself i was a grown man, not to worry about childish anxieties then the noise came ... like a dog suddenly running close by, panting, it was all so fast ... one moment i was standing by the car, the next a pure adrenalin rush of fear-flight-fight flooded through me ... i had no idea what was coming but it reached me in seconds, very few seconds, hot breath and wetness on my face, something hairy, unknowable and muscular, a capable, maleficient agent of the night come for me, oh christ it had come for me ...

my hand span out, blindly, to strike it away .. i turned, i shrieked like a woman, i had never felt so alive or so endangered, so present but so aware that any second could bring pain ... and still i heard the pad of its feet right by me, the horrible panting sound, and i did not know which way to turn to defend myself - and then i heard the voice, oh my god a voice ...

"Sheba! Dinna bother the man Sheba, come here now, he's probably hae'in a pee, come here, come here..."

Yes I had nearly shat my pants because a fucking collie - being walked by some bloke from one of the houses at Coillaig – had bounced up on me from nowhere and licked my face...
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Fri 24 Jul 2009, 0:13, 2 replies)

ha ha That was very well written
and elicited a giggle from me ;D
( The magic of chutney Shakes it like an Instagram filter!, Fri 24 Jul 2009, 9:05, closed)

Beautiful
I have tears of suppressed mirth rolling down my face; the boss is in so no office-lols for me. Have a well deserved *click*
(berk, Fri 24 Jul 2009, 10:25, closed)