This story is part of TN2’s ongoing flash fiction series, which aims to give a platform to exciting new writers from Trinity. If you would like your fiction to be considered for publication, simply submit it to literature@tn2magazine.ie along with your name and a one-sentence bio.
In times unprecedented I decided it would be best to mould this story with decorations.
On the rare blue moon evening of October 31st, I felt compelled to decorate my life with the organic décor of a hiking trail, since I live awfully close to ‘The Hellfire Club’ in the Dublin mountains. I exited my front door, crossing a spider weaving a web within a cornerstone, to go on this hike. Upon arriving I was greeted by a carved turnip by a wooden sign reading “Hellfire Club”, I never looked to the other-worldly thought behind these decorations, but on that day, I sure wanted to unearth the reason.
As I sat in the car preparing myself for this hike, I pondered how back in the day, our ancestors would place a candle inside the turnip to keep evil spirits away. The carving? Reminded me of the myth I was told of Stingy Jack who surrounded his life’s mission with decorations of tricks. This very much angered God’s mission of decorating the world with love, I understood to be best laid out in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’. These cruel tricks which brought dismay to others angered the Devil too, I thought as the Devil’s main mission was to cast the fall of chaos into one’s own life alone so that they met the true devil… themself. As I started to walk this trail, I remembered this forced poor ol’ Jack to forever roam the hilly earth with a lit turnip without even knowing he had a vegetable named after him.
Suddenly, a cloud obstructed the sun and an old woman abruptly appeared. She seemed, full of light by the pep in her step – I could not tell from her face, shadowed by a hat. She was stopped at her dog’s behest, whom I noticed had very muddy paws for this strangely temperate autumn day. She immediately uncoiled, in time with her dog’s now pointed ears to meet my windowed eyes with,
“Hello.”
I awkwardly responded with a slight nod and moved on. As I did, I second-thought her “Hello,” it sounded so close, as if it came from my own head.
Maundering on, a ray of light shone around me, illuminating my individuality. This day made the perfect condition for a hike. Alone in the woods, I left all my bone-tired steps behind as I walked toward the end destination; perfect and deadened. The sun was warm in contrast to the chill. If I closed my eyes I would be in a dark room lit by a solitary candle. I supposed the moon and night sky are never gone, always there. I wanted true darkness. As I squeezed my eyes shut I saw in vain; all of you as a human consequence of a faint yellow beam, the ghostly stars illuminated blue, galaxy’s rain of scattered light, spacecraft’s airglow, the sun and clouds’ reflective bounce. Disappointed my earth-bound mind could not see true dark, but I supposed Halloween brings it in spirit.
I peered up at the trees’ gaps, which created a contrasted ceiling of stars, as if the woods read my very mind. I caught sight of a white sheet hanging off the tallest tree which looked like an imitation ghost. I kept my eye on the tallest tree so as to not get lost. The longer I gazed toward this tree top, I understood its organic hierarchy which had been imitated by our own world. I predicted something will always be at the top. Knowing this I quickened my pace.
Suddenly, the same old woman cropped up, with that same hat and her muddy pawed, pointy eared dog. Curiously, she had never passed me on this strict, one-way trail…
“Hello,” I said this time.
I was met with a slight nodded response.
A black cat leaped towards us, as the woman rather conveniently moved on in front. My ancestors believed the black cat was an evil human transformed, its purring was a supposed indication of a spirit’s presence within a room. So the lighting of bonfires was just for the cats to be burned within their homey fire. This bloody, fleshy smoke often led to a coerce of insects, bats and owls but I sensed none, being so familiar with the workings of this world I expected nothing much now.
“Puurrrrrrr,” sounded the cat. I was not really in a room with a candle, I was standing amidst nature turned chaotic…
Now startled out of this vision, I watched the woman as she reached the top, vanishing from my perspective.
By the speed of wind, I soon reached The Hellfire Club, but without this hatted woman in sight. The moment I reached the top, the sun vanished into a stormy dark I had never before felt. I realised my boots were muddy, but my hair was tame due to my hat which I had forgotten I had even put on. The wind blew with the rhythm of shuffling cards as I walked towards The Hellfire Club.
Where I stood was surrounded by shards of glass bottles, but this was not the view from the large glassless window I was facing. In the corner of one of these windows was a spider web. In a twist of fate it was squished appearing as a simple white line, different from the archetypal spider web I passed to start this evening. I had not yet departed. Stories of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘Santa Claus’ flashed by my eyes – Childhood? No, just tales. A time in which fact transformed fiction and fiction, fact.
I get cold very easily, and due to the open windows I stood freezing. This absence of glass left me no shield from the outside world’s capacity to chill. I smiled at the thought of a piece of glass’ importance in the making of a home from a building. The thought of a domestic animal.
By this large window I felt in a shrinking hell, alone. I gazed out of this space and no reflection, only my moonlit shadow. I realised I am a reflection, but more naturally a shadow, a monster – The Devil. I began to question if I had ever crossed a woman and her dog, I felt my hat and looked at my muddy boots again and there lay my answer on this Mount.
Then and there, I rejected all the integrated ‘myths’ of monsters I was told growing up, I know they are not a flash fiction. I am the plague of a human, a monster. In Medieval times, if someone lay ill in bed in winter, the window would be let open to kill them quicker. Being human I knew I too had the capacity to perform this act. Surrounded by the crowd of these inner evil thoughts, I knew I did not have to be this preconditioned shadow, just keep it forever trailing on the hike behind. Enlightenment unveiled.
