A Visit From the Gods

Left alone quite by chance yesterday evening, I finished my dinner, cleared up, and took a comfy chair (with a cushion) to enjoy the sweep of woods bathed in the silver of an enormous moon.

I was gazing at the stars and treetops when struck down by Panic. Whatever the brain does when it loses it, mine lost it. Even the cicadas were singing still (if they had done one of their unaccountable pauses it would have been a rout). Beginning with the faintest apprehension, the sensation that large forces were watching me swept across the terrace. Rationality hung on as German and other folk wood stuff waved. But the desire to get up, unlock the nearest door to the house and never, no never, look over my shoulder, prevailed.

So I did (open the door and go in quietly, I mean). Instantly the sensation ended - though I did shut all the shutters carefully. Funny things brains. And feelings. How accurate is our view that we have a commonality of interpretation of the world around us? Had there not been the support of so many accounts of Panic from the earliest times to the present day (as you say) I would wonder if a minor madness had seized me.

Birthday Boy

I cooked the venison fo Mr HG's birthday. What is the difference between that and boiling a bunny? It is supposed to be eaten with lentils. So I have had lentils for lunch. Never have I cooked anything accompanied by so powerful a desire to run away from the object of my ministrations.

In an attempt to take my mind off it all I read anything on the desk in the study: trade liberalisation, elimination of subsidies, privatisation, capital account convertibility and (especially) dis-inflation - I give up.

Visitor

Opening the bathroom door, I found the bathroom was occupied already. Usually such a faux pas is answered by an immediate retreat, and 'Sorry, sorry'. But I could not take my eyes off the person in the shower. Long legs, enormous eyes, vigorous multi flex body, and had there been wings who knows what might have happened as I gazed at the extra-terrestrial visitor. The only problem was the wearing of the skeleton on the outside.

So I was as taken aback as my disturbed guest. We agreed that the shower was one area of occupation, and the rest of the bathroom another.

The bathroom was empty the next morning and the plumber (hastily summoned) denies any experience of such a creature, nor that the 'sifoni' (?) would allow entrance to something from the underworld. But I know what I saw, and I hope never to see it again.