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June and Midsummer … so I am opting for a lighthearted theme this month.
Please, therefore, in 500 words or less let your imaginations run wild conjuring up some MIDSUMMER MAGIC.
Of course, some may prefer to touch on dark magic and that is fine too.
Looking forward to reading your entries. Jill
Prior to the magic going black
June 23rd, Caithness
Pre-dawn on a midsummer morning, Tait Duncan, drove south-east along an A1 empty of all but Highlands-bound supermarket wagons, conscience similarly uncluttered by the lie he’d last night told his wife as to the reason for his early morning departure. (In what had become the daily conduct of their marriage it was no more than a gnat’s cock of misinformation— no harm to her — of the life he’d been living since his teens. Nor had he then heard of Lucy Longland (and was similarly ignorant there’d come a time when he wished he never had.)Eight miles south of Dunbar he took the Cove exit. Golden light from the just emerging sun, blazed into the car’s interior, near-blinding him. Snapping down the visor restored sight and safety, but failed to reveal the deaths which would result from the carelessness with which he seized another opportunity to deceive. (By midday the sky was black with unseasonably cold rain. Had he dismissed his desire to disprove his staid existence; to emulate the careless hedonism of the man he’d come to meet he might’ve recognised that as warning and escaped before mourning coloured his life. But no.)
Cove itself kick-started distraction. As bairns it had been the setting for John Buchan-inspired adventures. Nowadays, it was Trust-protected from the scourge of massed caravans; an undertaking part-funded by its use as a venue for film crews and fashion shoots. A use Tait had no quarrel with; Duncans of Dunbar being first choice for the haulage of their equipment.
He descended past bungalows perched for the view; past older thick-stone cottages, to the gate, open as Lars promised. The cliff-clinging road beyond in good repair, but needing concentration; similarly the concrete-patched parking space overlooking the harbour; liver-coloured walls forming a protective square; a south-facing narrow gap providing entrance to the now-sparkling sea; Lars’ yacht an incongruous gleam of pristine luxury.
Appreciating, Tait stepped out of the car. Lars himself, tanned and lithe as toffee, stood high on the bulwark between beach and ocean, camera in hand and a long-legged red-head, dressed in something better-suited to a ball, posing against the blue sky as he snapped and snapped again. A shouted, ‘Ten minutes, Tait, is all,‘ gave time for envy, Lars’ dismissing the woman with a kiss, and instruction to go for a walk, ‘No more than an hour, for the tide,’ before jumping down to stand beside Tait. Shoulder to shoulder, they watched her stroll along the jetty to the ladder below which the yacht was moored. Watched her remove the scarlet dress, pulling it up and over her head, bundle it up and drop it onto the deck below before climbing down. Stark naked.
Tait, silent, assumed Lars was reliving the previous night. For himself, the cries of the gulls, raucous above his head, gave voice to an ache of sexual deprivation he rarely permitted himself; the repetitious thud of water against stone behind him, underlining its futility.
[493 words excluding title. This an excerpt from my current wip, its timing too coincidental to ignore]
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