Solstice

A short horror story of strange occurrences on the first day of winter for a man and his wife.

Fear has brought me to this state in which, I seem to have no means of eluding its wretched grasp. The confines, herein, have subdued all form of rationality and logic to which my mind had once known. I struggle now to write this letter, but all else escapes my thoughts for a means to convey the horrid measures befallen me. I know not what to do or where to begin or how long I might even have to dare explain such madness.. But alas, I shall try.
Three evenings have now passed since the following events came to be and pressed my being unto this situation. It was early morning, on Tuesday, I think.
I awoke to the first day of Winter with chilled bones and a stiff neck to which I am still feeling the remnants of. I sat upright in my bed, proceeding to not disturb my…beloved wife. Celine. She was always the deepest sleeper out of us two, which is why I was not surprised at her slumber on such a brisk morning.
I took to my feet and walked towards the east window of the bedroom. I always left the curtains open just faint enough to see the morning sun find her way. I remember looking out through the slightly fogged glass and into the coming day. The ground was frosted and the soil now hardened leaving little hospitality for the remainder of the grass. A few fields still clung onto a soft, golden hue but not many. The trees in the distance were almost completely barren of leaves, departing any other colors the eye could behold.
It was then that I first noticed a peculiar oddity, which I have yet to build comprehension for. Out in one of the now-barren fields, It appeared that a group of crows, or black birds of sort, were all seated upon the frosted ground, making very little movements. It did not phase me at first and seemed to be nothing more than birds pandering about in search of food. But as my eyes wandered in their direction once more, I could not help but behold that they had not changed positions in the slightest. There were no quick twitching of the heads or brief shuffles to find and prick at the dirt for worms. They remained ever still. Curiosity and concern struck me immediately for I had never seen birds remain so eerily still. It was surely not of their character.
I proceeded to find my way down the stairs and turn towards the kitchen which has a door facing the same direction as the previously mentioned window. Still in my pajamas and now in an old pair of shoes, I unlocked the back door then continued out into the cool air and I could see my breath immediately as I braced myself.
Just passed one of the rising fields, that was now withering away, hid the location in which I noticed the flock of birds. I remember the grass crunching beneath my feet as I tread over the slumbering earth, pondering what Celine might perceive had she seen me outside in the cold on such a morning with little clothing on. I could not help but briefly laugh in jest.
I cautiously negotiated my way through the raised, stiff grass, nudging away the brittle stalks that occasionally caught my face with surprise. I had reached the end of the field and pulled the remaining strands of grass from my hair and clothes. Upon entering the clearing, I couldn’t help but stop abruptly and linger in sheer curiosity, for there wasn’t a single black bird to be found.
I stood there in bewilderment, gazing among the surrounding areas, while questioning myself to these happenings. From the time I had first noticed the birds to my time across the field, I did not behold a single bird flying above or leaving the grounds ahead of my position. It was then that I made another realization. There weren’t any birds, black or other color, anywhere to be seen or even heard. I tried to rationalize for a moment, perhaps blaming the recent change in season or the cold now making its settlement. But even in the harshest of winters, there were always birds conversing amongst themselves in the early morn.
I tried not to dwell on it further for the cold was biting more, now that my curiosity was dwindled. Clenching my arms, I turned to retreat back towards the house and as I did so, my eyes met with the second level window where I had been standing before. Celine was now at the window, peering out in my direction. I admit, for a moment, I almost laughed due to the queries I had made just moments ago about her catching me meandering about in such a strange manner. I smiled faintly and raised my hand to wave, hoping to receive a similar notion in return. But she did nothing. Her face was motionless as she looked out upon me. I wasn’t sure what to think at the moment. Perhaps she was angry at something I did on the previous day or maybe she thought me a fool regarding my current wanderings. Nevertheless, I found my way back to the house, almost foregoing the oddities of the black birds past the field.
Once inside the house, I expected Celine to be there waiting in confrontation, to assess my whereabouts. She was not there though. But, I paid no mind to it and assumed that she returned to bed. I then went on to make coffee and breakfast.
It wasn’t until about two hours had passed since the previous events, in which I had wondered whether or not Celine had woken. It was about ten o’clock and she was usually awake by then so I decided, for whatever reason, to make my way up to the second floor. As I opened the door, I was completely startled for Celine was still standing in the same position, watching quietly out the window. I grabbed my chest due to the quick shock. I was certainly caught off guard and now concerned.
I questioned her immediately to see if she was of sound body and mind, yet she had not replied. I slowly stepped closer to her, reaching out for her arm and once more questioned her. Her eyes blinked a few times but her figure made no sudden movements. Then in a low, hushed tone, she said, “I’m not feeling well. The cold seems to have had an ill effect on me. But at least the birds sound lovely this morning. Don’t you think?”
“Of course dear. They always do.” I replied, almost feeling as if I was holding my tongue. If she was in less than a favorable mood, I dared not worry her with my unusual tale of something that may not have even occurred. So, I asked if she required anything to aid her.
“No.” is all she replied as she retreated towards the bed.
I didn’t press her further.

Chapter 2

Later that day just before sunset, I was stoking a fire and transporting more logs from outside of the house in anticipation of another cold night. I was also preparing the stove in our bedroom in hopes to keep warm my ailing wife. As I was carrying in the last few pieces of wood from aside the chopping block, I beheld a few minuscule snow flurries drifting from above. It was a slightly coincidental moment given that it was indeed the first day of winter. I did not think too much of it and carried on with my chores.
After the fireplace was steady in its flames and warmth, I found my way down to the cellar which, thankfully, was accessible from inside the house. It still remained ever cold down there but It proved useful in the summer months. I acquired some canned vegetables, smoked meat and a powdered broth mix to start preparing a stew. I figured it would be the perfect meal to help Celine overcome her disparities. As I was gathering the last few ingredients, I was startled by peculiar noises coming from above. Fear began to wash over me for it sounded as if someone was running wildly amongst the main floor but yet remained tender on their footing. Almost like that of a small child. I gazed up towards the wooden planks and beams in both horror and denial. With the amenities, tightly clenched to my chest, I proceeded to walk over to the stairs but stopped when the pacing had ceased to continue. I was fixed upon the floor above me once again, searching from side to side. I found a small crack in the floor boards where the light, from the fireplace, was shining through. I focused upon it to see if I could observe whatever was creating the commotion, when suddenly an eye appeared in a gaping horror. It’s wide spectacle pierced through my soul, sending me backwards and fumbling. The cooking ingredients expelled from my grasp, as my rear met the chilled floor. I was stunned in silence and confusion. I then took to my feet immediately and spoke to myself, “Celine.” Someone else could have broken into the house and here I was cowering in the turbulence. I buried my fears and sprinted up the stairs, swinging open the door and relayed my courage to the best of my ability.
Searching the main floor, i readied myself for confrontation but no one was to be found. After that realization, I then hastened up the stairs and impelled the door open wildly, bursting through like a mad man. Yet again, no one. Celine was still sleeping. She stirred from her slumber ever so slightly and directed towards me.
“What is the matter dear?” She softly spoke.
I fumbled over my words for a moment trying to convey an excuse for abruptly pummeling my way into the bedroom.
“Umm…I suppose nothing. I thought I had heard some unsettling noise but it appears I was mistaken. I am sorry for disturbing your sleep, my dear. Forgive me.” I replied in a quivering tone.
Her head fell back down into the pillow and once more returned to rest. Fear had still stricken me at this point and I dare not relay the unsettling information of that which I wasn’t sure of myself. I retreated from the room and gently closed the door behind me. I was truly bewildered.
I was taken back for only a moment, then quickly stole down the stairs and searched the main floor briefly until funneling outside. I briskly walked around the perimeter, trotting along side the porch which wrapped around the entirety of the home. There was naught to be found. No foot prints, markings, or changes among our quarters. It wasn’t until I completed a full circle, that I realized it was now snowing heavier. I could now see the foot prints in which I previously placed. I remained there in the snow for a few moments trying to recollect myself. I truly thought I was becoming deranged In some form or another. I could not otherwise obtain a rational explanation.
The snow grew heavier still. I stood in pause as the white flakes gathered upon my shoulders. Out in the background of the landscape, I surveyed and listened for any sign of life. There was only silence. Deathly silence. My mind was drifting in confusion until finally a strange disturbance reached my ears. Soon, I was longing for that silence which I had recently detested.
From the forests and roving hills, a low and horrid bellow was generating. My innards immediately took to compression and a faint nausea corrupted me. It was truly haunting. My bones locked in place, rendering me to a motionless state. No words could accurately describe such a sound.
Through great perseverance, I recollected myself and cautiously proceeded backwards. The snow was transforming into a blizzard and the breath of my lungs emerged to greater visibility. I practically kicked down the door to my house, struggling in a flourished panic. My mind then returned to Celine. I stumbled up the stairs, only to be met with resistance, for the door would not budge open. I twisted the handle and urged my body weight with no success. I called out to Celine and upon doing so, witnessed the visibility of my breath again. The cold became intense. My eyes caught the bottom of the door where it appeared that frost was seeping out from its narrow crack. I beckoned once more to Celine and pleaded for her to open the door but there was yet to be a response. I then pressed myself even more deliberately into the door until finally it swung open. As I entered, I staggered and slid from the inertia of my weight. Utter confusion consumed me, for there were patches of ice concealing the floor boards below. I hasted towards the bed immediately only to find that Celine was no longer there.
I rotated and glanced at each window of the bedroom. They were all closed and locked as they had been before. I cursed to myself. What wretched curse was enveloping our lives. What hellish blight could conjure such a frigid plague. I had no answers.
I returned to the levels below in search of Celine. She was not to be found in the main quarters so I wandered to the cellar. The only sightings I beheld down there were more sections of ice and frost. the fear was erupting from my heart as my chest pulsated fiendishly. I had now but one option, which was to continue my search out into the developing blizzard. I dreaded it so but had to compose myself for Celine’s well being.
Now at the main floor, my trembling hands reached for the handle of the kitchen door. It was so cold. The temperature only increased my fears. I gradually opened the door and met with an untamed and furious blizzard. I could barely make out any objects, if there were even any to exist.
I persevered into the blinding storm and shortly discovered the figure of Celine, still in her nightly robe. Her countenance was of a stone, motionless without a shiver or tremble. I called upon her in as loud a tone as I could release. The blizzard was muffling all sounds around me. Celine gave no reaction to my desperate plea. My steps were ever cautious and hindered by the snow which had reached the height of my shins. I was only a short distance from Celine when she started to turn around and face my direction. I moved no further towards her. Celine’s eyes were closed and her face was absent of any emotion. To my horror, I witnessed her body beginning to convulse and contort in a manner horribly unnatural. Every bone in her body cracked and moved of their own volition to that of a hellish puppet. Then suddenly all motions ceased simultaneously. Anguish is all I could conceive at this time, as I watched in disbelief.
No longer than a few seconds had her eyes and mouth ripped open, releasing a sight not of this world. From her confines, a vibrant and immense blue light was unleashed. It was nearly blinding as I gazed into what could only be perceived as endless voids of despair. I remained stricken with awe and unequivocal horror. My only reaction was to retreat into the house with chaotic haste.
As I slammed the door behind me, I clenched onto chairs from the kitchen table and wedged them at the door. I then dragged the table itself to form a barricade. Its piercing scrapes on the floor did not phase me. My next reaction was to also barricade the front door. I grabbed any furnishings, that I had the strength to move, and propped them with no thoughts of sturdiness.
With the makeshift defenses in place, I sprinted towards the closet underneath the staircase and ripped my winter coat from its wooden hook. Up the stairs, I went with no regarding for my step placement. I fell over myself but still crawled and pursued my goal towards the top. Upon reaching the bedroom, I thrusted the door without remorse, nearly breaking it away from the hinges. One of the chairs at the reading desk was the first to be wedged at the door. After that, I heaved one of the small dressers, from aside the bed, in desperation. My feet were sliding wildly on the mysterious ice that was attached to the floor boards. But I managed to reach the door, despite the strenuous situation. I fell back, in exhaustion, to the remaining chair at the writing desk.
My lungs were burdened and my body quivering with exhaustion. Every muscle in my being quaked down to the very fibers. I remained a hopeless shell, devoured by incalculable depravity. There was naught I could do to remedy this foul predicament.
So, it is now that I am imprisoned to this glacial bed chambers, wrapped in as many layers of clothing that my body can withstand. I come to conclude this letter, yet I fear it may never reach the eyes of another. What remains of my sanity surely will be extinguished in a short amount of time. My dear Celine, I know not the curse that plagues you or the life we once treasured. But know that my love for you will never cease. Even now as your wretched figure looms outside of our home, wielding those three sinister blue orbs. Their unfathomable depths shall forever torment me.

Author's Note

My grammar isn’t the best. I am still working on that. This is my first short story that I have written. All advice is welcome! Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask, so you have only yourself to blame for this.

• Fear has brought me to this state in which, I seem to have no means of eluding its wretched grasp.

This opening line pretty well encapsulates the problem that’s holding you back—a problem you share with most hopeful writers.

First, this isn’t the opening to a story, because nothing is happening. Instead, someone I know nothing about, who's in an unknown place, is talking about being unhappy about being in an unknown "state." This is meaningful to you, who know the whys and whos. You also have intent, and, a mental picture of the location. The reader? Not a clue. Problem is, there can be no second, first-impression, and you cannot retroactively remove confusion.

Of more importance, from start to finish, this is a transcription of you, talking to the reader, as if telling them a story as at the campfire. And that cannot work. Why? Because you force the reader to play the storyteller’s role, unprepared. Can they know what expression to wear, given that they won’t know what a line says till AFTER they read it? No. Can they duplicate your performance so far as gesture, or body language? Again no. But the storyteller’s visual performance substitutes for that of the actors in a film. So its critical to the performance.

And what about the vocal delivery, with its changes in tempo, intensity, and emotion? In all the world only you know how you would perform it, and want them to. So, when you read this chapter, it works as it should. For the reader? Not so much.

And finally—as if all that weren’t enough—is the real problem. As you were taught, your focus is on explaining and reporting, one fact at a time. So, you think in terms of presenting facts and events—telling a story. But…storybooks have pictures that set the mood and add ambiance. They provide the emotional component. Our medium doesn’t support them, or the way of including emotion that is the storyteller’s performance.

And because we can't, For fiction on the page, we approach the problem in a different way. We take the reader where neither live or storyteller performances can go, into the protagonist’s head: we can show the reader the protagonist’s world from the inside-out, moment-by-moment, in real-time; we can make it seem so real that if someone throws a rock at our protagonist the reader ducks.

To do that, we focus on emotion: that which we will evoke in the reader. As E. L. Doctorow so wisely put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

And how to do that not only wasn’t part of the writing skills we're given in school. The fact that such a methodology exists wasn’t even mentioned. Why? Because they were giving us the general skills that employers need us to know. Professions, like engineering and Fiction-Writing, are acquired in addition to those skills. So, we learned to write reports, and letters, and papers.

None of your teachers explained even such a small thing as what the elements of a scene on the page are, and why they differ so greatly from one on stage or screen. In fact, did a single teacher talk about the short-term scene-goal, its necessity, and why it is necessary? After all, if we don’t truly understand what a scene is, how can we write one?

• The confines, herein, have subdued all form of rationality and logic to which my mind had once known.

What can this mean to someone who doesn’t yet know where we are in time and space, or why; what’s going on; and, whose skin we wear?

See the problem? For you, it works exactly as it should. But you edit knowing the backstory, the characters and their mindset, and where the story is GOING to go. The reader? A blank slate. They arrive having no context. The emotion they get is what punctuation suggests. And, the word-meaning is what the words suggest to them, based on THEIR life experience, not your intent.

But…and it’s a critical “but:” None of what I said above has to do with your talent or how well you write. It’s all a matter of missing knowledge (and practice with it, of course), a problem you share with pretty much everyone who turns to writing fiction, including me when I began recording my campfire stories. And of more importance, it’s not only fixable, when it is fixed, the act of writing becomes a LOT more fun. Why? Because using the skills that the pros take for granted force us to live the story AS the protagonist, in real-time. We must mentally live the situation as them, based on the characteristics and background we gave them, NOT as we order them to, based on the needs of our plot. And if what the situation makes the protagonist want to do or say doesn’t fit the plot, you change the situation to make the protagonist WANT to do it. Yes, it's a lot harder, but the author is the god of situation. We sit in the prompters booth, unseen and unheard, thinking up ways to make the protagonist want to cooperate—or changing our expectations of the protagonist and the path of the story.

Doing that precludes you from stepping in as yourself and talking to the reader, which kills all sense of immediacy. But at the same time, it makes the character real to you. And if they aren’t alive to you, they can’t be for the reader.

So what do you do now? Simple. You dig out those professional skills, practice them till they’re as intuitive t use as those you now use, and there you are.

Of course, simple and easy aren’t interchangeable words. It would be nice were it a list of, “Do this, not that.” But it is a profession, so it’s not. Bad news, I know. But... you want to write. So learning how its done is like going backstage at a professional theater.

The library’s fiction-writing section is a great resource. Personally? I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

I know this is not at all what you were hoping to see, but since we’ll not address a problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you would want to know.

In any case, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/