#writeshirty

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These photos were taken with a mobile phone on Christmas day 2010 in Sutton Park urban nature reserve Birmingham UK.

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Free Story to Read, ‘Fading Footprints.’

For context, what you are about to read is from my writing blog that appears on my website and my Goodreads page...

Free Story to Read, ‘Fading Footprints.’

So, this is not exactly a blog this time. I thought it might be nice to just drop a (very) short story here for everyone to read. Please don’t publish it anywhere else though without my permission. 😊 I picked this one for three reasons, it’s a piece of micro fiction, it’s appropriate to the time of the year and it is in fact, the very first story I ever had published. If you are interested, I will be saying just a little something about how it came to be written after the story, so, read to the very end if that’s something you might be curious about. Here it is…

Fading Footprints

They are almost gone now, almost level with the surrounding snow. You would hardly know they were there but I know. A line of footprints: arrow straight, the length of my long garden path, disappearing into the gnarled, old yews bowed down with the soft weight of snow.

It has been a longstanding dream of mine, to buy a little place in the Cotswolds, retire and watch the seasons change. I did, I have and the pleasure it gives me is immense.

It will come as no surprise to you, then, if I say that I spent yesterday evening, drink in hand in the firelight, staring out of the darkened window at winter’s first snowfall, snowflakes flurrying out of a huge silvery moon like white bats from a cave mouth.

That’s how I know I didn’t make the footprints you see: the snow started after I got home and yet there they were this morning, well-defined in the crisp, sparkling snow.

What’s so odd about that? The paper boy, or the milkman, you say? I have neither delivered. It’s one of my little pleasures to walk down the lane to the village in whatever weather I am sent to fetch them. The postman? No. There was nothing in the hall this morning and besides - and this is the really odd bit - the footprints lead up to my door but none lead away. The village children then, teasing the newcomer? Well, perhaps… but I don’t think so. Let me explain.

Obeying a curious certainty, I went to the French windows at the rear. It’s a nice aspect: a long lawn sweeps down to the river, flanked by topiaries like giant chess pieces. I can take no credit for them; they came with the house.

There were the footprints again, leading away from the house in an unbroken line, crossing the river to emerge on the far bank, marching on until they were lost in the pinkish snow light and the blue-grey horizon. As I watched, the snow began to fall again: huge flakes, soft as feathers, fluffing and plumping the landscape.

I was in my dressing-gown, yet I felt compelled to go out and examine the prints before the fresh snow buried them. The air had a pearly brightness and a take-your-breath-away freshness. The little trident-shaped tracks of hopping birds crossed the prints and the track of something else, a cat or a fox probably, trailed them for a little way. Feeling the cold, I crunched back into the house through pure white snow, my slippers sodden. It was then that it occurred to me. I took a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and unravelled them across the living room carpet, tamping them down gently as I did so. Sure enough, there they were: long, wet patches evenly spaced.

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Fading Footprints was first published in the Leaf Books Anthology ‘Derek and More Micro Fiction,’ 2007

It is currently available in the short fiction collection ‘Omar, the Teller of Tales.’

Copyright © Robin Tompkins, 2007 all rights reserved.

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So, for my day job, I used to work in Birmingham City Centre (UK) and commute in by public transport.

One year, we had an unusually bad winter. Snow kept blowing in out of nowhere, catching the local authorities flat footed, with the gritting wagons still in the garage. There was an afternoon when Birmingham city centre came to a literal halt. The little hills that ring the city, the ones you normally hardly noticed, trapped vehicles on their crests and nothing could move. We were kicked out of work early to try and find our way home. It soon became clear to me that I would have to walk. Even if I could have afforded a hotel room and I couldn’t, in those days I had cats and they needed food and attention.

It’s a distance of around seven miles. With the snow still falling, it felt about twice that. Luckily, I had thought to wear hiking boots to work just in case, even so, my feet were wet through when I dragged myself through the front door, to find two puzzled cats, who were wondering why, ‘food time,’ had come and gone long, long ago.

I had plenty of time to think on the trudge home. Oddly enough, a magazine article I read years ago as a teen kept popping into my head. It concerned a real-life incident that happened in eighteen fifty-five in Exeter and Devon (UK). A mysterious line of cloven footprints, over forty miles long, appeared in the snow overnight. The footprints climbed over rooftops and haystacks without stopping, keeping a dead straight line.

It remains a mystery, though it is as well to remember that, although the marvellous new invention of the railway was improving communications by leaps and bounds, most news still only travelled as fast as a horse could trot. Hoaxes and wild exaggeration were rife, if the news story was sensational enough. Much like today I suppose, though now it is the speed of communication, not the lack of it that creates issues.

Anyway, the next day was a ‘snow day,’ the boss decided (wisely) not to try and open up. Home unexpectedly, the cats and I wandered around my garden, with me taking pictures. I built and photographed a, ‘snowcat,’ that I used for my family Christmas cards that year. My thoughts from the previous evening came drifting back and when I was back inside and warmed up, out came the laptop. That then, is where ‘Fading Footprints,’ comes from…

If you found that interesting and you would like to check out previous articles, my website and goodreads page are here...

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The enormous Lions Paws at Sigiriya. Imagine what it was like when the lion had a head and you had to walk up through the mouth...

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So, I'm a writer who also designs T-Shirts...

Why? Well, because it takes six months to two years to write a book and twenty minutes to four hour to design a shirt.

Why is that important? A thing takes as long as it takes and if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing, yes? Not when our old chum Covid gets you made redundant, after forty plus years in the Foodservice industry. No, then you really appreciate your freedom from the nine to five like never before and you really, really, don’t want to go back to it.

I’ve been writing more or less all my life with some but limited success and designing stuff really, just as a hobby, mainly greetings cards for friends and family amongst other things. The nine to five does not make me happy. Writing makes me happy, designing stuff makes me happy.

I’m sure it’s in the rules somewhere that I’m allowed to be happy… It is isn’t it?

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Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire UK, is not perhaps the biggest of cathedrals but it makes up for it with the unexpectedly large amount of stone creatures that leer and scowl down from from its walls. It is also notable for being one of the few cathedrals in the UK to have three spires.

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Taken years apart in different countries but I feel like these two images belong together.

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This design is called 'Playful Witch,' and I literally just put her on sale in my shop minutes ago. I almost missed Halloween with this one! Hope somebody somewhere likes her and wants to take her out to play. :-)

Here is the shop address again because it changed recently...

https://catseyeuk.myspreadshop.co.uk/

Thanks for putting up with this 'word from our sponsors,' LOL normal Tumblring will resume shortly. :-)

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