Auri'An Lay

Bright Lights and Chamber Pots – A Three Random Word Story:

Today’s words are

MELODRAMA.  RELAXING. INFERENCE.

I put the old brass key into the lock, turned it carefully and slowly pushed the heavy wooden door open.  It made a dreadful groaning noise which, to my overly fanciful imagination, sounded just like the dramatic sound effects you might hear in the dark, gothic melodrama of a 1930’s vampire movie.   I had needed peace and quiet and that is something almost impossible to find in the inner-city apartment which I share with three other women.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my room mates; we simply have different ways of experiencing life.  They are happy, noisy people who love to party.  They work hard and they play hard.  I’m the one who doesn’t fit. 

I’m quiet, although I can talk a lot when I have something to say, but generally, I live in my room, wearing sound-cancelling headphones, writing stories and only making an appearance when I need food or a drink. 

Right now, though, a deadline looms over me.   I’ve been working on my latest novel for over a year, and the publisher is getting a bit restless at my inability to provide a completed draft ready for editing.   There are two problems:  my flat-mates and a massive case of writer’s block and last week I realised I had to do something drastic – so, in a moment of perverse drama I typed into my search bar:

“Isolated cottage required for immediate short-term rental.

No noisy neighbours, no busy road, no tourists.

I just want peace, quiet and trees.”

Google responded – as she does, and here I am – about to enter a small wooden cabin in the middle of a forest.  It is exactly what I asked for: quiet, definitely isolated and with a lot of trees.  The taxi had left me at the road, and I been faced with a long walk through a dark forest filled with all kinds of weird and unexplained sounds.  Honestly, the whole set-up would be terrifying to Hansel and Gretal and when I finally saw the cottage, my thoughts veered towards a cackling witch stirring something in a cauldron rather than seven hard-working dwarves.

Pulling my suitcase behind me, I entered the cottage.  It was dark inside, but the agent had given me instructions about opening the place up and had confirmed that the electricity and internet was fully functional.  There is a level of remoteness that I find acceptable, and a lack of modern conveniences is where my line would be drawn.   Leaving the door open so that there was some light fighting its way into the cottage, I pulled back the curtains, and the room became marginally brighter as sunlight managed to infiltrate the building after first fighting its way through the dense tree canopy that shaded the cottage.

I started to settle in.  First, I set up my laptop on the table and made sure I could connect to the internet.  I wanted isolation, but only to a degree.  Some things I cannot live without.  Then I checked the things that are important for comfort: the fridge – which looked to be stocked with all the basics; the bathroom – yes, there is hot water and a decent shower and then the bedroom, which was beautiful in an old-fashioned, slanting ceiling, heavy-wood, four-poster kind of way. 

I opened the back door and found a lovely deck overlooking a large pond.  I made myself a coffee and went back outside, sitting in one of the wooden rocking chairs which looked remarkably similar to the one which Granny Clampet had ridden in the old TV series ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’.  It was surprisingly comfortable.  This, I decided as I viewed my domain for the next few days, was definitely the most relaxing place I have been to in a long, long time. 

It was starting to get dark when I went back into the cottage and I turned on the overhead lights which just about blinded me with their brightness.  Squinting my eyes almost closed, I found a lamp, turned it on and, with relief I was able to turn off the big search lights that were definitely overkill for the small cottage.  I found a couple more lamps and vowed that hell would have to freeze over and the hounds of hell would have to learn to ice skate before I turned those big lights back on. 

I rummaged in the fridge and found that the agent had been as good as his word and there was a lovely salad all made up ready to eat, and a bottle of white wine nicely chilled enough to drink.  I found the cutlery and a glass and took the whole lot to the table.  As I ate, I scrolled through Facebook and a few other social media sites; found a movie on Netflix and settled in for a lazy night.  My writing could wait for a new day.

It was only as the movie finished that I realised just how quiet it had become.  I was not used to quiet.  It is never quiet in the city, and certainly, my room mates have no notion of how to be quiet.  It was disconcerting.  I sat still, listening hard but all I could hear was white noise in my ears.  I picked up my phone and checked that it still had a signal.  Yes.  Phew.

I looked around the room.  I’m used to being in my own company, but that was usually also with my own belongings in my own room, and still within hailing distance of other people.  I felt uncomfortable.  Vulnerable.  I couldn’t hear any other people.  I know that was one of the things I had asked for, but now that I am in a place without other people, I realised that I didn’t like this kind of quiet.  It left your mind open to start thinking about things that go bump in the night.  I told myself I was being silly and, with a mental note to self that maybe the hounds from hell didn’t need to learn ice skating after all, I turned the bright overhead lights back on.  The lack of shadows in the room brought immediate relief.  I took my dirty dishes to the sink and began to clean up. 

Cleaning up after one person who hasn’t even had to cook her meal, doesn’t take more than a few minutes, and when I’d finished with running water and clattering crockery, the silence swiftly began to press upon me again.  Almost physically.  However much my mind tried to tell me that I was being silly, my body was on high-alert.  I considered giving in and calling for a taxi to take me back to civilisation, but the thought of walking down that long, dark path to the road, at night, through a forest that could be harbouring all kinds of horrors, was beyond terrifying.

Suddenly an owl hooted and I just about shot out of my skin, but it was a call to reality.  It was only an owl.  The owl is outside, I told myself and an owl, outside the cottage, is not going to hurt me.  I decided that telling myself ghost stories was silly and I should go unpack, have a shower and then have another glass of the wine – which was surprisingly good.

So that’s what I did.  I took a long, hot, shower.  I stepped out and wrapped myself in a huge fluffy towel and turned towards the sink.  The mirror above the sink had entirely steamed up except where, slowly as if being written by a ghostly hand, the word “Hello” appeared in a curving script. 

For a split-second, I swear that if I hadn’t been rigid in fear, I would have been running down that forest path, wearing nothing but a towel and screaming “Taxi” at the top of my voice.  Then I stopped, took a breath and laughed at myself.  I’d seen that trick before where the cleaner writes something on a mirror using soap or baby shampoo and it will only show up when there is a lot of steam in the room. 

“Got me,” I sighed aloud. And went to the bedroom to find my pyjamas, really glad that there hadn’t been anyone to see my reaction.  Ten minutes later I was sitting outside, in the rocking chair, wrapped up under a blanket, enjoying the cool night air and the chilled white wine, and listening to the soft hoots of the owl.  I encouraged myself to relax.  I even giggled a little at my silliness and wondering if this was something I could include in my book.  Being frightened – or writing about my heroine being frightened – might be exactly what I needed to break my writers’ block.

Eventually, I stood up and went back inside the cottage.  I brushed my teeth and climbed into the surprisingly comfortable bed.  I was just about to turn off the lamp when a woman, wearing old-fashioned clothes and carrying a chamber pot walked right through the wall into my bedroom.  I could see the wall – right through her.  There wasn’t a door.   She stopped and looked at me as if asking whether I wanted to use the chamber pot or not, then she walked across the room, passing round the foot of my bed and exited through the opposite wall.  There was no door in that wall either.

I picked up the comforter and ran back into the main room, turning on the overhead lights, now very thankful for their brilliance, and curled myself into a tight, protective ball on the sofa.  I pulled the comforter right over my head so I couldn’t see anything and sang “La la la la la la la” to myself so that I wouldn’t be able to hear anything either – including the owl.  I’m not a religious person, but I found myself praying – or rather trying to come to an arrangement with who-or-whatever deity was listening, that I will be really good, and really grateful and donate 10% of the proceeds of my book when I finish it to helping survivors of haunted houses if only who-or-whatever deity was listening would let me live through the night.

Someone – or something – was listening because eventually I woke up to a loud banging on the front door.  The sun was shining into the room.  I had survived the night.  I threw a robe on over my pj’s and staggered out to see who was at the door.  It was the agent.  With breakfast.  I invited him into the cottage and escaped to get dressed.

When I came back, I told him that I was really glad to see him and that I had some things to ask him about the cottage, but I needed coffee first and did he want one too.  He agreed.

He is called Roland, and he is very chatty, and he told me that he’d Googled my name and discovered that I am a writer.  He asked if I’d come to the cottage to gather information about hauntings for my next book.  The inference was that he was fully aware of the happenings in the cottage – and that shocked me.

I asked him why he hadn’t warned me.  He looked a bit confused for a few moments then said “It’s on all my ads.  That’s my marketing difference for the cottage.  That it’s really haunted.  It’s even been on TV when a ghost-busters team stayed over.”

I looked him.  Actually, I stared, probably quite rudely, as I tried to process this information.

“I haven’t seen any of your ads,” I replied.  “I just asked Google AI how to contact someone with a quiet cottage with trees. And it gave me your phone number and asked me if I wanted it to check availability and cost.”

“Hmm…”  the agent answered.  “Can’t always trust what you find on the internet.  Google even tells you that it can get things wrong.   Doesn’t always give you the full picture if you don’t ask the right questions.

“Are you still staying the full week?” 

I was already packing.

Thank you for reading my work. 

I hope it gave you as much joy to read as it did for me in writing it.

This is the 3rd story in a new series where each tale is triggered by three random, unconnected words given to me by friends (or a dictionary!)

This story is completely written by me – a human – without the input of AI.

I have, however, used AI to assist with the pictures

I am no artist and these really help bring the story to life.

Please leave a comment.

If you feel inclined to contribute to a new story – leave me a random word or three. I will write each word on a piece of paper and put them in a bowl so that, when the urge to write arrives I can reach in and see what magic arises!