Muffilto Charm Revealed: A Narrative Fiction

Imagine, if you will, a brisk night wind coming fast across a lake carrying a pungent smell, something you can’t quite identify, but is nonetheless familiar enough to send a shiver up your spine. As it hits the trees, they creak out a somber call in the still night air. Or was that groan something more…human? You notice, for the first time, the absence of tires humming on pavement and you wonder if it’s that late, or maybe just a slow night. The soft tapping of your shoes on the sidewalk is the only accompaniment your slow breathing has as you move towards the warmth of your home, holding thoughts of a warm bed in the palm of your hand to keep the chill away. You don’t notice at first, perhaps because the reality of what you’re hearing is

The boy lay there next to his father keeping each other warm from the chilling atmosphere where they set camp. The air was so moist it turned the dirt into damp mud and the boy could feel his sleeping bag submerge into it. The intimidating glare of an owl examining him sent a tingle up his spine. The sounds of bugs chiming filled the ambience, killing the silence giving him a sense of security. He looked up at the twilight sky illuminated by the blinding shimmer of the full moon gleaming through the forest trees over him. Surrounding it was an array of glimmering stars prompting the sky alive. As his body grew accustomed to the environment, each natural attribute gave him comfort and allowed him to slowly fall into a deep sleep.

His house was lit up the most out of the other houses on his street; he just needed a break for electric devices or maybe even electricity. A walk in cool dark night is relaxing for him. He doesn’t fit in because unlike others, he wants real fresh air and enjoys his night walks.

He did not want to scare her away. His footfalls are audible in the silent night, reaching out to her, each step bringing them closer together. Their turmoil of emotions rivals a hurricane, fear, fury and rage but most of all love shines in her eyes. Pure adoration is reflected in his. One foot forward, step by step, the space between them ceased to exist. Prowling forward, pushing her backwards into the building and onto the elevator, he corners her. Unnerved, she stands still in disbelief, doubting that he is really here. Staring at his face, his chiseled jaw, the definition in his shoulders, it seemed that wherever he went he had been worked hard. A calloused hand comes up and brushes a strand of hair from her face.

The town was dark. Rain hit the windows of the taxi, making the man in the backseat very tired. He leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, knowing full well he wouldn't actually be able to sleep. He would be getting out soon, anyway. The taxi passed street after street, and even without his eyes being open he knew exactly where he was. The taxi came to a slow stop. He paid the driver, got out and watched as the car drove away. After he could no longer see the lights he turned around and walked into the apartment building.

The familiar sense of monotony rolls over her as the routine journey down the darkened street begins. The stretch of road seems as unexciting as the last 100 times she’s walked down it. Her mind is occupied with the thoughts of her shift she just finished and how she is going to pay for this months rent with the boss ripping her off like this. The bins rattling in the distance barely register as the neighbours dog getting into the food scraps again. The only light illuminating the otherwise dark street is coming from the moon, and reminds her that the council still hasn’t come good with their promise to fix the lights. Distant yelling brings her attention to the outside world again. It’s coming from Robert’s house. He told her just before about

Each step feels like a hard push towards freedom, a silent prayer sent out into the night. The stairs are hard and cold underneath her bare feet, but her eyes are focused and heartbeat is sure. There is no sound, not even a whisper of cloth. The world is frozen in time, no longer having the put up a pretense of reality.

The tree swayed against the cool night breeze giving off an eerie feel. Gilbert continued to walk, the sounds of the city died away and in it's place were the murmurs of the leaves. The soft crunching sound of fallen autumn leaves from under his feet grew louder and louder, he proceeds to go on until he arrived at the park. The metal creaked in the background, he sees the rusty swing sets and slanted slide. Further he wanders into the park, only his own breath was audible gnawing on his nails, sweat trickled down his face. A stench consumed the air, a blinding mixture of deification and sweat. He saw a man very thin and has a lot of wrinkles, his clothes were buried in filth, blood vessels standing out, larger knuckles a pinkish discolouration of his skin that look old and tired but soft he had narrow hooded eyes and bushy eyebrows brows. He slouched on the bench mumbling words under his breath.

The frozen wind blew about the endless night. You were tired of being alone. You sat on a bench in the park; wind whispering memories into your mind. It seemed as if you never left. Everything just as you left it. After breaking an endless cycle you needed a breather. Something familiar to help you ignore what lingered in the dark corners of your life. You didn't want this. The

White walls, white floor, white ceiling, white bed, and white clothes… what he wouldn’t give to leave behind all the white. He did not leave his home; he was taken, lured by false pretences and promises of refuge away from the fear. But only he had been taken; left without possessions. Recalling such deceit fuelled the growing rage, but kicking and scratching at the walls proved useless, nothing but dire efforts to calm down. Warnings had been issued about the grave consequences for those who act out in fury. Sinking against the wall memories of life before the ‘White Walls,’ flooded in, resulting in a powerful revelation; he had his memories. Searching and sorting through immediate memories he could think only of white, and what the nurses deemed hallucinations of a paranoid mind. Fingers knotted in his hair, he pulled, eyes watering with frustration. Immediate memories had been poisoned, but memories of days long past were sure to have remained pure. Sorting again, he thought of his mother and her kind smile. He remembered his father’s rough hands lifting him over his head as a child. He thought of the soft, sensitive and sentimental hug of his grandmother, and the smell of his grandfather’s cigars. His mother visited that day, but isolation rendered her travels

The narrator explains his loneliness as he walks the isolated and lonely city street at night. “I have been one acquainted with the night” (1), explains how the narrator has gone through this before and is now used to it, therefore, having this feeling for awhile. “I have outwalked the furthest city light”(3) and “I have walked out in the rain- and back in rain”(2) explains what the narrator has done

The bare branches were blanketed with a soft covering of pristine white snow, a scene out of a winter wonderland. However, beneath the trees and within the log cabin that they resided, it was something far from perfect. The blond vampire stared at the bed, or more accurately, the one who laid upon the bed. The once rich black hair that had stuck out in every direction now laid upon his forehead in streaks of grey and white. The once vibrant eyes that had shone with determination and resolve had now been dulled to a fading green behind those eyelids. It reminded Mika of the peeling paint of a wall, as time had slowly chipped away from the bold color.

He dreams, a swirling darkness with lucid moments. Sometimes he can see a white incandescence and other times, simply emptiness. Thoughts do cross his mind, but he’s paralyzed by some unseen force. He feels pain, fear, and loneliness, but most of all, a feeling of betrayal permeates his consciousness. Sometimes, memories take hold, and he can almost feel a sense of joy, but these are fleeting and momentary. The darkness overwhelms him, and he sleeps once more.

It’s late at night, fifty degrees outside. The sharp, crisp air attacks my face while I walk. My hands slowly lose their sense of touch with every passing minute. The only thing I can see is my breath, offset by the dimly lit lights on the cold, gray cement. The only thing I can feel is the heat generated by my sweat as I tread up the steep hill, but that is all I feel.

I sit down on the hard bench and eye the menu with all the disinterested acuity of a curator unpacking artifacts. The restaurant is sparsely populated - a blond couple by the window, two truckers at the bar in denim and the company shirt, a party of - and a small round clock that hangs on the wall to my right shows 4:00 pm. It is Sunday afternoon, and I have been driving for seven hours . A customer comes in and the noise of the bell on the door makes me turn to the window; a light drizzle falls here and there on the turf in the parking lot and on the blacktop of the distant highway, from which the hum and rumble of cars is still audible, still calling to me in the dimness . A strange familiarity invades my senses at that moment, like the familiarity that comes to one in dreams when confronted with some impossible landscape. Pale light filters down through the blotched rain clouds, eases through slits in the half-drawn shutters and falls listlessly on the table, a series of concentric circles, wan and shimmering, like moonbeams on the surface of a rippling pond , textured by the shadow of sycamores that lean and sway outside the window in the mist. I watch the changing patterns of light and shadow, the shapes making and unmaking, and my imagination is tempted to new and unspeakable objects. I have seen this all before. Where? The light and the shadow, the clock on the wall, the yellowed pages of the menu - no it was not these things that were familiar. It was something