The Fog
by Robbie Lawrence, age 15

That afternoon Mr Haydock made his way down to the grocers on Parsons Avenue. The air was peaceful and as he walked he hummed the hornpipe. Brown leaves trickled down on to the grey cobblestones and his footsteps echoed like stifled gunshots reminding him of the past months.

On reaching the dirty old shop he entered with a cheerful smile and began packing items into his wicker bag. A loaf of bread, two jars of honey and a bottle of sherry, Aunt Fanny's favourite. The passive old man standing at the counter gave him his change and stiffly saluted him as he left the shop.

The sky was dark now, brooding with silent menace. A chill ran through Mr Haydock's bones. He pondered on going back to the house and wait till morning. Anna would still be lying in bed, her red hair spread across the pillow, willing him to come back.
"No," he said to himself and with a resolute shake of his shoulders continued towards the wood. Aunt Fanny was definitely ill. She had sounded it on the phone. Croaking like a glutinous frog that she was far too unwell to do her shopping. Looking out of the window the weather had seemed clement and welcoming. He had agreed and said he would be round at hers between four and five depending on when he got out the house. Unfortunately the weather had not lasted and it was almost pitch black by the time he came to the edge of the wood.

The gnarled trunks of the oaks glared at him with furrowed wooden eyebrows. I can still go back, a voice in his head said. Fanny will be fine until the morning.
"No," he shouted, anger pulsing through him at his own cowardice.
The path was incredibly muddy and as he tramped along flecks of dirt splashed up on to his face. Terror was creeping into his mind. A strange thumping banged against his eardrums and he felt as if he was about to collapse.

He began to jog, letting the light breeze brush through his hair, relaxing him. The beating stopped. The mud on the ground seemed to thin. Everything was becoming quieter and quieter. Rounding the bend he saw a bridge sitting forlorn and alone at the end of the path. Relief, hot and comforting, seeped through him like a glass of whisky. He was not far from Fanny's now. Her house was just three hundred meters from the bridge. Confidently he moved forward ignoring the fog which had been at the beginning of the walk thin and unopposing but was now thick like mustard gas around him.

Closer and closer the bridge seemed smiling at him through the mist. He was almost there when he heard it. A strange humming through the trees. Glancing around he realised that he could hardly see a thing. Panic began to swell in his heart blackening his vision even more. He turned back towards the bridge, or at least where he thought it was, his arms outstretched as if he was blind. Strange shapes were moving around him. Men were screaming sorrowful melodies. Calling out to them, tears in his eyes he ran. Mortars burst, shells exploded, rifles cracked, men died. Everything was happening around him until he tripped.

Air rushed up to meet him as he plummeted down down down into astronomical blackness. He was laughing; Anna was lying in his arms; the man at the grocers was saluting and then he was dead. Floating in the ice cold water fifty feet below the bridge.

The fog hung in the air like cotton wool and a small bird chirped at the pro longed silence the man had left. The bridge sat as if in mourning for the man lying beneath it. Three hundred meters from the bridge in her small wooden house, Aunt Fanny grumbled.