The Brightlings

Prologue: Hello darkness...

The tiny beast is intently studying the ultraviolet glare of his shiny face, her pin-prick eyes processing colours that he will never experience with his own. A bulbous abdomen twitches. Dusty wings flex pale and golden, as she dances on six fragile limbs.

Sprouting from her furry head, two feather-ended antennae rotate independently, giving the impression that she is somehow questioning her human host, as she slowly shimmies back and forth.

Malcolm watches for a while before gently nudging the shoulder of his clammy shirt with a soiled fingernail. The creature stubbornly clings to the material, refusing to be dislodged, but eventually gives in and launches itself back into the throng of insect life that flutters and pings against the cracked lamp casing.

He scrunches his toes and shuffles from one foot to the other, leaving damp prints on the slate doorstep. His threadbare socks are steaming, and the reek of sweat and leather sticks in his nostrils. A five-hour migraine is still humming behind his eyes, and his left heel feels like he is standing on half a golf ball and a drawing pin every time that he puts pressure on it.

The sun has not long melted into the horizon, the end of a glorious day soon to be replaced by the storm that is rapidly brewing beyond the valley. A veil of dark cloud, barely discernible from the distant tree-line, flickers and flashes gently from within. It is reassuring to know that the animals are safely under cover. The last thing that he needs tonight is another fried sheep.

He stares at his swollen right hand under the artificial light as it clasps a warm beer. The fingers are dry and cracked, his knuckles more like dimples than peaks, and the wrinkles barely there at all. He knows that he needs to take more care of himself, but as his father used to say, 'those jobs won't do themselves'. He takes the last swig, and manages to half crush the can, before tossing it with a clatter into the wooden crate next to the dustbin.

A bat swoops so close to his face that he can feel the down draft from its urgent flapping. The moths clumsily disperse, before resuming their swirling head-banging session against the glass. His eyes are itching. He rubs them with the back of his wrist, and turns to scan the gently sloping fields. His focus is immediately drawn towards the movement in the middle distance.

Was that a torch? 

He blinks hard and stares into the darkness. 

There it is again. 

He unlocks the door and pushes it open. Almost instantly a purring feline is at his feet, rubbing up against his ankles and angling for his attention.

The law would probably not agree, but sometimes gut-instinct needs to guide the way. He steadies himself against the warm sandstone, steps back into his dusty work boots, reaches inside for his shotgun, and limps out towards the cornfields. The sleek black cat silently follows, dancing around him with a glint of adventure in her eyes.

"Go back to the house, Lucky. It's just those blinking idiots again," he mumbles under his breath.

Residual heat from the cloudless afternoon is rising from the cracked earth. He unfurls a stained handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, wipes the sweat from the back of his neck, and pauses briefly to dab his bushy eyebrows. His mind skips around the recent events like a high-speed video loop.

He is still kicking himself over his stupidity. If only he'd kept his mouth shut, then none of this would be happening. On Sunday night in the pub, on his way back from the gents, he overheard one the locals at the bar suggesting that he'd probably faked it all. But he'd never wish something like this on himself. Why would a farmer want to be famous?