It’s cool up north. Fresh wind. A jacket feels sensible. Bed socks aren’t entirely unreasonable.
A week spent in the south was another matter. Restless nights on sweat-dampened sheets. Clammy skin. Hair clinging to the back of my neck. The curious heaviness that arrives after too many hot days in a row, when thoughts seem to move more slowly.
Heat alters perception, woodland paths become strangely still, and every shadow appears darker than it should.
Halfway through one such woodland walk, a great black beast with horns stepped into my path. And for just a moment, my imagination reached its own conclusion.
Then the beast shifted and became what it had been all along: a curious Highland cow, waiting to see if I’d choose another route or walk on by.
Sometimes the uncanny lasts only a second.
Sometimes that’s all it needs.
R. H. DIXON 