The Banned List #6

An occasional list of far too frequent crimes against writing

As I crept into the house, I didn't see the moonlight pouring in like a silver stream through the recently washed and polished windows. Nor did I observe that the faded burgundy velvet curtains, much in need of dry-cleaning, had not been drawn.

'That's odd,' I would have thought (if I'd clocked it in the first place). 'Shelagh never leaves the curtains open like that.'

A crystal goblet, sparkling in the light of the dying fire, its facets diamond bright, stood ungazed upon; the lingering, oily, pungent scent of gin ignored as a solitary ice-cube melted within its glass prison.

I didn't hear the menacing whine of the rusty door hinges as the bedroom door opened, nor the creaking heavily ponderous footsteps on the staircase. I failed to acknowledge the sinister click of the white plastic light switch.

So the sudden explosion of electric light came as a total surprise. (Once I'd noticed it).

Shelagh, her brows knitted, her mouth tight, her eyes like cross little currants, glowered with the force of a dark thundercloud. I found her expression hard to read.

'What time do you call this, eh?'

I was oblivious to the sharp tone of her voice; the clipped consonants, the elongated vowels which howled like an icy wind across a Russian steppe.

'It's time I stopped describing in intricate and exact detail all of the things which my 1st and 3rd person point of view characters allegedly - and I use that word advisedly - allegedly never blimmin' see, hear, touch, taste or smell,' I said crossly.

The End