Read Eldren: The Book of the Dark for Free Online Page A

previously, he toyed with the idea of shaving it off, but he was afraid that the chin underneath would be in no fit state to see the world.
    He had left university seven years ago with a degree in Botany...a failed zoologist as his girlfriend as the time had so wittily observed...and no idea as to what to do next. He drifted into teacher training college more to avoid unemployment than through any vocational urge. Once finished there, he found, as if by magic, that a place teaching biology had become available in his hometown. He took the job, promising himself that it was only for a couple of years then onwards and upwards to somewhere.
    The where he never quite figured out and, five years later he was still in the same place.
    Surprisingly, to himself anyway, he enjoyed his work. He hadn’t fallen prey to the world-weary cynicism of the older teachers and hoped he never would. Just before she left him his girlfriend had observed that, as his mental age was the same as most of his pupils why shouldn’t he have a rapport with them?
    There, he’d done it again, started thinking about her. Hangovers seemed to bring it on the most, probably because that was when he felt sorriest for himself.
    “Ho hum,” he said to the girlie-calendar on the wall behind him. As usual this month’s model didn’t reply but just talking to her always perked him up. The wonder of self-hypnosis, he told himself as he left the small bathroom.
    The letterbox in the front door behind him clattered just as he turned away from the bathroom, frightening him into a small yelp of surprise. The voice of the postman carried through the door.
    “Morning Mr. Baillie, bills again this morning.”
    And there were bills. 
    Gas and telephone on the same day? Shit! Time to increase the overdraft again .
    There was also advertising, exhorting the benefits of life insurance, ladies handbags, the Socialist Workers Party and the forthcoming jumble sale at St Patricks’ primary school.
    Mentally noting the date of the sale, always good for second hand paperbacks, he consigned everything except his newspaper and the bills into the large black plastic bag, ready and waiting to be taken out of the bin. Sometime.
     
    ~-o0O0o-~
     
    The bus was late so Brian had plenty of time to ponder on why he queued at the stop every morning rather than drive himself. He supposed that he wanted to mix with people and not sit locked in his car, removed from the hubbub of life.
    Once he got on the bus the drone of conversation from behind him made him think, not for the first time, that maybe he should get his car out of the garage more often.
    The woman was, as usual, using her time on the bus as a sounding board for her conversations of the day.
    “Is this weather not just terrible, all this rain and wind. I don’t think we’ve had three good days together all summer. I hope the autumn’s a wee bit better. It’ll have to be, or else none of the vegetables will come up. When I was younger it was never as wet as this. Personally I think its them atomic bomb tests that’s done it.”
    She stopped to catch breath.
    “Are you listening to me?”
    Her husband, engrossed in his morning newspaper grunted a reply but she took it for assent and, almost without a break, started again.
    “Auld Missus Dunlop died last night, Margaret down at the shop was telling me, just dropped off during Coronation Street. Well she had a good innings anyway, eighty-five she was, and never missed a night at the bingo. Never missed Coronation Street either for that matter. I suppose she must have died happy.”
    Next to her, her husband grunted again but this time Brian guessed he’d had enough for one morning. He stood up, grunted one last time and made his way down the bus.
    She wasn’t finished yet though. Brian had discovered over the last six months that she always wanted the last word.
    “And don’t you be going into that pub on the way home. If you’re not in by six o’clock you won’t