….so I’m doing a creative writing course in college. I thought I might as well stick what I do up on my website. That’s what it’s for I guess. This is the first bit and may or may not get longer.
Story (Part 1)
I stood on the old bridge, and took a long draw on my cigarette. I looked down towards a valley being slowly covered by new houses. They’d appeared over a dozen or so years, but really boomed around 2005 – even our remote part of the country was not immune to economic progress. I’d not necessarily call it all progress, personally, but I suppose that’s just me. I can’t argue with the money they bring in, and I suppose in that context a slightly lesser view of the beach is not such a big deal.
They do bring a strange modernity to the landscape, which for most of my lifetime has not seen much in the way of change. From there, I could see right down the valley to the miles of golden beach to the Atlantic meeting the coast. Beyond a handful of small islands it’s next stop North Pole. Even recently, you could follow the river to the sea and see nothing but the old Free Church and a clutch of homes, but it’s all changing now. Progress. Range Rovers, kids and dogs and bikes and lovely-for-a-holiday-but-how-do-you-live-here-full-time?
Many of the crofts that had provided sustenance to previous generations were no longer worked. The younger members of the families moved south with no thought of returning to their parent’s way of life. Why would they? Crofting has never been a business so much as a means to an end. In it’s glory days nothing more than a lifestyle borne of need rather than any romantic notions of working the land. Most of the locals still in it do so out of tradition, family pride or something like that – and almost to a man they have second jobs. They work on the roads, in the pub, for the local builder, whatever is available.
I did my time away from here. I got out, impatient to sample a different life. I spent four years at University in Edinburgh, then ten years in London working in finance. Left home in 1993, back in 2009.15 years older, with a slightly weaker accent and a higher hairline. I chucked it all, the high powered job, the flat, the fancy car, even the long term fiancé – it’s all gone. Almost on a whim.
I’d inherited the land suddenly. Very suddenly. No warnings, no fanfare and no time to plan. My Uncle Donald and his wife Marge, who’d always been great favourites of mine, had no children. In their will, they’d left their property to me. Not their money, mind, that had gone to a local nursing home. Just the house and the land. I had no idea. My friends and fiancé thought I was having some sort of breakdown when I said I’d be moving back, they really did. I can see why, it all happened so quickly – one day I’m getting off Docklands Light Railway suited and booted at Canary Wharf, two weeks later I’m looking over my new land thinking about just what the fuck I have done.
They’d been on their way to Inverness, Don and Marge, for a weekender in ‘civilization’ - their words, not mine. They’d done it for as long as I could remember, Glasgow, Edinburgh – even London occasionally – but usually Inverness – every couple of months they’d jump in the car and head towards more populated climes. Marge couldn’t take the isolation, Donald said, for more than a few weeks at a time. They both liked the theatre, music, cinemas, pubs, clubs, basically I always thought they were living in the wrong place. The arrangement seemed to suit them though.
A guy driving a fish lorry from Wick came through a roundabout north of Inverness, without checking to his right. He’d been on the ‘phone apparently. They never stood a chance. Bang. The lorry driver walked away, but Marge and Donald were killed outright. Just shows you, everyone said. You never know the day.
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A Pakistani court has ordered the authorities to temporarily 
