Bracken Under Late Summer Skies

The summer of 1995 was the hottest I have known. It seemed to start in May and lasted well until October. I had finished the first year of my illustration course in Southampton, and over that summer I had returned to my parents then-bungalow At Bretforton in Worcestershire.
Bretforton was a picturesque village, all greens and manors, overhanging trees, a church that was close on a thousand years old. There were two pubs, one, The Fleece, had witchmarks in one of the rooms. It was alleged to be the second most haunted village in England, a thing that pleased me no end, though I never experienced anything untoward.
I spent three months there that summer, a quarter of a year. I knew no-one in the village, and so isolated, I felt a little lost. I would spend my days reading Thomas Ligotti and Emily Bronte, sneaking out for cigarettes with Bracken our yorkshire terrier.
We had had Bracken since 1988. He was a nervous dog, terrified of everything; loud noises, other dogs, people... but I loved him. Despite the fact he was so nervous, he was quite a hardy dog, and would accompany me on long rambles into the surrounding countryside for hours. One time, lost over the fields, with a thunderstorm fast approaching from the Malvern Hills, Bracken determinedly pulled me over a small bridge I couldn't find in the twilight gloom. He would sleep on my parents bed, but in the morning (I slept late) he would scratch on the door to let him in. He would then sleep on my bed till I got up, hours later.
The isolation in Bretforton got to me that summer, but now looking back on that time I hold a fondness for it. Rose-tinted glasses? Perhaps. I think the sun had blinded me then though.
One evening, late in August of the year, I took Bracken for a walk after dinner. Often I would take him around the Back Lane. This would give me ample chance to smoke cigarettes, and generally find some peace from myself. That evening was so beautiful though, I thought I would go on a bit of a longer walk. Swinging over weed-covered stile into a field of sheep, skirting a field of asparagus, and passing the clump of trees where I would sometimes sit and stare into the distance.
I came to a field I had never seen before. I don't know what kind of crops were growing there, but they were far taller than me. I noticed there was a path through these monstrous crops.
Twilight was falling, one of those hot, unreal twilights lost summers bring. I felt far from the village here. I let Bracken off the lead and raced him along the path. He was a fast dog, and we both ran at full speed, racing each other to some unknown destination, until I finally collapsed, exhausted, still not having reached the end of the path.
I walked slowly back with Bracken. I could see the lights of the village in the distance, the odd lamp, the solitary window. They flickered at me through the branches of trees. The sky was blue-steeled, an electric sea-shade, and as I walked back, the church bell began to chime. Sonorous tones announcing some twilight hour.
There was a wood-pigeon calling somewhere.
I don't know why that moment stays with me. Just a fragment I didn't think much of at the time, but it stays with me as such things do, an unnamed tarot card that keeps recurring. A divination of remembering. Arcane recall.
Bracken passed away over ten years ago now, and I still miss him.
He was my friend, and in that moment we raced each other through a field in dusk, I knew that I was alive.