A Sudden Dread of the Sea

In a strange epilogue to my tale of the fire-extinguisher man yesterday morning, Em came across him too. She was heading to work at the same time as me (from her place) and said that she saw him on the other side of the street waving his fire extinguisher about, looking drunk and aggressive. She quickly got away from him, finding him quite intimidating, by walking up one of those roads that lead away from Western Road. While traversing this unnamed road, she heard the sound of the fire extinguisher hitting the ground behind her. This was, of course, when the fire-extinguisher had been thrown at me.

My dreams last night were full of reprints of old 'planetarey romance' comic strips I have never read, names I just vaguely recognise 'Adam Strange' 'Mystery in Space'... I kept waking up every now and again, then plunging back into these dreams of old comic strips I have never read. Odd really, I was never much into science-fiction in comics, so am not sure where these dreams came from. I may well have to visit Dave's Comics to see if there are any Adam Strange or Mystery in Space reprints....

The dreams did inspire the soundtrack to my twilight walk to be Alan Moore's 'Unearthing', in which the protagonist, as an adolescent, becomes immersed in planetary romance comics. Adam Strange himself is mentioned even.
It was a long looping walk, up across Dyke Road, and past Preston Manor, up near where Susie used to live. Quite lost my sense of direction. When it came time to head back, I cut back up to the Old Shoreham Road, because the thought of walking on the beach caused me a sense of apprehension. I don't know why, but it seems this past week has been accompanied by a strange dread of the sea...

Upon heading home I passed by a group of four trees guarding a pedestrian entrance to a cul-de-sac. The ground below them was pleasingly covered with leaves. A couple of people walked under the trees, and I thought, the trees, they just stay still. Watch us walk underneath and away, pass by, and always walking. Are the trees jealous or are they content -superior even- to be rooted to one spot, to know one place intimately, whilst everybody walking by might know a thousand places superficially.
Those four or so trees know that road when it is completely empty of people. Deep in the small hours. No-one passing by.
I will never know the road so empty because at least I will always be there.