The room in the tower, and other stories — John Shaqi
The room in the tower, and other storiesBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
General
The room in the tower, and other stories
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
English fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories, English; Horror tales, English; Short stories, English
Whether it was the remembrance of this rather grim spectacle as I had
seen it that afternoon, or whether Harry’s story had caused some
trouble in my brain, or whether it was merely that the keen bracing air
of this place, to one who had just come from the sleepy languor of the
Norfolk Broads, kept me sleepless, I do not know; but, anyhow, the
moment I put out my light that night and got into bed, I felt that all
the footlights and gas-jets in the internal theatre of my mind sprang
into flame, and that I was very vividly and alertly awake. It was in
vain that I counted a hundred forwards and a hundred backwards, that I
pictured to myself a flock of visionary sheep coming singly through a
gap in an imaginary hedge, and tried to number their monotonous and
uniform countenances, that I played noughts and crosses with myself,
that I marked out scores of double lawn-tennis courts,--for with each
repetition of these supposedly soporific exercises I only became more
intensely wakeful. It was not in remote hope of sleep that I continued
to repeat these weary performances long after their inefficacy was
proved to the hilt, but because I was strangely unwilling in this
timeless hour of the night to think about those protruding relics of
humanity; also I quite distinctly did not desire to think about that
subject with regard to which I had, a few hours ago, promised Harry that
I would not make it the subject of reflection. For these reasons I
continued during the black hours to practise these narcotic exercises of
the mind, knowing well that if I paused on the tedious treadmill my
thoughts, like some released spring, would fly back to rather gruesome
subjects. I kept my mind, in fact, talking loud to itself, so that it
should not hear what other voices were saying.
Then by degrees these absurd mental occupations became impossible; my
mind simply refused to occupy itself with them any longer; and next
moment I was thinking intently and eagerly, not about the bones
protruding from the gnawed section of sand-cliff, but about the subject
I had said I would not dwell upon. And like a flash it came upon me why
Harry had bidden me not think about it. Surely in order that I should
not come to the same conclusion as he had come to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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