January - and the dogs of Winter are outside.
The other day, the power was off for 29 hours; now, as night approaches, there has been no lighting or heating for 40 hours and a chill is growing through the house.
I've passed through the 'bravely-cheerful' period of adjustment when I bustled about, smugly lighting candles and parafrin lamps; I've passed through the stage of 'impatient indignation' when I realised how much of what I am depends on what I do, and how much of that depends on .. electricity; I've even passed beyond the stage of childish loss and depression when peak gave way to dull despondency.
Now I am alert and afraid.
As the darkness and cold increase, boundaries dissolve. Inside and outside no longer exist as the cosy home is Invaded by things 'out there' .. Cold and Dark, Past and Present too, merge together as 'wonderfully modern man' is drawn back to his ancestors and I sense ancient shadows at my shoulder, Dimly through time, I see the yellow guttering of the crusie flame, taste the fire's acrid smoke and smell the warmth and filth of animals.
Snow fell this morning like some kind of angelus but the peace-promise gave way to a moaning north-westerly, snuffling and probing, testing under slates and peering through cracks, Within an hour, it had risen to Gale and then Storm force and now the house shudders and strains under a Force 11, Black dogs slobber and snivel at the windows and heave their whining weight against the doors,
I brood on why people should come to Coll, They talk of 'flower strewn meadows', of 'shimmering emerald seas', of 'skies of azure/pink', of 'beaches white and empty; they talk as though they didn't know the whole world was a wonder.
But I suspect they hold the real reasons close and deep within themselves,
Perhaps it's our early diet of media-fed romance and saccharine sentiment that leads us to seek somewhere - anywhere - to unload our accumulated burden of tacky metaphors and tangerine dreams. Regular doses of WaIter Scott and R.L. Stevenson, topped off with a creamy layer of The Little House on the Prairie', and what can you expect?
On the other hand, our early heroes or role models may be to blame so that, for us, Coll is where we come to live out the scrambled residues of childhood values, Take my own case, for instance. I was reared on a crazy mixture of Albert Schweltzer, Hopalong Cassidy, Scott of the Antarctic, Eeyore (from Wlnnie the Pooh) and George Stevenson of the Darlington Rocket, and they're all here, still living their lives - through me - on Coll. Because of them, I'm lost in a remote land, battling against the raging elements, with little to survive on but faith and foolhardiness, forced to be inventive as are all islanders; filled with doleful fatalism and yet determined to ride off at last into the setting sun - Music - Credits - End - Simulated Applause...
Alas, they are hard task
masters, my heroes, for neither peace nor romance were on their agendas,
The black dogs yelp and race now, torn claws shrill against the window glass; yellow eyed, wide eyed, wild eyed, The outside door, defeated or treaturous, explodes inwards and they are upon me; hot hunger on cold fear.
Grimly, I watch as ice-stiff fingers trace out part of Scott's last entry -
‘Great God,
this is an awful place.
Graphics based on original drawings by James Hutcheson
