As I sit here now, alone in my room with the door locked, I feel calm again.
Calm for the first time in a long time. The causes of my disturbance, the things that have grown from nuisance to annoyance and onto full blown nightmares. have abated for now.
I do not feel safe - I don't believe I will ever feel really secure again, but I know that here I am in a room with only one door and that single door I can watch all the time. I do not sleep. I cannot rest for I dare not sleep.
When I lay down my weary body I cannot calm my mind, even though I am exhausted, worn out by the events of the past two years.
Just a short time ago I was a normal, reasonably healthy, late middle-aged man with a wife, children and grandchildren with only the usual worries that family brings. Work and mortgage and family occupied most of my time. My leisure hours, though there weren't many, were taken up by watching sport, reading, walking and sometimes in pursuit of my lifelong hobby of photography. A normal life you may think. I believed it was, but now I am not sure. I am not sure of anything at all. I cannot remember a time when I was.
I had never worried about dying - I am quite healthy and though I do not get enough exercise I feel sure that I can eventually put that right. My body is not too overweight and, after all, my parents and grandparents lasted into ripe old age. i have good genes, so I should be fine for a while yet.
I found photography relaxing and went out when I could and when the mood took me. It rarely did that when it was cold, dark, raining or otherwise not pleasant enough to venture out. Much as I would have liked to capture some night scenes or powerful storms I never actually did that until two years ago, when I decided that I was a fraud unless I took the hobby seriously.
I wish I had stayed indoors, in the safety and warmth of my own home.
My camera equipment was not the most expensive or technically complex, but it was capable of taking some good photographs. Good enough at least to keep my family, and therefore me, happy.
My fair-weather subjects had been many and varied with the usual, boring assortment of scenes, people and flowers, with and without insects. The insects always fascinated me more than the flowers or the people and I don't know why.
So I was determined to reawaken the creative urge that I used to have and pick up the camera again, with a real purpose.
The first night out with the camera was an experiment, as I had not learned much of anything about how to take night scenes properly. I was also very wary of using the flash, as in our quiet neighbourhood it would have caused much peering through curtains and I am sure a few calls to the police.
If only someone had called the authorities and made me stop. I might not be here now, watching the door, too too nervous to take my eyes from it.
It was difficult to review the pictures I shot in the dark and the viewing screen was quite small. It had always been my habit to load photographs onto my computer to view and edit them there. This I did after that first night out. The results were not good and I found that I had not obtained the results I wanted at all. I decided then to review each picture as I went, adjusting the camera if necessary after each shot.
i did not go out again after that first night for a couple of weeks as I was plagued by a series of headaches and only wanted to sleep. When I did finally summon up the courage to go out again it was a cloudy night of the new moon so and so dark. Even so I knew the camera could cope with the conditions if I used it properly.
In the old, seaside village where I lived there were long, poorly lit roads and pathways, many of which ran down to the sea, past old, mostly neglected houses occupied (I guess), by older members of the village. The oldest, most run down lane was Belfry walk. I had never met any of its inhabitants. so could only imagine their circumstances from where they lived. Dark, neglected and decaying places that had long since ceased to be homes.
