‘The Dispute’

A Friday short story

The hour or so before the sun comes up is called civil twilight. Was this something you knew? I didn’t, I have to confess that. I don’t like being outside at an hour that makes me feel like a strange traveller in my own country. On a clear winter morning, the stars still burn pale. The frost on the churned earth sparkles and slips under my boot, so I step down harder, hard enough to leave an impression in the ground. I am on the edge of the heath, five minutes from my house. I have been snatched up from my front path and set back down on the moon. It was never my intention to let things get so far – I like to think of myself as a reasonable person.

The noise had woken us for four nights straight, so I told my wife I would have to go and talk to them about it. That had been plan A.