Night Terror

A sultry night followed a stifling day, and a stroll in the dark was bearable. As usual, I left the house by the back lane, cut through the churchyard, and headed for the beach. The moon was huge and high in the navy sky, shedding its light on tumbling waves.

As I stood among whispering marram grass, I spotted a midnight swimmer, his pale body cutting through the water with precise strokes. My eyes adjusted to the moonlight that picked out shapes in the water: jelly fish in foam, specks of bioluminescence and blooming algae.

It was then that I saw it. A fin circling the swimmer. The spell was broken, for beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, and terror paralysed me. I wanted to shout, but had no voice, and could only watch as the swimmer was tugged beneath the waves.

Kim M. Russell, 17th July 2023

Image by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

Mish is our host for Prosery at the dVerse Poets Pub this Monday, with a prose writing challenge, which can be flash fiction or creative non-fiction, not exceeding 144 words (excluding the title), but must not be poetry. It must, however, contain a given line of poetry within the body of the prose. Writers may break up the line with punctuation, capitalization, add words to the beginning or end of It, but cannot insert words within the line.

Mish has chosen the work of one of my favourite German poets, who was the subject of a project in German when I was in sixth form, and for which I won a prize. I still have the project.

The line Mish has chosen for us to include in our prose is from The First Elegy from the Duino Elegies: “For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror.”

31 thoughts on “Night Terror”

  1. You got my heart pumping on this one, Kim. I was very afraid of the midnight swimmer until the shark entered the scene. Oh dear, I fear PTSD in the future for the witness 😦

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  8. Very nicely done on the abrupt ending. We have a lot in the U.S. along our eastern and western ocean’s beaches. Aling our Texas Gulf Coast beaches but they are smaller and when can be sliced across their bodies. Best then is baked slow barbecue and ample sauses.
    ..

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    1. Thank you, Jim. I can’t imagine eating shark – apart from being mostly vegetarian, we don’t really get them around the British Isles, although a few have been spotted off the coast of Devon and Cornwall. It’s far too cold for sharks in Norfolk.

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  9. Love this Kim! You brought the swimmer into focus of imminent danger rather nonchalantly without creating panic! Good line of narration!

    Hank

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