Adverse Camber

By Christopher Best

On their perilous drive home from a New Year's Eve celebration, through swirling snow and much the worse for drink, a couple are caught in a near-fatal accident. Out of the blizzard appears a figure to help them. But his story will change their lives forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Best
• Release date: Apr 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476323121

Christopher Best

Christopher Best is an author and composer, working in the South West of England. He has written two novels and several collections of short stories. His music work comprises over fifty compositions for a wide variety of media.

Book preview

ADVERSE CAMBER

By Christopher Best

Copyright 2012 Christopher Best

Smashwords Edition

Cover image ‘Blizzard 2’, courtesy of A.T. Willett.

www.atwillett.com

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Ridiculous, I know, but I am staring through glass onto a world I no longer recognise. How can a line of terraced white cottages behind modest front gardens leave a person in such a state? How is someone rendered speechless by a quiet village street on a crisp winter’s afternoon? How? Because the commonplace has suddenly been made alien by an event I simply cannot fathom. This may or may not be the story’s end; where it goes from here I have no idea, but I can at least unpick a line of fine threads back to the point three days ago where it all begins.

It is a somewhat surreal beginning: hobnobbing with hobgoblins, wisecracking with wizards and fantasising with phantoms, yet ironically this marks the last moment before the fabric of normality I’ve known all my life starts to unravel. I recall show-music spilling in from one room, amateurish tinklings on piano from another, and from a third the hubbub of paper plate chat – the sort where everyone laughs about nothing and listens to no-one, convinced that better conversations are to be had elsewhere, too wrapped up in preventing chicken wings and sausages, canapés and bread rolls from falling to the floor, or fretting about teeth