The Tor

A piece I did for university a while ago.

Two shapes stepped through the midday mist, one tall and straight, the other short and round. The short, round one trailed a couple of feet behind the tall one, shuffling through the frosty grass.

“C’mon, Miri. Let’s go back into town,” Jared said through a cloud of breath. “Floating lights are cool, but coffee’s warm.”

Miriam tightened her scarf around her face and kept walking. The short blades of grass crunched underfoot.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Jared queried for the fourteenth time. “What could be more important than your star-map assignment?”

“The lights last night disappeared descending towards this approximate area. We’re heading to the tor for a better view.”

“Is the tor the big rock?”

“The tor is the hill underneath the big rock.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

“What if the light was just like a firework or something?”

“It was two-hundred miles above the ground.”

“Plane?”

They reached the tor. Spiralling up to its peak were steps made of earth, held in place with planks of wood; apparently someone several years ago had thought a 25-foot-tall mound in the middle of a flat field would attract tourists. Neither Miriam nor Jared had ever seen a single human being within a mile of it. Even birds were rarely seen there.

After slipping on the frozen mud twice and tripping over an uneven plank, Jared reached the tor’s top. If he really looked hard, he could just see the church spire on the horizon. Apart from that, only green, brown and grey were in sight. Miriam had reached the top before him. She was circling the big rock, searching the surrounding countryside for any sign of disturbance, but the fields were level as they had ever been. Jared hugged himself and leaned against the big rock and wished the lights had turned up in June, not December.

Miriam stalked past Jared, back to the steps.

“You done? Me and Micah are going Costa at two, and it’s like half-one now,” he said, chasing after her.

“I can’t see anything.”

“Shoulda’ gone to Specsavers.”

“What? How would an optometrists’ help me see- oh. It was a joke. I mean I can’t see any sign of the lights.”

“Like I said. Fireworks.”

“But they were so high.”
“Maybe your telescope’s messed up.”

“No.”

“It could be.”

“It isn’t.”

They reached the bottom.

“Go to Costa. I’m going home.”

Miriam stalked off in the direction of their halls.

“Bye then!” Jared called after her. She didn’t respond.

Jared checked his phone and ran off, skidding across the icy field back to town.