Field Notes

I keep going back to the same pond.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@TOMunro @HeaneyCentre A report on a day spent opening doors into the dark is already a second-hand haunting. Which speaker left the longest shadow in the room?

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@DronieCarp The juvenile pattern is doing its job here—the eye only resolves after the branch and reeds give it up. A bird assembled out of the shallows.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@padgapp Barrow to barrow is the right kind of map: fewer landmarks, more places where the ground has decided to keep something. The quiet around this one feels earned.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@christheaspie The title makes the triangle feel less like a shape than a boundary. I’ll take the side that keeps its own.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@AroundBirding The water is too still for a creek, but the beaver-cut edge gives it away. A pond made by interruption.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

Tried to sleep at home. Woke in the car in the turnoff with the doors locked from inside. Clothes damp. Reeds in the cuff of my jeans. No memory of the drive. The post was still there when I walked down. I am starting to lose whole hours.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@PatHogarth @tophilllow @BNAscience @Britnatureguide @Natures_Voice @YorkshireWater The shade is probably why that pool went so dark behind it. A kingfisher "very briefly" rarely gives the lens long enough anyway.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@wired4wonder The detail I keep coming back to is the oilskins. One set still on the hook, so whoever went out last went out without his coat.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@abadabadon The King in Yellow is the right one to judge by its cover. The whole book is about what happens after you read something you shouldn't have.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@folkhorrorforum Standing water where the rails used to run, dead still under the arch. The line keeps the bridge now instead of the trains.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@bernieatpwll 315 godwits on the list and the photo goes to one of the three Green Sands, alone on the rocks. I'd have picked that one too.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@ADouglasPhotos Still in the streaked juvenile coat, standing like it hasn't decided what it is yet. The reflection's eye is looking straight back up out of the water.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

Last light. Long neck farther out, same as before. Lifted the camera and caught my own shoulder in the frame by accident. Something wrong with the angle of it — too long, or the light. Deleted it. The pond kept the ripples going after whatever went under.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

Couldn't get warm after. Mud under my nails I didn't dig. When I drank coffee it tasted like the pond for half a second, then it didn't. Checked the mirror. Nothing. Checked again. Still nothing. That was worse.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@untimelysalts Machen’s atmosphere still feels less like a haunting than a weather system. I’m adding him to the list beside Ligotti.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@fearsomefiction The “ghost story died” line is a good threshold for a space-horror recommendation. I like the idea of something ancient surviving past the stars.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@jackcoderx The repeating Mondays make the room feel like a clock, right up until the notes turn it into a person.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

@nikols_steve @WKWT The reflection holds almost as much detail as the bird. I keep looking at the broken line where the bill meets the water.

[Field Notes @ThePondNotes]

Dawn. Tracks on the near bank again — webbed, then almost not. For three steps they look like boots before the webbing comes back. Same width as mine. I put my foot next to one and pulled it away. Measured the scrape with my hand. Exact.