{"id":19542,"date":"2018-12-27T14:26:53","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T12:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/?p=19542"},"modified":"2018-12-27T14:26:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-27T12:26:53","slug":"a-christmas-ghost-story-by-david-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/a-christmas-ghost-story-by-david-clark\/","title":{"rendered":"A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY by David Clark"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Clark is a British businessman, who lived and worked in Bulgaria for 12 years before retiring to Norfolk U.K.\u00a0He is writing short stories and poems. When he was living in Sofia, he had published stories in different media. A contributor to \u201cSofia Echo\u201d newspaper. He had received an award for a short story from \u201cManager\u201d magazine. At the moment he is living in England and sending stories to the expat site Sofia Globe. David is married to Galya, his Bulgarian wife for 16 years. He is a member of Writers Club in Hethersett, Norfolk and publish short stories in local media as\u00a0\u201e<\/span>Village people\u201c<\/span>and others.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Anna Petrova trudged wearily through the snow, with her two plastic shopping bags laden with vegetables from the Jenskiya market, the cheapest in the city. It was Christmas Eve; she was trying to make the best possible meal, from her meager savings, for the visit of her daughter and her beloved grandchildren. The traffic swished by on the road spraying her with ice laden water, her fingers were numb with cold, and the water seeped into her worn out old boots. Things had been hard since the death of her Ivan. Even though they\u2019d been pensioners these last few years, they\u2019d worked in the autumn to bottle the fruit and vegetables, make the pickles and lutenitsa, and be sure they had enough food for the winter. Now she was on her own and their little Trabant was gone, she couldn\u2019t travel so easily to the village to collect the vegetables from her friends and from her little garden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Slowly she climbed the stairs to her third floor apartment, the breath rasping in her throat. The flat was so cold; she turned on her one bar electric fire to take off the chill. The heating had been disconnected; she just couldn\u2019t afford the bills. Carefully unpacking her bags she inspected the fruit and vegetables, washing each one under the cold tap. She reached for her coat and her purse to count how many leva there were left. Her heart thumped in her chest, she felt only an empty pocket. Panicking now, she turned out all her pockets and bags, she searched the floor, the table, the hall, the living room \u2013 nothing ! <\/span><\/p>\n

Sinking into a kitchen chair with her head in her hands she began to weep quietly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Her crying turned into loud sobs, she just couldn\u2019t take any more, she slipped into a deep sleep. <\/span><\/p>\n

Anna woke up with a start. It was dark now and only the faint glow from the electric fire illuminated the room. She could smell the smoke from Ivan\u2019s pipe and see the back of his head as he sat in his favorite armchair, she shivered. \u201cIvan\u201d she called in a voice quaking with fear, \u201cIs that you?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho do you think it is, you silly old goat\u201d, he replied? \u201cDid you bring some rakia to drive away the cold?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u201d she sobbed”, she hardly dare tell him, \u201cI lost my purse\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat!\u201d he said, \u201cWe had better go and look for it, put your coat on quickly\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

He took her by the hand and they slowly shuffled through the darkened corridors into the street below. They didn\u2019t feel the bitter cold, they must find the purse. Searching every pavement and road they hurried all the way back to the market. Her sight was not so good now, but Ivan still had a keen eye. They went back to the stalls she had been to, but nothing, fear started to rise again. Ivan suddenly let out a cry, as he pointed to the purse poking out from under a stall where it had been kicked by the passing crowd. Relief flooded through her old body. She bent down to pick it up, and to her surprise lying next to it were two bank notes folded together, 100 leva ! She couldn\u2019t believe her eyes. Picking up the notes she turned to the stall holder. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHave you dropped these? \u201c <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo I haven\u2019t\u201d he said, and laughed loudly, \u201cYou\u2019re the lucky one, I had a Neck and his girlfriend here a few minutes ago, flashing their money around and arguing over the quality of my fruit, they must have dropped them !” ”Take them, they\u2019re yours!” They certainly won\u2019t miss 100 leva.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve got yourself a nice Christmas present!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She turned to ask Ivan what he thought, but he wasn\u2019t there, just the swirling snow and a deepening mist covering the market.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIvan! Ivan! \u201cshe called.<\/span><\/p>\n

The stall holder looked at her with a puzzled frown on his face, \u201c You came by yourself old lady, get home quickly, the weather\u2019s turning worse. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be out on a night like this\u201d. \u201cMerry Christmas!!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 David Clark <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Clark is a British businessman, who lived and worked in Bulgaria for 12 years before retiring to Norfolk U.K. He is writing short stories and poems. When he was living in Sofia, he had published stories in different media. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,71,77],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19544,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19542\/revisions\/19544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}