{"id":24535,"date":"2019-12-22T12:03:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T10:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/?p=24535"},"modified":"2019-12-22T12:09:45","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T10:09:45","slug":"a-christmas-ghost-story-ii-by-david-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/a-christmas-ghost-story-ii-by-david-clark\/","title":{"rendered":"A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY II 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<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nikolai hummed softly to himself, he was feeling emotional now he was at last\u00a0 back in his homeland and on his way home for Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0 His throat had tightened and a tear had run down his face when he had cleared the border, but he was eagerly anticipating the welcome from his mother and his friends in the little village perched high in the Rhoddopi mountains.\u00a0 What\u00a0 tales he would have to tell !!\u00a0 He could imagine himself in the little caf\u00e9, sitting next to a roaring log fire with his friends.\u00a0 They would eat shopska salad and drink rakia,\u00a0 telling\u00a0 each other stories of this two\u00a0 years triumphs and disasters, but this time, he,\u00a0 would hold centre stage, everyone would want to know about his life in Germany, such a distant and wonderful place for his village friends.\u00a0 Nickolai had been born the second son of\u00a0 the village carpenter, he was a diligent pupil, and had worked\u00a0 hard to earn his place in computing at Sofia University.\u00a0 He had graduated with honours and had vowed he wouldn\u2019t waste these skills and knowledge in his country, where pay was so low and opportunities so limited, he would take his hard earned skills abroad, for a new life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The\u00a0 Opel purred along the roads,\u00a0 splashing through the many puddles, and pot holes, the rain came down in torrents out of a black and threatening sky, it would\u00a0 probably turn to snow as he climbed the mountains.\u00a0 Still, the little car which he had saved for and brought out of his first years salary, was in good condition, and he had stopped on the way to buy a set of chains just in case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He could see the mountains now and this made him even more emotional as he remembered his childhood with all his friends and their families.\u00a0 It was a hard life, but they were a good community and helped each other in times of trouble.\u00a0 As he climbed higher and higher the rain turned to snow as he had predicted. It was getting dark now and his visibility was restricted to the yellow pool cast by his lights,\u00a0 all he could see was the whirling snow.\u00a0 It was a good job that he knew these\u00a0 mountains,\u00a0 this was no night to be out on strange roads.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The gears whined as the car ground slowly up the mountain road, he was approaching his village, now he would have to be careful not to take the wrong road at the fork, as the way over the old bridge was much further and would take him at least another half hour.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Suddenly out of the snow and mist loomed a shaggy figure, he was standing on the fork waving at Nickolai to take the old road.\u00a0 Peering through the hole in the snow left by the wipers Nickolai could just see that it was Petar Penkov the old village policeman,\u00a0 he could clearly see the vivid red scar on his face which had earned him a nickname by the village boys \u2018old fire face\u2019 ,\u00a0 Nickolai waved and turned to take the old road. There must be some problem at the new bridge,\u00a0 typical for Petar to be out directing the traffic, he took his duties very seriously. Nickolai remembered what a good policeman he had been, always fair but very stern,\u00a0 and not averse to giving a naughty boy a good clip round the ear if he was caught misbehaving in the village.\u00a0 He remembered the time that some men had come from another village for a name day celebration and drunk too much rakia,\u00a0 they got into a fight in the caf\u00e9 and when Petar had tried\u00a0 to stop them\u00a0 he had gone and stood by his side to show the men that Petar was\u00a0 not alone.\u00a0 He probably saved Petar from a beating, but after the men had left Petar just nodded without a word of thanks, and never mentioned the incident again, or showed any favours to Nickolai.\u00a0\u00a0 He was pleased to see Petar this dark night, the same stern uncompromising look, the same devotion to duty, surely he was due for retirement soon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u00a0 took him much longer by the old route, and by the time he reached his mothers house in the village he was very tired.\u00a0 His mother must have seen the lights as she came running out of the house calling his name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so worried, there\u2019s been a terrible accident at the new bridge and I was afraid that you would plough into it, in the dark and snow ,and be injured or killed\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOh it was no problem,\u00a0 Petar was at the fork directing the traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c Petar! \u201d his mother exclaimed \u201c no !, he died just a year ago on this very night\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I saw his face, the scar, his stern look, he waved to me !!!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no I\u2019ve just come back from the memorial service at Petar\u2019s\u00a0 grave\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nickolai stopped in shock,\u00a0 had Petar at last come to say thankyou \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n

\u00a9 David Clark<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nikolai hummed softly to himself, he was feeling emotional now he was at last back in his homeland and on his way home for Christmas. His throat had tightened and a tear had run down his face when he had cleared the border, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[71,77],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24535"}],"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=24535"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24541,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24535\/revisions\/24541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropaworld.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}