SHIDDER
On arriving by the red road to Shidder one is at first faced with a perplexing obelisk, thus inscribed: "It is only then, upon looking down to find yourself herself and not himself, that you reached out and took,that which is stowed upon the uppermost shelf"
Eighty feet tall and black as a church house beetle, it is not going to be easily fucking missed.
Oh, and the red road, is red. Just like the road from Dundee to Arbroath. So, nothing sinister, unless you count the destination.
Both the famous Duke, and compatriot, the Captain's dread, hail from this very town, and spent many a morning throwing peppercorns down the well to punish the faithful, troubling the wasp bikes in the eaves of Mother Pampkin's hayloft, and trifling with witchery and religion.
As has always been the tradition, old friend.
It's a farming town, a miasma of hamlets. Embers smoking in the golden hay. On any given day you would drive through it, and only remember the specific cardinal details as you smoulder to sleep.
The whole place smells of fried connections. Is that the machine settling in to working more efficiently, or is it conniving to become a shining deathtrap?
In Shidder I found myself shuddering and my grimace was set, my skull the ancient missing curio of a headless statuette, long lost in the sea. Who am I here, I thought?
Shuddering, Shidder, where's the train through the heart of the mountain? The way elsewhere from here.