This may seem random at the start. I felt like a change, so a change of perspectives it is.
Gertrude Finklewickle was - in very essence and design - your average housewife, from her wispy grey hair to her cracked dry heels with bunioned and blistered toes, stuffed into her tight-fitting scuffed leather sandals. Her routine never differed. There was not much that this apathetic, seasoned, all-knowing woman hadn't seen or experienced in her fifty-odd years on this earth. Each weathered wrinkle etched into her coarse face belied another year of drudgery on this earth. Her usual routine began at five in the morning, when she awoke before the sun rose, rekindled the fires and swept out the dust and dirt that has accumulated in the kitchen. She peeled rotted and bruised potatoes for the watery stew she would prepare later in the day, then as soon as the sun rose she would collect the morning's water from the fountain at the town's square, so she could boil the potatoes and make the thin soup for her twelve children for breakfast. It was when she was preforming this innocent task at sunrise that she witnessed an image so startling and strange she would remember it until her dying day two decades later, and would tell her children and her children's children the story every few nights around the fireplace after their meagre supper.
She was the only soul at the silent town's fountain, and had just finished filling her leaking and split wooden bucket full of cool water to boil for the soup for breakfast. She was preparing to fill another for washing the clothes when she heard it. The sun had only just risen, casting weak grey light and long dark shadows over the small flagstone square. Glancing up in alarm, she was surprised to see a dark-haired figure dashing across the deserted courtyard. His long hair flew out behind him like tresses belonging to Medusa's bewitched snakes, and beads and golden trinkets made an eerie jangling noise, announcing his presence. And he appeared to only be wearing one boot. His run could hardly be described as one. It was more of a weird tip-toeing dancing lurch, his feet and legs about two paces in front of his body, giving him an unbalanced, ungainly appearance; a comical interpretation of the word 'run.' His arms flailed wildly above his head, windmilling erratically.
Gertrude dropped her bucket and allowed it to clatter to the ground, the sharp cracking noise it made as it hit the flagstones sounding like a pistol-crack, and echoed off the walls of the buildings surrounding the square, but the stranger made no effort to pause to discover the source of the noise. In his wake followed a bedraggled bed-sheet, and what appeared to be a small storm cloud, whirling above head-level only several paces behind him.
As both raced towards the stunned housewife, the leathery whispers and high-pitched squeaks revealed that the dark cloud was actually a swarm of bats, appearing to be chasing the strange man across the deserted yard. As the peculiar figure rushed past Gertrude, she could hear him mutter in short breaths,
"Nasty. Bloody. Beasties!"
Good grief, he's heading towards the church, Gertrude thought, shocked. Poor soul must be desperate. She then shrugged, bent down and picked up her bucket and dipped it once more into the town's water, completely ignoring the swarm of bats as they flew overhead, barely missing becoming entangled in her grey wispy hair. Not once looking behind her, the housewife slowly lugged the sloshing buckets of water back home so she could peel her potatoes like she did every day, while at the other end of the town square Jack Sparrow made for the church, running for his life. Like he did almost every day.
Woot (whatever that means; happy noise made by an excited owl, is my guess). 200 reviews! Too tired to make another party-like noise. 'Woot' will have to do. Apologies for tardiness: was sick, went 'blergh', feel better. Sort of. Peace Out and Rock On