A fertile imagination is a good thing, except at 3 a.m.

Tap. Tip tap. Tap tap tap tap … tip tap.

Whatever it was, it was behind me, though I couldn’t see it. A blanket-like, 3 a.m. fog had settled over Baldwin Lake, its outriggers oozing across the road like tenebrous fingers, wrapping themselves around half-buried tree roots, obscuring the decaying remains of autumn’s expired leaves.

Caught in a dank breeze, leaves scudded across the shrouded pavement, etching out sounds like death watch beetles — chitinous, skittering. 

Tap. Tip tap tip.

Definitely behind me. Closer now.

I stopped and stared back into the darkness, trying to pierce the fog. The tapping suddenly ceased. I waited, but it did not start up again.

I thought of my bed, waiting in my apartment on the other side of the lake. Cozy. Comfortable. I should be there now, I thought, not out strolling through this abominable, impenetrable fog! Insomnia or no, what was I thinking?

I started walking. A few steps and I heard it again, faint but unmistakable: tap, tip tap, tap.

The next street lamp was 500 steps ahead, a tiny, glowing pocket of light in this misty, musty blackness.

I wasn’t exactly scared. Not yet. This is Greenville, not 17th Century London, not Transylvania. A nice, quiet neighborhood, nestled up to a small lakeshore. Bad things don’t happen here. Not REALLY bad things.

And though I’m older than dirt I can — or could, at last check — still bench nearly 300 pounds. I’m not helpless.

But … tap. Tip tip tap.

What WAS that sound?

I stopped again. Tap tip tap t— It stopped, too.

I waited. Nothing. Then … tap … then nothing again.

Why hadn’t I brought a flashlight? I often do when walking around the lake after dark. But this October night was unseasonably warm and inviting. When I had set out 30 minutes earlier, the fog had seemed sultry and secretive, an opportunity to spend a little time in my own private, late night world, all alone.

Except … I wasn’t alone. Someone was out here with me. Behind me. Keeping pace with my steps. The streetlight still seemed a long way off.

I thought about calling into the fog, “Is anyone there?” But what if nobody answered? I knew someone was behind me. Following me. Walking when I walked, stopping when I stopped. Pacing me. Stalking me.

If they didn’t answer, what would that mean? That they didn’t WANT to answer? And if not, why not?

Gooseflesh rippled to life on my arms, crawled up my shoulders, traced stealthy, cloying fingers over the back of my neck.

Tap. Tip tap.

I walked faster. It didn’t escape my notice that the cemetery was coming up on my right. I sometimes walk there, under the light of a noonday sun. Even then it seems pleasantly gothic, a throwback to the days before the sterilization of death, to a time when the dearly departed were laid to rest beneath imposing monoliths of granite and stately oak trees. It’s a cemetery to which the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come might accompany Ebenezer Scrooge, or from which Igor might harvest a few human organs for the experiments under way back at Castle Frankenstein. 

On a sunny day, the cemetery is pleasant and peaceful. On a foggy night, with something tip-tapping in your wake, it becomes stage dressing for a B-movie horror extravaganza, one in which you are to be the ax wielding maniac’s next victim. 

But at least the cemetery’s entrance is near the street lamp. I halted beneath its glow and waited. Here, I decided, I would make my stand and face down whatever it was that tip-tapped behind me.

Tap. Tip tap tip. Closer now. From within the billows of fog, a shadow detached itself and moved forward. Tap. Tip tap. T—

It stopped. Less than 20 feet from my feeble circle of light, something stood still. Tall. Dark. Waiting. Then, when I thought the standoff would go on indefinitely, it lurched forward, its right arm held stiffly forward.

“I’ve got mace!” Not the guttural growl of an ax wielding maniac, but a quavering, tremulous contralto. 

Out of the fog stepped a slender young woman, maybe 30, vaguely pretty, led by a small, leashed dog of indeterminate genus. The dog’s toenails clicked against the macadam. Tip tip tip tap.

“I thought you were an ax wielding maniac,” I said as she passed. I meant it to be funny, but she didn’t smile. She clutched the dog’s leash like a lifeline and hugged the opposite side of the road. 

As she disappeared into the fog ahead of me, the tip tapping gained speed and soon faded. I breathed out, back in, out again. I started walking.

One by one, the muscles in my back unclenched and I relaxed. The streetlamp’s glow fell behind me and I was again swallowed by the fog. 

In any decent horror movie, I realized, it would be at precisely this point that SOMETHING would reach out of the fog; something with gnarled, misshapen hands, with perhaps too many fingers, or too few. And those hands would not caress, but grab, rend, squeeze.

That last mile home seemed to take a long time.

Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com or at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com.  Mike’s paperback, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available at Robbins Book List in Greenville or online at Amazon.com.

Literature, wine and arm wrestling make for a miserable morning

One day, I will sit down to write this column and the sun will be shining. The birds will be singing. Pillowed, Care Bear clouds will punctuate a cerulean, Big Blue Marble sky. God will be in His heaven and all will be right with the world. I’ll spring from bed refreshed and happy, a smile on my face and a “go get-em” feeling in my heart.

But not today.

Today, the sky is gray. The birds are silent. They better be, if they know what’s good for them. God may well be in His heaven, but He’s not making a big show of it.

All because I stayed up too late last night. Not just a little too late, but a lot. I rolled into bed just after 5 a.m.

Why? Because I was having a fascinating conversation with Sweet Annie.

Now, I knew I had to be up this morning at 7 a.m. I’m no math genius, but even I should have been able to figure out a 5 a.m. bedtime leaves me only two hours sleep. I’m also no biology genius (or any kind of genius, if we want to set the record perfectly straight), but my guess — based on my current condition — is that two hours sleep is not enough.

But here I am, eyes propped open with toothpicks and 20,000 milliliters of caffeine trudging sluggishly through my bloodstream, trying desperately to get the day’s work in by deadline.

When I was younger, or at least less old, staying up until 5 a.m. or later was my usual schtick. Back in the ‘80s, vampires saw more daylight than I did. I would hang out at the clubs until close, hit a house party until sunup, and then drive home to sleep until time to do it again. It never bothered me a bit.

And now? Well, now I can’t seem to sit at my own kitchen table until 5 a.m., sipping wine with my sweetie (she sips, I chug) while debating the literary merits of Alice McDermott vs. those of Wallace Stegner. I can’t, I mean, unless I want to feel like this, which, believe me, I do not.

I’m not sure why I felt obliged to defend Stegner’s writing prowess until the wee hours; I’m pretty sure he’s never defended mine. I suspect — based on my current, fuzzy-tongued condition — that the wine played some small part in my decision.

I didn’t quaff any great quantity of the stuff, but I was sipping (OK, chugging) it fairly late into the evening.

Annie and I are both big readers, so our conversations frequently turn to books, especially when we have more than a few minutes together to chat. She’s educated, intelligent and comes from a family of similar quality. One of her brothers is head of the Germanic Languages department at Duke University, by way of example.

She’s got a bigger brain than I do. But I can beat her arm wrestling, even when she cheats and uses both hands. So there.

The books Annie reads are generally of the McDermott/Stegner variety. I’m more a King/Koontz kinda guy. But occasionally, I’ll read one of her books, just to remind myself what good writing looks like.

Also, it gives us something to argue about when we’re sitting at the kitchen table drinking wine until 5 a.m.

Though after the way I feel this morning, I’ve made up my mind that from now on we’ll settle our literary debates by midnight, the old-fashioned way: arm wrestling.

Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com or go online to mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com.

Banking the math atheist way

I’ve heard rumors that some people keep a running tally of the balance in their checking account. Can this be true?

To the best of my understanding, this would require doing some sort of math every time one initiated a transaction. Either adding (deposits) or subtracting (purchases or withdrawals).

Sometimes I use my little debit card thingy five or six times a day. That would be a LOT of math! For a guy like me.

For the past 40 years I’ve been trying to disprove my ninth grade algebra teacher’s Big Lie that I would “need math in everyday life.” For the most part, I’ve been successful in this endeavor. I don’t try to figure out how many miles per gallon I get with my beat-up van; I don’t try to calculate how long I’ll have to work before I can afford to retire (though rough estimates put that figure at another 73 years); and I never, ever, ever reconcile my checkbook with my monthly bank statement.

All my ex-wives did this and I noticed it never made them happy. Just the opposite, in fact.

Through careful planning, I’ve managed for decades to keep all the math in my life “fuzzy.” I usually know I have “about” this much money, or that much gas left in the tank. I know “about” when the oil needs to be changed in the aforementioned beat-up van.

The word “about” figures prominently in my life.

This philosophy — this math atheism — extends into traditionally non-mathematical areas, like birthdays. I know my daughter was born May 10 and I was born Nov. 26. That’s it. My son was born sometime in November (maybe the 13th); my step-son was born sometime in December (probably the 21st, but maybe not; that might be his mother’s birthday).

“Sometime” is another of those words I use a lot.

My parents, siblings and close personal friends … their birthdays I usually find out about after the fact. It’s not that I don’t care, I do. It’s just that my mind won’t hang onto numbers. I’m not just a math atheist, I’m a numbers atheist, or at least a numbers agnostic. Numbers may exist, they may not; who am I to say?

Cooking is another area in which I manage to avoid math. I’m a pretty good country cook, having grown up in the restaurant business. But I’m one of those cooks that just kinda throw things together based on whatever’s in the pantry; there’s never any rhyme or reason. And there’s certainly never any math. 

I have a measuring cup — with FRACTIONS printed on it — but I never use it. Those fractions — two-thirds, one-half, three-quarters; they count as math.

But back to that checking account thing. I never know the exact balance I’ve got in there. However, I usually know the “fuzzy” balance. Nine times out of ten this system works just fine.

It works like this: I stuff a bunch of money into the account, and then I buy stuff with the debit card. When the debit card stops working, I stuff more money into the account. It’s an elegant system, with no flaws that I can see. Oh sure, every so often, the bank will find a flaw and charge me thirty bucks for doing so.

To me, it’s worth it. I’ll gladly pay $30 once or twice a year if it means I don’t have to do any math.

Now if I could only find a way to get out of geography…

mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions.com (616) 548-8273