The Green Man

By Logan Bell

Evie, growing up too quickly for my liking, has asked me about faith, about life after death.

I will answer her, of course, but first I need to make sense of things, to confront my past.

I think of the plane crash. I think of my mother. Most of all, I think of the Green Man.

Strangely, as I think back, the pen tight in my hand, the last remnants of steam drifting from the top of my quickly cooling coffee, it is the ending I remember clearest. Blue is the colour I see, not green. It is the flashing blue lights on top of the police car that mesmerize me. The tangle of pain and confusion I feel is like nothing I have ever previously experienced, and I feel hopelessly alone. In that frozen moment in time, I am lost.
A policeman approaches me, grim faced. His jacket collar is pulled up as high as it will go to keep the rain out. I stand motionless in front of him, my saturated T-shirt clinging to my flesh.
“Mr. Jones, can I ask you a couple of questions?” he says dourly.
I stare through him with so many unanswered questions of my own. The stretcher passes me and I cannot bear to look at it. For the first time in my life I am certain that my mother’s premonition was true.
I believe in the Green Man.
At that time, belief should have given me faith, but my grief was too fresh, my nerves too raw. It came later, as time helped to soften the edges. Earlier that day, things had been different.
The plane crash changed everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Logan Bell
• Release date: Nov 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463235065

Logan Bell

Writer. Mancunian. Optimist. Writing perfect sized reads for your commute.

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The Green Man

By

Logan Bell

The Green Man

By Logan Bell

Copyright 2010 Lee Mather

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This is not a story I have told easily; in fact, I have never spoken about it to anyone before tonight. It’s late, midnight almost, and I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, poised in the dark of my study, without a clue where to start. My heart beats quickly, my hands tremble. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Too much happened that day, and even the eight years that have passed have not been enough to heal me.

I sigh and reach past the clutter of my desk: a sleeping laptop, a charging phone, a mix of papers ranging from VAT receipts to Evie’s latest report card. I pick up the chewed pen I’ve spied trapped beneath the debris and hesitate. Maybe this story should be told face-to-face, but I’m still not ready to look someone in the eye and speak what’s on my mind. That is why I’ve chosen to write it down the old-fashioned way. This is the most human form of expression I can cope with.

There is further method in this madness. Hannah bought me this notebook, some years ago, after Doctor Adams told me that it might help me to start a journal. I never did. In fact, I ended my sessions with him not long after so it remained blank save for a private message handwritten by my wife on the inside cover. These thoughts don’t belong alongside anything else. I gently rub my fingers across the neat curves of her handwriting in search of the strength to begin. Without her knowing it, her connection to these pages helps me. She is my crutch. I breathe a heavy sigh, and the sound is exaggerated against the eerie quiet of the house. Pen touches paper.

Some context will help you before I continue. Faith had never been something that came easily to me.