3.1: An awakening into darkness

Season 3: Frog alone, a haunting

Froggie comes suddenly to his senses. He is awake and it is dark. Slowly he realises that he is alone in the Swan Hotel and that summer has well and truly ended, autumn has fully arrived and that the hour has ‘gone back’. It may not be that late, after all. Surely, it was afternoon when he drifted off? Still, it always feels uncanny to wake at the wrong time. And he is by himself. 

He recalls that the Barman, and everyone else, has gone away for a few weeks to sunnier climes. The Barman cashed an annuity – didn’t he? – and offered to take everyone, even the Minkey, away from at least the first half of the dismal Cumbrian autumn and winter months for a sunny holiday. Only Froggie refused, feeling guilty about the recent events for which he’d been responsible. In a madness, he had brought risk to the pub, his own home of the last few decades. So he had refused to join the others. Thus, he will be alone until Christmas, tending the pub until they all return. 

Everything feels suddenly dark and dismal. Irrationally, even the Swan Hotel’s lights seem dimmer. Such, perhaps, is autumn.

The story ‘Frog alone: a haunting’ will update every Sunday at 6pm until Christmas Eve and then at 10am on Christmas Day itself. ‘Patron level’ subscribers can ask questions of the stars, receive otherwise unreleased backstage photographs and be in the draw for memorabilia, all for a subscription of 5p per episode.