feeling listless

Books Unmemorable Book Openings #2 -- 'Doctor Who and The Daleks' by David Whitaker

"I stopped the car at last and let the fog close in around me. I knew I was somewhere on Barnes Common and I had a suspicious idea it was the most deserted part as well. A warm fire and the supper my landlady would have waiting for me seemed as far away as New Zealand. I wondered how long it would take me to walk home to Paddinton and the possible answer didn't do anything to cheer me up. A fitting end to an impossible day, I thought savagely.

"For a start, before breakfast, I'd torn my best sports jacket on a loose screw on the door of my room. It didn't help that I'd been putting off tightening it for weeks so I had nobody to blame but myself. Then later, after I'd driven all the way to Reigate for a job I was after as Assistant Research scientist at Donneby's the big rocket component firm, I found that a nephew of one of the directors had got the post and I'd made the journey for nothing. Now the fog and the prospects of a long, weart walk. I looked at my watch, delayed the decision as long a is possible. Nearly nine o'clock.

"Just as the second hand completed its minute, I heard the sound of running footsteps. Probably someone as lost as I was, I told myself, welcome for a delay from the final decision to begin walking. Suddenly, into the pallid glow of my headlights, a girl appeared. She stopped and I saw her hands moving slightly, and I could see her mouth opening to speak. I tore open the door and ran to her, catching her before she fell to the road..."

[Only really unmemorable for people who think that the series began with two teachers standing in for social services as they follow a strange young girl home to a junkyard to find out what her home life is like. Actually pretty memorable piece of writing if you know what it is. This offers a good explanation. Junkyard or Barnes Common, which do you think has the creepier opening? Well advised to pick up a copy at your local library for old times sake.]