Issue 5 – Thursday 3 August
Terror at Tillyards
Monday was a dark and windy night down at the Tillyards Cafe. Small trips on the circuit breakers had been troubling the staff for some time, but all was well.
Suddenly, upon the tenth toll of the church bell, the lights went out. Screams of terror were heard all around, as people groped and fumbled in the darkness. Children covered their ears as the screams turned into the obscene language of desperation.
Phin, seeing his customers’ plight, leapt into action. He charged to the distributer, only to discover that no circuit breakers had fallen. His sense of urgency was further kindled when he could find no discerrnible reason for this to have happend. Perhaps this was all a ploy to draw him away from Tillyards. When he returned to the cafe, he found that it had plunged into chaos. In the words of Verity Jones, the darkness had provoked "inappropriate behaviour.”
Anarachy reigned. Strange, shifty characters were on the prowl, such as a shady man known only as ‘Eagle.'
As the staff strove to stay in control, their beloved and beautifully cratfed mugs, so generously given to those joining the coop, began to disappear. Phin grabbed a radio and tried to contact the site services, but his efforts were in vain; the line was jammed. Eventually, some men in jackets arrived, but their attempts to fix the generator were futile.
Then, when all seemed lost, hope arrived in the form of two folk musicians.
They brought order where there was none, and as the staff lit candles to easy the gloom, peace decended. Here, amongst the songs and merriment, the spirit of Global Village shone through.
Eventually, an enigmatic figure named ‘Simon Phillips’ arrived, and through his cunning and guile, managed to reset the generator. Power was restored.
Simon Cameron, a worker at the cafe, said that he was "close to crying” that night.
Will Barker reports that he succumbed to a “sinking feeling of mortal terror.”
Yet all pulled through, and perhaps in the darkness something was forged- a form of brotherhood.
All seems to be well now at Tillyards. The coffee is more delicious than ever.
The cause of the power cut, however, remains a mystery ...