One Cool Thing: Chris Callaghan

​As part of this year's September Shorts I've asked writer friends to contribute posts inspired by the title One Cool Thing. They'll be telling you about one cool thing they're looking forward to as Autumn approaches. It might be a book or movie, a tabletop or computer game, an event or visit to a special place, a chance to achieve something... or perhaps even an exciting new project.
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Today is the turn of the terrific Chris Callaghan, a writer who conjures warmth, wit and a wonderful sense of fun from a disastrous situation in his comedy The Great Chocoplot. You can check out his website here.

​Chris Callaghan: Hello Darkness

One cool thing I’m looking forward to this autumn is the dark. Not the German sci-fi time-twisting Netflix mindbender, but the actual absence of light. The onset of shorter days and longer nights as winter arrives. It does mean getting up in the morning will be even harder and picking up dog poo on evening walks on overgrown fields becomes more of a challenge, but there is an undeniable coolness to the dark too.
 
The dark sometimes needs that little glint of light to show itself off. Whether it’s a uniform stream of streetlights punctuating the gloom, a full moon straining behind a cloud or the single beam of a torch snapping around a cellar searching for ‘something’. It’s in the dark where our imaginations run riot. The scariest things are not what we can see, but what we can’t – hidden in the murk, but still touching distance away.
 
But we fight the darkness. As the nights get longer, we defiantly fight harder. We illuminate everywhere we can. As Christmas approaches, that fight becomes more sparkly and kitsch, but the scale is nothing less than impressive – and I love that!
 
So, hello darkness, my old friend – I’ve come to do battle with you once again…