Perfection! This is how narration should be done. No funny British accents. ( )

Decent ghost story. ( )

Month of October 2022 - Spooky Classics

The Signal Man by Charles Dickens (1866; 2014 audio version by Simply Magazine) 30 minutes.

Listened while I did a workout on the ARC trainer.

This is an instance of premonition, or paranormal, activity. The train station signal man sees one train accident and then later sees the train stop and remove the body of a dead woman. In each instance, he also sees a man in the dark at the very end of the tunnel, by the red light, waving frantically with one arm over his eyes. But, the signal man can’t determine who he is or what exactly he’s trying to say.

The narrator of the story doesn’t believe in the paranormal so tries to tell the old man that he was just dreaming.

After the old man sees the man at the end of the tunnel the third time, it’s at his own demise, and the narrator also sees the man at the end of the tunnel. He confronts the man, and asks him what was all the commotion about. The man replied that he saw the signal man heading down the track in the tunnel with his white light, but he didn’t see or hear the train coming. He was hollering and waving for him and, then seeing it was no use, covered his eyes and the train ran him over.

The story was a little confusing. The way it started out, I was to believe the signal man was already a ghost. Sometimes these classics have my head spinning. ( )

Long before “The Polar Express” gave us a train with a ghost, Dickens wrote this short story. A signalman tells the narrator of the story that he has seen a ghost, and that a terrible accident is going to occur. He is sure of it, but he has no details - not the place, or the day, or even the train involved. If he tries to report it, everyone will think him daft, so he does nothing except fret about it. It’s quite gripping for the entire short story, and the ending is worthy of a “One Step Beyond” episode, even if you don’t believe in ghosts. Dickens was a master of this genre. ( )

This one felt like Mr. Dickens was writing for the Twilight Zone. A very eerie ghost story, beautifully haunting and mysterious. Bravo.
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