In this chap­ter titled Night­mare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening, the scene unfurls not with qui­et sus­pense but with wild momen­tum, as a windswept street trans­forms into a the­ater of chaos and absur­di­ty. The set­ting is no ordi­nary night—it is a blus­tery autumn evening charged with move­ment, sound, and the com­ic strug­gle of one man try­ing to reach the com­fort of home. Mr. Sprug­gins, slight­ly off bal­ance from the indul­gence of a rich din­ner and wine, finds him­self tossed and spun by a wind that behaves less like weath­er and more like a mis­chie­vous trick­ster. The gusts seem to car­ry inten­tion, buf­fet­ing him around cor­ners, lift­ing his coat-tails like a pup­peteer would with strings, and even giv­ing him brief moments of flight as he stum­bles through desert­ed streets. The tone is play­ful yet unset­tling, blend­ing phys­i­cal com­e­dy with a creep­ing sense of being toyed with by forces beyond con­trol.

The moon, flick­er­ing in and out of view behind rush­ing clouds, joins the wind in this noc­tur­nal per­for­mance. It grins and darts about the sky, offer­ing flash­es of light that are less help­ful than mock­ing. Mr. Sprug­gins, already frus­trat­ed, squints up at it as though it too were in on the joke. When he final­ly reach­es his front steps, the relief is imme­di­ate but short-lived. A sud­den surge of wind slams him against the door, flat­ten­ing him like a leaf against glass, and rob­bing him briefly of breath. Fum­bling with his keys, he curs­es and mut­ters as the key­hole seems to shift with the moon­light. The wind howls around him, mak­ing his coat flap wild­ly, his hat twist, and his patience fray with each pass­ing sec­ond. It’s a scene rich in farce but tinged with anxiety—the kind of night­mare where the famil­iar becomes treach­er­ous, and the mun­dane, like a key, turns into a cru­el puz­zle.

Once inside, the chaos does not cease. The wind, thin­ner now but still insis­tent, finds cracks in win­dows and under door­frames, invad­ing like an unwant­ed guest. Mr. Sprug­gins attempts to light a can­dle, but the flame trem­bles, bends, and near­ly dies under invis­i­ble breath. His face moves in close, eyes nar­rowed, until the can­dle final­ly catch­es, though the flame singes his chin in the process. It’s a vic­to­ry, but a painful one, and the can­dle’s waver­ing light casts elon­gat­ed shad­ows across the walls, turn­ing the inte­ri­or of his home into a flick­er­ing cham­ber of unease. The wind, per­son­i­fied through­out, seems to resent this tri­umph. It whis­tles and whines, try­ing to reach the flame once more, cre­at­ing drafts that swirl the cur­tains and shift the furniture’s silence into sug­ges­tion. Mr. Sprug­gins watch­es the shad­ows, no longer sure if he’s alone.

The lan­guage through­out remains as ani­mat­ed as the wind itself, with words tum­bling into each oth­er in rhythm with the night’s dis­tur­bances. This style, ener­getic and unpre­dictable, mir­rors the dis­ori­ent­ed state of the pro­tag­o­nist. The atmos­phere is built not from fear but from height­ened absur­di­ty, evok­ing the ten­sion of being caught in a dream where con­trol has been entire­ly sur­ren­dered. The wind, moon, and can­dle don’t just act on Mr. Spruggins—they seem to react to him, teas­ing and test­ing his resolve as he tries to regain sta­bil­i­ty. The sto­ry doesn’t rest pure­ly on descrip­tion, but on sensation—how it feels to be at the mer­cy of ele­ments that don’t obey rules, in a world that sud­den­ly refus­es to coop­er­ate.

What makes this tale res­onate beyond its com­ic struc­ture is its emo­tion­al sub­text. Mr. Spruggins’s bat­tle with the wind reflects more than just a lit­er­al storm; it echoes the uni­ver­sal expe­ri­ence of strug­gling against invis­i­ble pres­sures. Life often forces peo­ple through moments that feel exag­ger­at­ed, ridicu­lous, or even impossible—yet one must con­tin­ue for­ward, breath­less and irri­tat­ed, until the moment pass­es. His exag­ger­at­ed move­ments and mut­tered com­plaints offer a mir­ror to those small, dai­ly frus­tra­tions that accu­mu­late and mock our attempts at com­po­sure. Even light­ing a can­dle becomes a sym­bol­ic act, a flick­er of con­trol in an evening ruled by exter­nal whim. The tiny flame, frag­ile but endur­ing, becomes a qui­et sym­bol of resis­tance against a world too wild to rea­son with.

By the time the storm qui­ets and the can­dle holds, there’s a shift in the mood—not of res­o­lu­tion, but of uneasy still­ness. The night doesn’t apol­o­gize, nor does the wind ful­ly retreat. Mr. Sprug­gins has not con­quered any­thing, yet he has endured. That, per­haps, is enough. The tale clos­es with no grand insight, no dra­mat­ic shift, but with a return to rel­a­tive nor­mal­cy that feels earned. The read­er is left with the sense that while chaos is often brief, its residue lingers in small ways—like a breeze under a door, or the mem­o­ry of a flame too close to the skin. Night­mare: A Tale for an Autumn Evening becomes not just a whim­si­cal account of a man ver­sus the wind, but a metaphor for nav­i­gat­ing unseen tur­moil with stub­born deter­mi­na­tion.