Believe What You Want To Believe

Perhaps there really is a creature living around Cliveden with glowing red eyes, menacing pointed claws, and huge black leathery wings. Perhaps it even breathes fire and munches its way through the local wildlife, making the papers from time to time as "the Taplow Beast" with people mistaking it for a panther of some sort. Personally, I'd prefer not to believe this kind of talk. Not so much because I think it's silly or boring, but more so because if such a creature is found to exist, I can shiver in the knowledge that one spring day in 1994, it almost had me and my friend for lunch. If that thought isn't conducive to nightmares, I don't know what is.

What's even scarier is that I don't even believe in "The Flincher." It's absurd. But I do believe in what I have experienced. What I see or what I feel. Therefore, logic tells me that "The Flincher", as explained in this writing, is as true and real as anything else I've ever encountered.

In all seriousness, try as I might to figure it out, I really don't know what happened to us that night. All I can say is that it was something that truly defies any realistic explanation that I can think of. I'm not going to state that it was a ghost, or a poltergeist, or a mythical winged beast - but I'm likewise not going to state that it wasn't. I can't say because I simply don't know. The bottom line here is that, in all probability, I never will really know. All I am left with is a baffled mind - a perplexing mystery that cannot deepen yet cannot be solved once and for all. And where would life be without such mysteries? Who knows. But I am quite sure it would be infinitely less interesting, after all, we have to keep our naïvety to some degree. If we knew all the answers, we wouldn't have any more questions - and without questions?...Well, hardly bears thinking about does it.

Anyway - I sincerely trust that you have enjoyed this foray into the unknown world of "The Flincher". Elsewhere on this site, you are able to see what Owen poetically recollects about the incident. Does he have any new theories of his own? or is it infinitely better to let "The Flincher" just "be". In the meantime, if you're ever in the Taplow area, take a deep breath and keep your senses peeled for those "Black wings, red eyes,...the surprise."

 

Damon Torsten

Box Hill, Australia
11th-12th June 2000

this version re-edited:
Ocean Grove, Australia
5th December 2001
 

If you have any questions, queries, or theories, please don't hesitate to contact us - We're always interested to know what other people make of these strange goings-on...