Saul is forty-seven years old and starting again from scratch. Thrown onto life’s scrapheap when his marriage disintegrates and he loses his house to his cheating wife, he’s understandably cynical at the idea of ‘happy ever after’. The old photo he finds in the rundown flat he moves into only serves to reinforce his belief that marriage is doomed to end in misery. While the groom beams smugly at the camera, the look of silent desperation in his young bride’s eyes speaks volumes.
But when, on a whim, Saul places the photo on the table in his bedroom, his dreams turn troubled. Night after night, sleep paralysis seizes him, forcing him to watch as something sinister climbs from the photo and creeps nearer and nearer.
What happens next is the stuff of nightmares.
Except Saul is horribly aware that he is very much awake.
The Picture of Happiness is the third sinister short story in the Truly, Madly, Weirdly collection, written by award-winning author Victoria Williamson and available to purchase as an anthology.
