The hearse sits outside my house. My mother inside. We walk slowly, stiffly, unwillingly out, someone mouths at me and points at a car, I stumble to it. They roll off slowly toward the church. The service passes in a tearful blur. The journey to the crematorium passes with tight smiling memories shared, amusing moments and what we remember of those now gone. We are laughing as the cars pull up to the crematorium. She would have liked that, always striving for laughter in the darkest situations. Quickly we enter to get out of the bitter early November cold. The biting wind cuts through my shirt. The service inside is short. Then it is over. My mother is gone. Only leaving memories and a few physical reminders. The dolphin pin I gave her for Christmas, the pictures around the kitchen, the wedding ring that bounces against my scarred chest, resting on a thin strip of leather. I wander through crowds of well wishers, come to pay their respects. The day ends and we drive away from the church, my familiar home town going by the window. My mother is gone. Everything is changing.
Cars dart around us, cutting in and out of lanes in a nonsensical pattern. The bus rolls heavily through the city centre. Cyclists weave through the traffic effortlessly moving smoothly and fast. People stride briskly, purposefully along the pavement. They rush from offices to coffee shops and back. Watching their eternal haste I am reminded of the relentless movement of an ant’s nest.
They bustle around, hurrying to get food, to ward off enemies. They dash from place to place with an unceasing motion. Centres of activity heave and the ground dances and shifts constantly. They each have a task to perform to maintain their position in the culture. Injured or killed their place is taken over efficiently and smoothly without a beat missed. Each town, each city I reach I am plagued, haunted by the incessant motion.
It was so easy when I was young. Just take off, cross the road, jump the fence and be away from all the pressures of modern life. Only parks and grass and football games and laughing friends and lounging under the summer sun and sky that lasts forever. Or peacefully exploring trees and fields, walking back to an ancient world, simple agricultural life, lines of crops, scattered cattle. A world revolving on weather and the seasons. Watch the fruit slowly ripen under the rains and sun. The fields unfolding as I walk slowly. My thoughts interrupted only by the harsh cry of a crow, the cheerful song of finches and skylarks, a hot diesel blast of a tractor rolling by, trains thundering past, the buzz of insects, dogs running off to chase rabbits. The eternal bliss of these open spaces cannot be measured by modern methods. Now we are grown and are expected to sit in an air-conditioned box, typing on a computer, wishing for the next coffee break and praying for the weeks to end, staring longingly out of the window as children crowd out of schools noisily and joyfully. Counting the seconds and minutes till it is time to leave, then going home to cook, entertain the kids, watch television for the evening. Life unfolds around you, while you are busy making other plans. Working for the food bill, mortgage, holidays, pension. The sun on my face, the winds cutting through my shirt, the rain soaking through clothes. I feel truly at ease with the world, knowing every twist and turn, every hill and tree for miles around. This is my home as much as the building I left miles behind. Even the coming winter can not dampen the joy I feel walking free across the fields. Leaves change and fall, brightening the brown, ploughed fields, the muddy potholed paths. I walk on.
They fall, twisting, spinning, dancing on the slightest breath of breeze, floating gently downwards, to carpet the ground in a lively tapestry of reds and oranges and yellows. On trees they serve us; providing the air we breathe, dying they brighten the bleak autumn land, a little light between the gathering grey clouds and the barren brown land. They flash colour before the darkness of the coming winter; colours like sunset, spilling impossible patterns across the darkening sky, the forests sparkling fingers take a last grasp at life before their death and the long, cold winter. Sodden by rain, they cling to tracks and tree trunks alike, no longer rigid in death they fall and hug the ground, as if painted on. But they remain high above me as I watch grand trees flash by pass. Burning red and orange as they die, brown earth, black road, steel sky. I open up the clock to look into the smiling faces, watch the display flash as seconds roll past. They leave us. Forever. Everything is changing. Only memory remains.
Cars dart around us, cutting in and out of lanes in a nonsensical pattern. The bus rolls heavily through the city centre. Cyclists weave through the traffic effortlessly moving smoothly and fast. People stride briskly, purposefully along the pavement. They rush from offices to coffee shops and back. Watching their eternal haste I am reminded of the relentless movement of an ant’s nest.
They bustle around, hurrying to get food, to ward off enemies. They dash from place to place with an unceasing motion. Centres of activity heave and the ground dances and shifts constantly. They each have a task to perform to maintain their position in the culture. Injured or killed their place is taken over efficiently and smoothly without a beat missed. Each town, each city I reach I am plagued, haunted by the incessant motion.
It was so easy when I was young. Just take off, cross the road, jump the fence and be away from all the pressures of modern life. Only parks and grass and football games and laughing friends and lounging under the summer sun and sky that lasts forever. Or peacefully exploring trees and fields, walking back to an ancient world, simple agricultural life, lines of crops, scattered cattle. A world revolving on weather and the seasons. Watch the fruit slowly ripen under the rains and sun. The fields unfolding as I walk slowly. My thoughts interrupted only by the harsh cry of a crow, the cheerful song of finches and skylarks, a hot diesel blast of a tractor rolling by, trains thundering past, the buzz of insects, dogs running off to chase rabbits. The eternal bliss of these open spaces cannot be measured by modern methods. Now we are grown and are expected to sit in an air-conditioned box, typing on a computer, wishing for the next coffee break and praying for the weeks to end, staring longingly out of the window as children crowd out of schools noisily and joyfully. Counting the seconds and minutes till it is time to leave, then going home to cook, entertain the kids, watch television for the evening. Life unfolds around you, while you are busy making other plans. Working for the food bill, mortgage, holidays, pension. The sun on my face, the winds cutting through my shirt, the rain soaking through clothes. I feel truly at ease with the world, knowing every twist and turn, every hill and tree for miles around. This is my home as much as the building I left miles behind. Even the coming winter can not dampen the joy I feel walking free across the fields. Leaves change and fall, brightening the brown, ploughed fields, the muddy potholed paths. I walk on.
They fall, twisting, spinning, dancing on the slightest breath of breeze, floating gently downwards, to carpet the ground in a lively tapestry of reds and oranges and yellows. On trees they serve us; providing the air we breathe, dying they brighten the bleak autumn land, a little light between the gathering grey clouds and the barren brown land. They flash colour before the darkness of the coming winter; colours like sunset, spilling impossible patterns across the darkening sky, the forests sparkling fingers take a last grasp at life before their death and the long, cold winter. Sodden by rain, they cling to tracks and tree trunks alike, no longer rigid in death they fall and hug the ground, as if painted on. But they remain high above me as I watch grand trees flash by pass. Burning red and orange as they die, brown earth, black road, steel sky. I open up the clock to look into the smiling faces, watch the display flash as seconds roll past. They leave us. Forever. Everything is changing. Only memory remains.
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All stories and works in their complete form are available in the bookstore, to visit click here.
All stories and works in their complete form are available in the bookstore, to visit click here.