full. Full! he shrieked, full.
Foolish.
Dusk.
God rest ye merry gentlemen.
The path was hill-like. So damn awkward to negotiate because of the damn bushes, the general vegetation all overgrown, over growing, so-called shrubbery. One saw such bushes in the knowledge that as one looked the denser it became, their accursed life continuing unabated, fraction by fraction, oh yes they were growing, they would not stop growing.
Melodrama was a tendency of mine. Christine saw it in me and despised it. Rightly. I agreed with her. She said she did not despise it, but she did, obviously she did. Such tendencies are despicable, in this day and age, and occasionally I appeared powerless to halt that one. Things do crowd in on one; emotionally, intellectually, and in the outside world actual substances, material matter, it impinges. One cannot be separate.
Some branches were brambles and shooting out in my face. Bramble shoots. And I was having to dodge them, stepping from the path on to the earth where clumps of massive rhubarb grew in a row. Gigantic rhubarb. Onto the earth. Others could have said ‘into’. To step into the earth. Ghastly thought.
Does dusk fall?
Dusk falling.
But if we insist on precision; for those of us who do. But why bother. Christine ridiculed precision, inme at any rate. Nowadays she did. In the early years it was that selfsame precision, my ability to prise out the truth. Wheedling the truth, she said. Wheedling. It was meant unkindly. In her opinion I only made matters worse. Obscurum per obscurius. I was guilty.
And would be dead soon enough, thank God.
A younger man might have jumped onto the bicycle and pedalled to freedom. A boy would have done so. A boy sees no risks. One places the bicycle on the ground, one jumps aboard, one pedals. Girl or boy. My daughter and my granddaughters. Or girls.
I wondered if the owners of the house watched me from the window. Who in heaven’s name were they anyway. I wanted nothing to do with such people and resented that the purchase of this bicycle had forced the acquaintance. Economics is a loathsome matter. The man had been pleasant enough; although perfunctory is a more apposite term. The woman was downright hostile. I tried speaking their language. She interrupted at once with a carefully nuanced sigh. If she had been my wife ‘good cause’ would have been mine, for annoyance of a reasonable nature.
I recognized her sigh: only women are capable of such – such – emissions. Downright bad manners I called it. Rudeness is rudeness.
And the language of these people I found demanding. And when they do not help! The man was all right but she was not, she was scornful. Luckily for her Christine had not been present.
My wife’s patience was limited, very limited. Neither was she fond of strangers. It caused friction between us when I so charged her. Life is difficult enough.
Yes, she said.
It is us; we are the strangers.
Thank you for the explanation. I can rely on you.
Sarcasm and Christine he sighed, wearily, wearily.
Damn weight. A dead weight. Bikes nowadays. It certainly was not light and yes, it was very awkward because of the chain and its protective metal guard, getting in my way, they just kept getting in my way thus having to carry the damn thing slightly out from my shoulder, I had to, thus unable to put all my strength behind it, I could not, so that too, my God, this was causing the problem and that tweaking tweaking, as though a tautness, as of a tendon coming to snap: that was the tweaking.
The thought of the trek home.
He sighed, sighed.
Of course the pedals were in the old design, which my grandson no doubt, no doubt, would find off putting. Only a fool expected gratitude.
Nothing was ever easy, arrived easily.
I could hardly walk here. But who could? The path was beyond discussion.
The gate at last. I saw it. Why not? Gates exist. The one entity whose existence one can rely upon safely. Where humankind existeth so too doth the
Foolish.
Dusk.
God rest ye merry gentlemen.
The path was hill-like. So damn awkward to negotiate because of the damn bushes, the general vegetation all overgrown, over growing, so-called shrubbery. One saw such bushes in the knowledge that as one looked the denser it became, their accursed life continuing unabated, fraction by fraction, oh yes they were growing, they would not stop growing.
Melodrama was a tendency of mine. Christine saw it in me and despised it. Rightly. I agreed with her. She said she did not despise it, but she did, obviously she did. Such tendencies are despicable, in this day and age, and occasionally I appeared powerless to halt that one. Things do crowd in on one; emotionally, intellectually, and in the outside world actual substances, material matter, it impinges. One cannot be separate.
Some branches were brambles and shooting out in my face. Bramble shoots. And I was having to dodge them, stepping from the path on to the earth where clumps of massive rhubarb grew in a row. Gigantic rhubarb. Onto the earth. Others could have said ‘into’. To step into the earth. Ghastly thought.
Does dusk fall?
Dusk falling.
But if we insist on precision; for those of us who do. But why bother. Christine ridiculed precision, inme at any rate. Nowadays she did. In the early years it was that selfsame precision, my ability to prise out the truth. Wheedling the truth, she said. Wheedling. It was meant unkindly. In her opinion I only made matters worse. Obscurum per obscurius. I was guilty.
And would be dead soon enough, thank God.
A younger man might have jumped onto the bicycle and pedalled to freedom. A boy would have done so. A boy sees no risks. One places the bicycle on the ground, one jumps aboard, one pedals. Girl or boy. My daughter and my granddaughters. Or girls.
I wondered if the owners of the house watched me from the window. Who in heaven’s name were they anyway. I wanted nothing to do with such people and resented that the purchase of this bicycle had forced the acquaintance. Economics is a loathsome matter. The man had been pleasant enough; although perfunctory is a more apposite term. The woman was downright hostile. I tried speaking their language. She interrupted at once with a carefully nuanced sigh. If she had been my wife ‘good cause’ would have been mine, for annoyance of a reasonable nature.
I recognized her sigh: only women are capable of such – such – emissions. Downright bad manners I called it. Rudeness is rudeness.
And the language of these people I found demanding. And when they do not help! The man was all right but she was not, she was scornful. Luckily for her Christine had not been present.
My wife’s patience was limited, very limited. Neither was she fond of strangers. It caused friction between us when I so charged her. Life is difficult enough.
Yes, she said.
It is us; we are the strangers.
Thank you for the explanation. I can rely on you.
Sarcasm and Christine he sighed, wearily, wearily.
Damn weight. A dead weight. Bikes nowadays. It certainly was not light and yes, it was very awkward because of the chain and its protective metal guard, getting in my way, they just kept getting in my way thus having to carry the damn thing slightly out from my shoulder, I had to, thus unable to put all my strength behind it, I could not, so that too, my God, this was causing the problem and that tweaking tweaking, as though a tautness, as of a tendon coming to snap: that was the tweaking.
The thought of the trek home.
He sighed, sighed.
Of course the pedals were in the old design, which my grandson no doubt, no doubt, would find off putting. Only a fool expected gratitude.
Nothing was ever easy, arrived easily.
I could hardly walk here. But who could? The path was beyond discussion.
The gate at last. I saw it. Why not? Gates exist. The one entity whose existence one can rely upon safely. Where humankind existeth so too doth the
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