The Fields or "For God's Sake Get a Life Woman"

The fields near where I live are at their most beautiful first thing in the morning.

And in the autumn, even more so.

When I opened the curtain this morning it was the perfect autumn dawn. Mute sunshine. Light mist touching the window pane. A frost on the grass.

I got out of bed, cold. Heating not yet on. I rushed to pull on my tracksuit trousers. Socks. Hoodie.

The baby was of course already awake, glaring at me from his cot. Unusually, he didn't need a nappy change. Some kind of nocturnal mystery. I changed it anyway, just in case.

Got him washed. Dressed. Breakfasted. He climbed into his buggy, keen as always for fresh air. (Who wouldn't be when you don't have to walk?)

The morning did not disappoint. Quiet of humans. Gentle birdsong. Only the occasional passing car from the big road. I crossed the sports pitch into the woods.

Clean air. Crisp fallen leaves underfoot. The world at its most wondrous. And in my heart, a feeling of hope.

How nice, you might think. A hopeful early morning stroll. Mother and child.

But the specific nature of that hope, walking along the dirt track through the wood, was that as I ambled through the trees, I would happen across one of the following:

1. a dead body (recent)
2. human remains (suspicious)
3. evidence of local satanic worship (eg severed goat's head or such like which would throw me into the midst of an ongoing police investigation into local businessmen murdering each other etc)

Of course, I'm not a jogger. That cut my chances considerably. Or an elderly gentleman walking his dog. But pushing the buggy along the muddy track, I cast an eager eye sidelong into bushes lest there be a stray pale arm poking out through the undergrowth. A disembodied head. A severed foot.

As I cleared the woods, corpse free, into the open fields behind, I wondered, not for the first time in my life, "Why not me?".

The sky was large and pale. So many people in the world.

Have I read too many crime novels? Or perhaps, as seems more likely, my life lacks excitement.

I imagine the police investigation. How important I would be. People asking ME questions! People caring what I thought! Perhaps reading something in a newspaper which I had influenced. Imagine!

Still. Sitting here now at the kitchen table, it seems unfair to expect someone else to go to all the bother of getting murdered just so I can live a little. There must be easier ways. Maybe I should join a club. Find a hobby. That sort of thing.

And in the meantime, I'll keep an eye out when I go on walks...