Charlie's Story - part 2

Charlie walked towards Silent Street like a spider drawn in circles to the centre of its web. The cold cut through his summer clothes, but he was warm with all the walking. In fact he was feverish, and although the blisters on his slippered soles throbbed, he walked on unrelentingly, regaining the pace of his youth as he ignored the creaking of his limbs.

As the blackness of the sky grew grey, then violet, then started to blush with the approaching dawn, Charlie rounded the last corner, and stopped. He looked up and saw the street bending off to the left as he remembered, severed half way by the high brick wall of the warehouse. Slowly now he allowed his feet to find the familiar bends in the pavement, to track the last paces to home. Number 34 was dark, and the flowers in the garden had now yet opened their petals to the new day. There were no lights in the windows, here or in any house along the street. Silent Street slept, and as it did, Charlie muttered aloud, ‘I can’t wake them now, best to wait till the suns up proper’. He turned to the church a few doors down. The bench felt as good as a feather bed as he lay down. As he lost consciousness his failing eyes picked out the proud initials he had carved himself. AP. Opening his mouth one more time, he said ‘Archie Parker, you’re home’.

The street stayed true to its name for an hour or two longer, then house by house sprung to life as the tea was poured and the business of the day began. Strangely it was Mrs Phillips, who lived at number 34, who noticed the huddled form of the old man on the park bench. She went to shake him awake, but knew from the look on his face that there was no use. ‘I wonder who he was’ she said, and un-clenched the clawed fingers that had somehow embedded themselves in the wood of the A and P of those old carved initials.