Still Life

Late October was a time for new starts. Even a small gathering to celebrate my birthday. It was the third year running we had met there, that time of year. My cousin Robert went with us, squeezing in beside me. He hoped to finish his degree in engineering. I was taking my Higher exams for the fourth time. I was successful the following May, but at the time there was a sense of weary repetition, of going round in a treadmill like an unpaid hamster. This was a time of hope, an enclave: time to get away from disillusionment and disappointment.

     Cathy had more difficulty in getting in the other side, as she was at least seven months pregnant. Time had slowed for her for different reasons, in her time of waiting she did little now, but had given me a birthday cake the previous Sunday. It was kind of her. Her husband Donald seemed happy too. She was great and glorious, her red hair in keeping with the time of year. Her larger blouse, the colour of dark wood, rippled when she moved, like a Dryad, a tree-spirit.

     They gave me a card, and a copy of Jack London’s ‘White Fang’. The card showed a bowl of fruit, the pear fresh, the apple not yet ripe, the banana too much so. The orange was freshly peeled, vulnerable, the segments showing like stairs rising. It had a Renaissance feel to it, like Leonardo da Vinci’s study, an air of exploration.