The approach of winter

I have worked from this third floor office for over ten years now. Sitting at the same desk next to the window – phoning and filing and fire fighting and peeping out of the window from time to time across the terracotta tiles of this small town. I have watched the Red Kites grow in numbers and circle sometimes ominously across the skyline. I have watched old roofs crumble and be replaced. New roofs appear where I thought there would be no space for them.

I have watched flowers grow and fade away and I have seen the trees bud, blossom, leaf and turn red before the breeze of autumn strips their branches bear leaving them ready for the cold winds of winter.

I have also looked – as surreptitiously as I can – across the wall on the far side of the car park and into the garden of the elderly couple who live next door. I know nothing of them. But I can assume from the apparent wealth that they have worked hard all their lives. He is tall grey and thin with a long stride. She has delicate features. I watched their family – with families of their own come and go – with such regularity that even I know when to expect them. I remember how a few years ago she began to walk with sticks in obvious pain. He would push her slowly around the garden in a chair until – quite suddenly she was mended and back in the garden pruning and planting and clearing the dead leaves.

He cut the grass twice a week in the summer and cleared away the considerable quantities of waste left by their menagerie of loving cats and dogs, on a daily basis – without fail. And he did so with straight back and boyish enthusiasm which quite frankly I aspired to.

And I saw no reason why that should change – until today.

Today there was a man with two sticks in a dressing gown walking slowly down the garden. I did not recognise him at first. He stooped slightly. There was no limp – just a slowness and uncertainly. His jaw hung very slightly his eyes where deeper into him, staring and his skin was grey and waxy. She was with him. Perhaps she had lost weight too?

They sat on their favourite bench unsmiling while gathered around were their children and their children’s children. No one was smiling as they were warmed by the last sunshine of the summer – as the breeze of autumn circled and the uncertainty of winter gathered

What further seasons will follow for some I wondered?

Conscious that, although unseen, I was intruding – for the first time in ten years, I closed the blind.