31. |
He has felt like this before. Alone;
questioning. Sad.
Humbled by the soft beauty of the sunrise
over the meadows, the hope he sees in the way the early morning mist waits for
the sun to lift it from the grass.
Old.
He feels old.
Corrine does not feel old.
Corrine is Italian.
She lives in London.
This does not explain why she was standing
at the side of this French Road at 7 a.m.
But maybe it explains why next she is
sitting in his car on her way to Montpellier.
He is not going to Montpellier himself; he
is off to Toulouse.
She wanted to go to Albi, which is in the
other direction.
And further from Montpellier than Toulouse.
But she needed a lift.
She is travelling with a guitar and a heavy
bag.
The guitar is wrapped in plastic and
protective packaging so that it looks more like a Lute.
She hopes to paly it whilst she is
travelling.
Trying to get to Montpellier via Albi by
small country roads will give her a lot of opportunities.
The guitar - which is not a Lute - was
given to her by her ex-boyfriend Tommy.
At this moment Tom is lying in his bed.
He is not asleep; he is staring at the
ceiling.
The ceiling is uninteresting, but less painful
than the memories that woke him.
One of those memories is of his dog,
Russel, who died yesterday.
Russel was old, it was maybe fairer to help
him die than to continue suffering.
The vet’s name was Julie, she is a recent
immigrant from an Eastern European country, something that is considered in-appropriate
in this country at the moment.
Julie doesn’t understand the lack of
compassion behind this feeling.
She is sitting in the café on the corner of
the street where she shares a flat with Amie.
She is reading the newspaper.
The paper is full of bad news and it makes
her feel sad.
Amie is not in the café and neither is she
in the flat.
She is standing in the empty McDonalds on
the edge of the ring road where she works as a cleaner.
The restaurant opens in
thirty minutes and she needs to finish cleaning the floor before the first
customer arrives.
She is questioning the direction of her
life.
The first customer will be Henry, but at
the moment he is filling his petrol tank with unleaded and looking at his
breath, which condenses in the early morning air as he sighs.
He sighs because he has felt this way
before.
Alone; questioning.
Sad.
Humbled by the soft beauty of the sunrise
over the meadows.
(sorry, bit late - the editor)
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