The Last Mouldy Courgette of the Season.

The year turns a little closer to winter, the leaves on the trees begin to fall and the nights are chilly.

He lights a fire for the first time, and sits with a blanket over him, falling asleep staring at the embers.

In the morning he wakes early and tries to shake the dreams from his memory. Then, taking the compost bin, he goes outside and walks bare foot to the edge of the forest.

A donkey watches him.

He looks at his compost; a mouldy courgette lies there. 

He picks it up, offering it to the donkey but she turns her head.

Her name is Biscuit; they have known each other for just over a year.

He knows that she prefers carrots. 

But he used them for a hot soup last night.

The first soup of the season.

The Stranger and The Owl.

It’s that time of the year again.

She wakes, sighs and opens both eyes, looking at her toes peeking back from the far edge of the duvet. 

Soft October sun creeps from behind the trees growing on the hill outside, pierces the dust on the window and reflects back from her toenails; she had them manicured yesterday for a treat. 

The reflecting sunlight highlights the ocean colours of her eyes.

She sighs again, but she feels good. 

Alive.

Ready for the mysteries another year will offer.

She allows herself to wonder who, along with her mother, brother and daughter will wish her a happy birthday once she rises from the bed.

Her father, perhaps. 

She realises that she no longer is certain whether he is still alive or just ever present everywhere, since he has been ever since her birth. 

Her father hopes she is aware how much that birth has meant to him over the years. 

Fifty? Sixty? He can’t remember, but he knows it can’t be seventy. To him, she has always been the same.

An exotic fruit.

He smiles. 

She smiles too, forgetting the stranger who remembers her birthday and carries that memory, sometimes heavily, deep inside his chest.

He wakes early – unable to sleep -  before her sun reaches her, and steps outside his house and looks across the forest. 

An owl blinks back and then unfolds its wings, rising gently into the last pieces of the scattered night.

He whispers happy birthday, and hopes the owl has the wisdom to reach her.