Stomping Homeward After The Storm.

You can’t always tell how aged and infirmed a tree is. 

 

It is neither possible to calculate the likelihood of gales sending it crashing onto your path nor judge the opposing merits of driving as fast as possible to leave the probability just behind you, or proceeding so slowly that you can observe its coming.

 

Jack chose speed.

 

Unfortunately - just before the roundabout on the A40 - he was stopped at the police control for just this.

 

“Speed kills sonny,” the officer said smiling. He seemed happy to have caught someone doing something infractious, and yet unaware of how silly he looked as the gales ripped the helmet from his had sending it - and him – spinning into  the muddy ditch alongside.

 

Jack was fairly certain that laughing was not a good choice, yet convinced that fleeing the scene….. unwise - despite the opportunity – so he waited.

 

His girlfriend’s thoughts echoed in-between his ears, although she herself was absent.

 

“Everything has its consequences.”

 

This time it meant walking.

 

The constable - flustered, angry and now filthy – impounded the car and took Jack’s licence.

 

“You should listen to her,” he added, reading Jack’s surprised mind.

 

“F…,” Jack swallowed the other three letters, and the you, he had intended to say and finished instead with, “f…anks.”

 

And stomped homeward. 

 

 

 

More than a thousand.

The drive back from the hospital     -      was uneventful.  

 

Thank you.

Small mercies.

 

It was night by the time he drove down through the forest to the house, the shepherd’s delight of the evening long gone. As the darkness settled in, only the light from the headlamps offered hope.    A hare     -    sleek, beautiful    -   hopped across the track and climbed the bank, before disappearing into the trees. At the next turning, the white rears of two deer reflected the hope back and he smiled as he watched them slowly drop from sight, he was in no hurry to restart the engine.         He sat           -         waited.

 

It started to rain.

 

The drops      -      diamonds    -   ran down the windscreen. One. Two      -     six. Then there were too many to see, their unpolished beauties merged into a formless wash. He drove on and parked closer to the house than usual, he would have to run to her sanctuary or become

           wet.

 

In the entrance he pulled off his soaking shoes and threw them in the box where others more suitable for the weather lay unused    -    hers    -     the door      -     open. The rain fell like a waterfall and through it he could see little      -   imagine    -    too much.

 

What if?

 

Where?

 

Would he?                        Leave?                         Stay?

 

He closed the door, but didn’t move. He could the rain, heavy on the stone path. The table outside.

 

The empty wheel barrow. 

 

He could hear the pipes gasping, the radiators sighing. 

 

His heart.

 

Hers.

 

From a thousand miles.