An Early October Premonition.

 

A voice.

Distant.

Feint.

From the other side of the ocean.

Woke him.

“Hello.”

7:47

Light.

Soft.

Just beginning.

Greeted him.

Deep inside his dreaming, someone had called.

Opening his eyes, they were lost.

Impossible now to find them.

Or even answer.

....is where many things are.

There was still an hour of daylight and Jack had not yet reached home.

He was tired.

His back ached. 

His holiday was over - the sea already just a memory.

He drove a little further and then stopped at the edge of a field, got out of the car and stretched.

Overhead birds were circling, others were resting – like him, but on the telephone wires stretching across the fields of unharvested, burnt-out sunflowers.

Their heads drooping as if they too were exhausted.

He returned to the car, and the engine - coughing back into life - startled the birds.

As one they rose into the blue October sky and continued on their way, heading south.

Jack was heading north.

Each to their own.

Home.