I know it's not quite right to have fish for breakfast, but hey, I had my cravings again. Tuna filled pita pockets. *satiated*
Since I'm too full to write, and all I wish to do is sleep, here's another bit of eye candy, another memoir I wrote about a year or so ago.
Enjoy.
A Walk To Remember
Living in a house with two floors, you’d exit through the front door, jump down the four white steps and take the four metres up the cobblestone path to the rusty black gate. Would you turn a sharp right? Or walk straight into the distance? A child’s decision. 14 metres onwards, there his brown cart would be, up against a sooty wall covered in twisted, dead ivy.
It’s a black gate, with a latch and a bolt. Lift and turn, and it swung open reluctantly, its rusty hinges complaining. Hop over the raised mound separating path from pedestrian, and ignore its whine as it swings shut.
You decide to walk straight ahead, along the wall. A blue ford, slightly dusty is parked alongside it, a parking ticket stuck to the windshield, bright against the blue. Behind it, a darker coloured vehicle, perhaps a van. Dark green, almost black. A palm placed gently on the sun-warmed bonnet. A little imprint, plenty of dust wiped off on the hem of your skirt. The gate squeals and you peer lazily over your shoulder, blinking off the sun’s glare. A lean, suntanned figure smaller than yourself, running, catching up.
Turn back around, a lazy, Cheshire cat smile tugging at your lips. You walk on.
Looking down, oyster shell-like cobblestones, grit trapped in the spaces between. The little oil slicked rainbow puddles pooling between them.
The figure grabs your waist and crashes into you, like a mini cannonball knocking you over. Perhaps you feel annoyed, like a stone dropped into a pool but tis gone a split second later like the ripples themselves when you’re tugged to your feet. A smile. You walk on.
Can you see him? Not yet. The afternoon heat distorts, the haze accentuating a child’s dream, an adult’s memory.
He gets bigger, his voice ever loud, mingling with the afternoon’s echoes of laughter.
An 18 metre walk never seemed so long. Twenty minutes, perchance less. A child does not much care for time. They have all the time in the world…
Puddles! A sudden jerk of the hand and a splash as the other’s shoes squelch in a muddy puddle. You pull away, preferring to scoop up trapped rainbows. Squatting down at the edge inquisitively. Oyster shells. The world is your oyster. You don’t know what an oyster is. Curious fingers dipped below a melted spectrum with secrets beneath. You lean in, leaning back to wring your skirt dry. Tentatively prying out loose stones rough against Johnsoned fingers. A satisfying minute observing your new found treasure or two.
The back of your neck, hot from the sun reacts to a dousing of sloppy watered mud. Laughter. You turn to pounce. That smile. A chiding look before it’s returned. Hand in hand, you walk on.
You know he heard you. He sees you now. His voice is softer, as soft as one can go when the life has been spent crying out, but you don’t look up.
A tummy rumble, a squeezed hand. Loose cobblestones in your pocket, slick grit weighing heavily on one side.
You can smell them now, and one makes to run but is held back.
Edge closer to the wall. Were you talking about something? Arguing? You don’t remember. Trace the lines on its stained, course surface. The wall has its own memories, crumbling near the bottom, and new building along the top. Your finger dipped in the crevices of time.
Oh! An ant colony. Fingers off the wall like a scald from green lichen that is wiped off on the shorts. A threat for if one giggles or teases, the bite marks will never go. A hushed up suppression, yet a hint of a dancing smile.
Look back, the wall oozes white liquid where your fingers smudged the green. The ants avoid it. So do you. From previous experience, you know better than to taste it.
Sharp on the tongue, it was. Like an herbal poison. You know what its like; you smell it while walking past remedial shops.
Look up, inhale…Veggie buns.
Tear across the remaining few metres, slipping on cobblestones, sliding on the iridescent oil to the cart ahead.
He smiles. You smile at his few teeth, and laugh so that he laughs, just to glimpse the flash of gold in his mouth. That deep, booming and full-hearted laugh only simplicity understands.
He drifts in and out of the steam issuing from the cart in front of him, the toothy grin, and the patched and darned coat, leathery skin pulled taut over high cheekbones. And do you still remember his hands? Warm and dry, liver-spotted and so deft.
Peer into your pockets now, fumbling for those little copper coins. The other waits impatiently as you bring up collected cobblestones instead. Rub them on your shirt, ignore the stains and place them gently in the other pocket, tongue sticking out and brow furrowed in concentration. Such an intense look for a child, indeed. Out you pull the largest, heaviest stone and stand for a moment, admiring it, before a tap on the shoulder reminds you that you’re on strict business.
Peer down your shirt, your back pockets, into your shoes and back along the path.
Realisation dawns. You forgot them on the kitchen table.
Watch the other’s eyes fill with tears, lips forming a pout and you mollycoddle, soothing noises, a temporary authoritative figure oozing love.
The other’s eyes shift to the sound of metal sticking up to wood; the flat sheet with the hole in it is removed. Cleanliness is observed. Hands are wiped on a damp napkin, the guillotine-like metal placed off-side.
Into the steam one leathery paw does plunge, disappearing, a veggie bun emerging from the warm stomach of the cart. The sweet smell of steamed white bun and the hint of the beans and other melt-in-your-mouth vegetables held within its lotus shape. A red dot marked on the top. When split in half, both would quibble over who receives the bigger half dot. Sometimes leading to tears.
The other’s eyes shift to the nail tacked roughly to the side of the cart, holding brown, oil absorbent paper bags. A ripping noise and a packet held out. He bends down, his eyes twinkling, such beautiful, intelligent, flashing eyes. The split second of hesitation as one turns to find the other gone. Momentary panic, yet the smell draws you close as fingers brush against the serrated top, peering in, getting a face full of steam, clouding the eye and warming the cheeks.
Look up to see the other smiling, running up the pathway, bronze clenched tightly in a child’s fist.
The deal is done, Back both do go, steps traced in barely the time taken getting there, quibbling over the veggie bun dot.
A walk to remember.
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