Monday July 28th, 2014

The exercise:

Write about: pockets.

There are random pockets of colder air on the farm that you only notice as you walk through them. I try not to think about them too much.

Except until I finish today's writing.

Mine:

From where I stand I can see the lake to the west and the mountains to the east. The valley runs straight away to the south and curves off to the north.

Facing the lake, the apple trees lurk behind me and the plum trees are to my right. Neither fruit are ripe yet, but it won't be long now. Not with this heat wave.

I watch the workers move about, tools in hand. Pruning shears, wrenches and irrigation parts, ladders short and tall. Everything is moving.

Other than me, of course.

I remember the day, just over there, that I saw my dog for the last time. And a few steps in the opposite direction is where I was standing when I got the phone call that let me know my wife had passed on.

There are other, happier memories within view as well. That apple tree at the end of the row there? I picked my first apple from it, when I was barely big enough to stand. And that house, up at the top of the hill? I was married there, underneath that beautiful oak tree.

People come and go, some passing close but most keeping their distance. Those that step too near seem to shiver involuntarily. From some unseen cold?

Or just because they know that this is the exact spot the tractor rolled over on me?

2 comments:

Greg said...

The pockets of cold air sound rather nice! Does the grass grow better there as well? I'm guessing that there's water below the ground much closer to the surface at those points. Or... we could go with your suggestion in your story. Though if that's the case aren't you going to have to count the number of cold spots to make sure that you know how many of them there are, and make sure that they don't around? Or I suppose you could herd them into the house and use them as air-conditioning!
Very nice prose today, too, just in case you thought I'd forgotten!

Pockets
The last pockets of resistance were chased from Trafalgar Square along Whitehall and into Parliament Square. As they hurried along Whitehall in small groups, huddling together, heads darting around birdlike looking for their harriers, they cast longing glances at the tall, elegant buildings they ran past. The bomb defences outside, and the horse-guards halfways along were sufficient deterrent though, and they made no attempt to stop and break down a door or force their way in to government offices.
In Parliament Square they spread out a little on the grass, surrounded on four sides by busy roads. Towards the river was Westminster tube station and the Houses of Parliament, and behind them were the Guildhalls. On the edges of the grass, already there, were the protestors who lived in tiny tents holding up placards about offences and incidents that mattered only to them, attempting to subvert democracy by defecating on its doorstep. The protestors, unwashed and unlovely, eyed the resistance-fighters balefully and hefted placards that suddenly looked like adequate bludgeoning weapons.
"This will be our last stand!" cried a middle-aged woman in a knitted cardigan and granny-glasses. She waved a bag that might have been knitting. The sirens of police cars coming across the bridge and up from Victoria in the other directions grew louder and the protestors, worried now that they would be rounded up in the purge, grew menacing. "The world will remember us today and tomorrow as well! They will never forget that we strived to rid the world of pockets!"
"She's completely bonkers," muttered another woman to her friends, and with those words they ceased being resistance-fighters and slipped into the gathering crowd, now just anonymous faces on their way to work or home or the pub.
"Join me!" yelled the woman, waving her bag ever more vigorously. The sound of the protestor clubbing her from behind with his placard was sickening, but the police descended like hawks on a pigeon and soon only the bloggers and journalists were left to comment on the scene.

Marc said...

Greg - that is a unique form of air conditioning that you've suggested. I'll let someone else test that one out first :P

Great scene, you really brought it to life. Wonderful attention to detail.