The wind and the wall

A stone wall, stands the aging matriarch, moss filled crevices stretch in all directions. Her eyes resist welling against the merciless wind. She has known this gust since childhood, an empty shrill silence, the same that messes the hair of Munch's muses. They have watched her shrink, an unusual phenomena that correlates in both her physicality and surrounds, not that she minds the small confines of her new abode, but it is hardly the majesty of her home at Parsonage road. Her palace. Her Empire. They remember it too, but they are fickle and callous. How funny she finds it, as a girl she had never been sentimental, nostalgia was a notion she rejected, an aegis for dreary reflection.

The service was over. Words exchanged, a patter lost on her silence. Of course she knew the rules, thank yous and hugs, tea and scones, a game she had played before, so many times, but never from this side. 'We certainly will miss him', said one of the old boys on his way out. The fortuitous comment slapped her from across the room, an idle throw away with such a futile need for vocalisation. She stood as still as she could, reminding herself of the game. An oak tree, the wind could not harm her.

And so she stood for several years. She watched them all grow and merrily dance about. When she was alone she had time, her time and she spoke to him nearly every day. It's not daft, she told herself, Just because he is not in the room. She longed to be with him, for him to hold her hands, so she could let go. Without him she would never relax, she did not understand the world around her anymore. Anxiety pulled at her and wore her down, only duty glued her to her mortal coil, she was dutiful ivy to grandchildren and lawn bowls alike. She refused to give up and baked and threw oil onto canvas, painting the sea, always the sea. It is the easiest way to paint the horizon if one paints the sea. This was her philosophy, the two merged a long way off and complimented each other perfectly, although she would dread for Turner to see her clouds.

She knows now, her time is near and she has no trepidation. Her lips turn up as she thinks upon it all, for when he left it was loss, but now it is her time and it will be marvellous. Most days are spent by the window now, looking out at the sparrows in the garden, they gaily frolic around the hawthorn bushes, twittering amid the branches. She lies down and closes her eyes, the wind on her face is warm now, she is a girl again, his hand closes around hers, she is warm and still. Outside her little home all is still now, the birds are still, the oak is still and the wind's gust softly caresses the stone wall.

Smee