Through the wheat the wind blows, a gold cascade pressed below an iron sky. I am braced for death, he says. He sits like a pianist before a performance, or a broken marionette, his tilted head held aloft by the arm resting on his desk. He stares into nothing.
The coffee has gone cold. A fly touches his eggs. She stands at the base of the stairs, listening for movement. The house stifles a groan, as if not to disturb the master in the attic.
His fingers clench around something. What? Air. An idea. When he turns his palm up, it is gone, or was never there.
He let the arm drop and his eyes roll in his head. He is listening for something. Anything. Then he can let loose the rage. Then he can come away from this. I can hardly hear myself think in this house, he will scream. Where better to lay the blame of his failures, than on another? He knows this himself. He knows the reason for his barren mind is his own doing, but it is like a solemn duty he must perform. Why break tradition now? The cycles of wrath are, if anything, consistent.
But the silence prevails. And his anger grows.
I am braced for death, he says again, but I think; not his own.
Paddy Dobson
26th January 2021