It’s a rainy day on the watch. Two friends sit in their tower and smoke their pipes as the water drums on the roof and look out into the fields. The haze of rain blurs the vision of the field and makes the wildflowers run like watercolours.
They have some beef jerky that they share and they let the brazier burn down low. The summer heat is warm enough despite the rain.
Their job is to forewarn the city of any approaching threats and protect the wall that their tower is a part of. But war is a concept so far in history and so far from the minds of these two guards that to even say the word would be mildly amusing to them.
There’s little idle chatter between them. Most any subject you could imagine has already passed between them, either on the watch or down at the pub. They don’t need the talk to fill the long days. Long, not for boredom, but blissfully long for the absence of anything to do. Both of them are of an age where they can appreciate that. Long stretches of wonderful nothing.
One watches the trail of smoke leave his mouth while the other dozes. Some children are kicking a ball around the fields and their sheiks and laughter reach all the way up to the tower. The more cogent of the two smiles. Little else happens that day.
Paddy Dobson
13th June 2021