Rain

The forest has gone. I now have the sea. I walk the whole length of the prom each morning at 7am. I kick the bar, three times for luck. The rain was unrelentant this morning. My impossibly expensive artic coat was not waterproof. It hangs in my hotel room smelling like a wet dog. I am back. Not home but safe. Safe, and yet not knowing what is next. What is coming? If I stop moving, planning, shifting will something come anyway?

I visit my dear friend's mother in the old people's home. She is a tiny bird, eyes darting cautious, sharp, uncertain, guarded. Her hands worry away at the custard yellow blanket. We bring little cellophane-packed victoria sponge cakes, green seedless grapes, marie biscuits, photographs of the Mumbles, anything to spark a momentary delight, an appetite, a memory. Her hands are skinless, deep red, blue with veins. Her legs are a shock, the muscles atrophied, wasted, they are sticks. The TV is a constant mumbling noise, snooker, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Deal or No Deal.

'His hair is a mess.' 'Those men in orange are beginning to really irritate me.' She spits out barbs at the screen and then laughs, tittering to herself, her little frame shaking with the sudden joy of being able to be as rude as she pleases.

I draw her: sunken into a chair, hands darting out to grasp at a grape, a cake, a tissue. Crumbs scatter down the front of dark blue dressing grown, tumbling down her chest, bosomless and hollow.

He holds himself together, cosseting her, plumping cushions, prompting songs, voice a little shrill, too cheerful.

We leave the little room, pink and echo-ey, too warm.

He weeps later, in the car, a clumsy low howling.

A dying in the rain.

(image courtesy of www.flickr.com)