Seagull
A flash of pure white outside my top floor window. A seagull hurled by the wind, the sun catching its whiteness, bright, sharp. A rush of joy.
The town was busy yesterday. Busy saturdays. Shopping days. Day tripper days. I walked past an elderly lady pushing a three-wheeled walking frame, dressed in maroon, a tender miasma of TCP. The door of the bakery on the corner opened to let out warm odours of macaroons. Earlier I had watched surfers in the sea. Black, flat shapes, made sinister by their slow crawling along that still, grey, expanse.
Today promises to be a beautiful one. Sunlight strokes the pastel blues and pinks of the promenade houses into a gay brightness. Holidays. A careless huddle of teenage boys, straddling bikes, lick synthetically coloured ice lollies and cornets, tongues stained blue and green. Different dogs. A large husky takes a small, asian woman for a walk. She trips, skips after him, tugging hopelessly on the lead. A tiny fluffy puppy kowtows to a black labrador, bottom on the floor, happily allowing the friendly sniffing out of scents.
The house has visitors. They came for the game. The hallway carries odours of strange bodies, a rank, almost sweet, smell of stale alcohol and late night curries. I observe different lives lead, held together, although briefly, under the same roof, a shared period of sleep. Snores heard through the wall.
I finished reading Julian Barnes' novel, 'A Sense of an Ending', last night. His writing is ego-less, clear, straight. Human. A mess of a life. A disappointing life. The cruel pomposity of youth. The slow drip drip of self-pitying ageing. And yet, with a stirring of compassion - a new knowing. It is enough. What now? What will you do with that new knowing? What will you change? How will you change?
Will you?
(Image borrowed from www.the-aeon.blogspot.com )
