A Little Late Maybe But…

Second Literary Recommendation of the Year:

Mona’s Ghost

Did you think I was Mona’s ghost?
I ask the shadows. Hiding in closets
In the cracks in the ceiling
Trapped between panes of glass
The cat runs from those invisible demons
With a sudden, startled yowl
The ghost has trodden on her tail
The scent of violet
Mingled with the musty stench
Of the old woman
Who lived here before me

Mona’s ghost walks
From room to room
Scattering petals as she goes
Will I ever be rid of her?
No, because she is not the woman
Who lived here before me
Because, quite simply, she is me
And she always will be
Until I am plucked from this planet
Suddenly. brutally, unceremoniously
But not all together mercilessly

Fading II

Cat on the Edge

It was I who had been fading. Not Nobby. Nobby is courageous and upright and resilient. I am none of those things. Nobby went through a war and its aftermath. He saw comrades blown to pieces, burn to death, drown in their own blood.  I have seen none of these things.  And after the war he contributed even more.  He stayed in the army.  He reached the Rank of Regimental Sergeant Major.  He spent two decades as what we would now call a ‘paramedic’.  Then he was just a plain old ‘ambulance man’.  After that he worked as a college porter (although they liked to call themselves ‘college disciplinarians’.) He spent the last couple of decades of his working life running a student hostel.  When his wife became too ill to manage her hostel duties the council (to their credit surprisingly quickly) found him a council flat.  Five weeks after they moved in his wife died in hospital.  She had fallen from a high bed and had never recovered.  Nobby has been living alone ever since but what he lacked for in human companionship he made up for in animal companionship.  He had Freddi, the West Highland dog until she died in 2008.  And now he has Ginger, a plump Tom cat who has slipped comfortably into Freddi’s place.  His is truly a life lived as fully as a life could ever be.

And he is strong.  Much stronger than I will ever be.

Pictures are more eloquent that my words could ever be.

At the Beginning