Trio
Good things come in threes, don’t they? Well, they look good on a shelf if there’s three of them. But usually, they only make them in twos.
Sort
It’s warm in the bedroom. Single-glazed, cracked glass lets the heat in. She’s sitting cross-legged on the candlewick bedspread. Small fingers lazily pick at the pattern. By her side lies a tube of Smarties. A near smile on her lips, she picks up the tube, slides a fingernail under the lip of the plastic lid. ‘S’ is the initial on the underside. She shrugs, she’ll save it for her friend, Sarah. In one smooth movement she tips the tube up. Smarties in a pile on a green candlewick bedspread. Is there a more comforting sight? She sets to work, separating colours, frowning at there being so many browns, not enough oranges. The colours now separated, she eats one from each pile with more. She does this until she whittles down the most populous piles to match the quantities of the smaller piles. Then, she takes one from each pile, going through the colours one at a time, sucking the colours off each sweet as it sits on her tongue, knowing it is staining. Gentle endeavour.
Together
Together is good sometimes, but quite often, alone is bliss.
Tools
The box arrived on a cold Friday morning, hardly a work day at all. It smelt of vans and hands and plastic tape. Tape off, screech, muted by damp cardboard. Box open. Grease, metallic perfume of steel, like the air as dad came home from work. Steel held by smooth wood, heavy files with criss-cross hatching, and be careful of the slender saw blades. Each has its home waiting, neatly stacked or stood or clipped to the wall. Organised and to hand.
Anthropology
She glances, brows raised, stirs her tea, listening or not, it’s hard to tell. Here, the hierachy, a heavier hand of carats across the table, and the air of trying too hard. We are all the same, some of us.
Distant
In order to think, he drives to the shore, throws
his griefs and their following questions to the
wind, sees them churned in the froth of the
waves. Warmer for the distance
between them.
Render
Write it down, draw it, make it tactile or real
like a beast. Then, there is no changing of
minds. Unless you use a pencil.
Part three to follow…