I feel a bit empty, a bit deflated and tired, perhaps also disappointed.
Why I cannot really say.
Nothing of import happened today. Just little things.
Like wandering past a house with a tiny front garden, all shrubs, bushes seemingly rolled in on themselves, closed for Winter. And then this lilac tree with last year's blooms still holding on to the branches. And I found myself wondering, why they were still there. Had they been forgotten by the gardener? Perhaps they felt like not letting go after Summer and decided to stick around. Perhaps they wanted to feel what it was like to be out in the cold, to see everything else go to sleep?
Were they bored hanging there? No bees, no birds, no people to admire them. Because frankly, they looked a bit tattered and torn, those darkish brown puffs that once had been pretty and soft, scenting the May air in this part of town. Now, they could only remember what it had been like; maybe they talked among themselves, softly under their breaths, with their withered little faces looking out onto the naked garden, the street, the people passing by. Now they watched instead of being looked at. Perhaps that is what they wanted to do. See what it was like in Winter, not having to die and end up on top of a compost heap at the end of Fall.
That is what I wondered while I wandered back home.
It was cold, very cold and I, too dreamed a little of Summer's warmth.
The other day in town, I stopped in front of a shop, rummaging through my bag for something or other, as you do and by chance looked up into the sky only to see this naked tree in the yard behind a row of houses. Its branches like arms lifted up to the sky as if in prayer, reaching, stretching up and up and there, right in the crown, was caught a ballon in the shape of a heart.
What the view must have been like from up there.
This heart was gently waving in the breeze, bopping from side to side.
Should I go and float on or should I rest here a bit longer. Look at all the people below, rushing here and there, and me up here, invisible. Unreachable. The hand that had held me by a string was so tiny and had tried to hold on but I slipped away and up and up.
Thus may have thought the heart.
I wonder now whether it was blown out of the tree and further across town or whether after a while it plunged down and caught on one of the spiky branches and with a soft pop its body melted onto the wood, its shiny red skin rustling softly from time to time like a rasping last breath.
Did it whisper something?
A tiny unheard farewell?
