Embedded in my memory is the inexhaustible balminess of France’s
aestival sun that each year thawed the rosy layers of snow and dew-droplets
that frosted my cheeks from an English winter. Blissful days from an era that
seemed endless flow through me, forever unperturbed in their state of untainted
nostalgia.
It’s five o’ clock, and sunlight adorns the cobbled, whitewashed
walls with a geometric arabesque of wrought-iron shadows and strokes of orange
incandescence. The wholesome promise of a soon-to be dinner fills my nose with
every inhaled sigh, glorious solar flares, softened by the darkening sky,
stream across sea-washed eyes at every turn, and sand caught between my toes
serve as the raconteurs of a day’s trip to the beach. The distant sound of
chattering grown-ups waft across the garden, whilst my sister, childhood friend
and I sit cross-legged in the grass, fervently linking daisy chains and voiding
occasional chatter with our own silent musings. As dinner takes care of itself
we hear the dull thuds of our fathers playing a clumsy game of cricket. We rise
up with surprising animation after the two gospelised syllables - “dinner!” -
are heard, as we sit ourselves down on chairs of weathered, off-white plastic.
Conversation goes on long into the evening, and the summer heat
propels the calm yet animated atmosphere to a point of elusive listlessness,
amongst child and adult alike. Behind us, darkwood shutters remain open to
inescapable balmy heat, taking in with ravenous draws of breath what little
breeze it can. Behind these open windows and betwixt these creaking floorboards
live niches and interstices, lying in the redolence of moschate abandonment.
Unbeknownst to us, they await the brushing away of cobwebs and rekindling of
human touch that takes the form of slight palms and wondering fingers.
The fatigue that has finally caught up with us after a day of
running away from it brings shutters and eyes alike to a close, and we keep
ourselves greedily fed on the ignorant promise that the sun is to remain in the
sky until tomorrow, when hands creased by quilted slumber open the latched
shutters to a vista that emblazons perennial shafts of morning light.
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