Solace (Triptych)

In a dark wood . . .

Heaving streets, bulging with holiday shoppers. Shop windows in garish colours blink their version of hell. As soon as I get the present I came for, I head for home.

Running for the bus, I bump into someone, or he bumps into me. The double-decker reeks of wet clothes. A young woman, clutching her baby close to her chest, is arguing with the bus driver who refuses to let her on without a ticket.

We stay put for a good thirty minutes, until a passenger, with a shaking hand, taps his debit card on the card reader and pays the fare for her.

the baby babbles . . .
raindrops on
the bus window

and without props

It hasn’t rained for weeks. The two workmen in my back garden, digging the foundations for a cat…