The Lost Boot
It was a dry February evening and the town was quiet outside. In the alley across the street a young girl had come out. She seemed familiar, the old man thought, as she wrapped her delicate fingers beneath the tasselled cord of her woollen jacket, lowering from the hip to the white stripped cat that etched its way around her feet. Beyond her, a silver birch lay like a mound of bones in the shadows. Through the terraced rooftops and spires the sound of traffic gargled lazily. Up and down the street vehicles sat in silent lines with the amber glow of the electric street lamps spilling over them. He watched as a breeze rippled down the brown veins of her hair. She knelt to gather the feline into her arms and as she did he could sense the tawny flesh of her crooking nape. The old man felt the queerness in his watching though, and reluctantly, he came away from the window, catching as he did for an instant, the shadowy reflection of himself outlined against the night sheen. It was a rare sight.
Living many years alone he had found himself, somehow, a discomforting companion, becoming strange by night. He could not bear it, and so, eventually, decided to remove all the mirrors from his home, packing them away in a disused wardrobe.
Crossing the room, he nestled back into his armchair, and lifting the cheese board from the side table on to his lap, cut into a small wedge of stilton – a thin, crumbly slice. He was anticipating the bitterness already. Balancing it sidelong upon the butter knife, he brought it over and let it slip, gradually, onto the biscuit, before settling back. Then, placing it neatly upon the right arm of the chair, he let the biscuit beside him, offering it a curious glance every once in a while as he watched the television and a hippopotamus reared its head from the riverbank. The room around him was built with high white ceilings where light danced. The commentator explained of the hippo that he would spend his nights sleeping and his days digesting food by the river bank. A long beaked green bird sat perched upon the hippo’s fat grey lips, cleaning bits of decaying fish from its teeth. Eventually, the old man turned back to the biscuit, lifting it carefully with the fingers of both hands. Bending forward, he wrapped his thin lips around the edges to take a large bite, and suckling at the crumbs which fell away, chewed it slowly down. After another short pause, he took a sip of wine from the glass on the table and ate down the other half of biscuit.
With satisfaction, the old man dusted the crumbs from his lap. Then, rising from his armchair, he marched his gangly legs over to the bookshelf and stood facing the tall long rows of books, running his eye quickly across each spine. Pulling a large, scrappy paperback from the right side of the fourth shelf, he turned it open from a marked page and holding it before him with his gaunt figure upright, read aloud in a deep croaky voice:
“We strive as did the hounds for boon,
They fought all day and yet hir part wis noon.
There came a kyte, while that they were so wrouthe,
That bare away the bone betwixt ‘em both.
And therefore at the king’s court, my brother…”
There was a bang and the old man stopped. Above him, a brown moth fluttered sideways against the ceiling lamp. He gazed down the open door into the dim light of the hallway. Nothing moved. Turning back to the book, he continued reading, forming as he did austere gestures in the air with his hand, his voice echoing through the room, fluent with nuanced affectation; his long face twisting in slow motion - an imperiously moose-like semblance. Soon, he was marching back and forth across room, catching deep breaths with each stride, his weighted words rising tempestuously through rising tones of assonance. The moth darted over his head, brushing its wings lightly against the dusty light bulb. All of a sudden, he caught dead mid sentence. A small, round bellied man in gloves and a long dark overcoat was standing in the doorway. The old man was aghast.
“What the hell do you want?” he screamed.
The man in the dark overcoat stood paralyzed, red faced; his dark little eyes, like oysters shining through the sand. He seemed cold and to carry the cold with him. ‘… ah… is eh… is…. this,’ the man stumbled through his wet teeth. He garnered himself into coherence with strain, and then, ‘ah, excuse me, please, is this the home of - ah - Mr. Jones?’
‘No it is not!’ balked the old man.
By eleven the old man was in bed, rubbing his feet together between cold the sheets.
The Lost Boot: A Romance
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