Seeds of Solitude

writing from 07:50 to 08:00 on Friday 2nd November inspiration from here and more complete thoughts here.

Seeds of Solitude

Pulling the heavy wooden door open  he entered the pub and before he had reached the curved bar the door had already swung shut. Few people were in at this time of day, and he knew one of two of them. Others vaguely, friends of friends. He ordered a pint of Guinness and sat down on a tall barstool. He was home.

Pulling out the paper he shared the crossword with the barman and it was soon complete, despite his annoying habit of always confidentely filling in at least one clue too quickly, and inaccurately.

Looking around he noticed a young person on the comfortable but upright dark brown bench seats that ran the length of the pub wall. She was slumped in the corner, alseep. She began to stir. This was a friend of a friend. She awoke; they spoke

Despite just waking up she was bright and alert, clever, angry and funny. Very funny. Her hair was short, with an unnatural reddish tinge. It framed her face as it hung around it and curved slightly in at the chin. Her nose had a very slightly unusual shape, two tiny nodes near the top like a bar running through it. Her eyes were of an unknowable colour and even while they sparkled they gave nothing away. They never did.

And when she did smile her whole face came alive; especially those incredible cheeks. And she smiled often, because as we have established she was funny, really funny. She was amusing and loved to be amused. Her laugh was perfect and it completed any room.

They talked for hours, for the rest of that day. Politics, she had a sharp and deep instinctive sense of politics, football, jokes based on language, jokes based on references, jokes based on anything and everything. Books. They had read many the ssme and reacted the same, they discussed and recommended others. They spoke not only for the whole of that day but the next, and the one after that. They talked the whole of that summer, inseparable drinking partners. They continued to talk, to laugh, to share for an entire lifetime. And then she stopped. She had found another to talk with.


3 thoughts on “Seeds of Solitude

  1. “…… I am so ashamed
    before my friends–to be known to be left
    by the one who supposedly knew me best,
    each hour is a room of shame, and I am
    swimming, swimming, holding my head up,
    smiling, joking, ashamed, ashamed…”

    Sharon Olds


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