Still Life

This is still life.

But now, so different. I haven’t been in this hometown of mine for fifty-odd years. It is not so homely these days. There used to be warmth and a sense of close community, that now, in my lonely old age, I sorely miss.

I think back to my childhood here, riding my bicycle in the bright, clear sunshine; contentedly hurling new editions of the local paper at the neighbours’ doormats, at the doors of their small, cosy, rickety cottages that were so common in the town back then. I remember my puppy, Tommy, came out on the paper round with me, running alongside me, flecks of spit flying from his open mouth shaped like a smile, a pink tongue hanging out, chasing my back wheel, shaking his thick brown fur and droopy ears when my wheels sprayed puddle into his face. He would bark and I would shake my head and smile, amused.

The neighbourhood was full of faces, old and young, wrinkled and fresh, yet there was always colour in their cheeks. As if the warmth of the community kept them alive, animated. There was my father, a big hulk of a man, yet gentle, always a beaming smile on his face sandwiched between two ruddy cheeks. His hair was a light brown, with a bald patch spreading from the top. Mother, why, she was beautiful, and she always wore colourful dresses: reds, greens, and blues. My older sister, who back in my childhood was growing into womanhood, some of the neighbours remarked was the spitting image of our mother - but where she had dark hair my mother had red.

When the sun was gone in the colder winter months, you could always count on a crackling orange fire in the cottage fireplace to replace it. You could always count on stars twinkling in a clear sky. The town was so much smaller back then, shops and markets and cottages and churches filling it up and bringing all sorts of people in. There was little room to stray. You couldn’t escape the earthly smell of warm, sweet greenery in surrounding forests and fields. It was beautiful.

So this is why I so regret my actions all those fifty years ago. I lost control. Two men insulted my family and in a blind moment of red rage I killed them both. I lost my soul. I lost my town. I lost my family. I grew from boyhood to manhood to middle age in the dark recesses of prison, behind steel bars. I don’t understand why I did what I did. I don’t know what I could have possibly expected to gain. But I killed them, and paid the terrible price.

This is still life.

But I know no one. Bleak clouds hang in the sky, the product of years of human negligence. Huge, wide grey roads have replaced the old pebbly lanes, while ear-piercing horns screech selfishly from cars driven by cold modern businessmen, dressed in their plain, dark suits. I miss my old neighbourhood’s colour. I miss my family’s warmth. I never used to be cold.

As I walk down the almost city-like street, I wrap my coat around me, looking down at the cracked grey pavement. I stare up at my accommodation - it is a towering, ugly block of flats. I remember when it was a small, cosy cottage, with a little brass knocker on the door, and a small, pretty garden full of tulips just past its red gate. A jolly fat old man had lived there with his grandchildren. Now it was unrecognisable.

A man in a grey suit holding a black briefcase barged into me, clearly paying no attention. Weaker now in my old age, I nearly stumbled back and fell. Yet the man walked on, not even turning to say sorry, or even smile apologetically. There was no warmth or passion in his face; it was as grey as his clothes.

I looked around. To my eyes, it was if there had been a war here, but I knew that was foolishness. I knew there had been peace for a long time. But the bleakness, the dullness, was enough to give anyone cause for a war. Long stretches of winding motorway ran monotonously through what was now a large, industrial town. There was no grass. There was no flowers, no trees, no sweet natural scent. You could get lost here; you could stray. The old shops and markets and churches I had known were gone. Now there were supermarkets. As for churches, they must have gone underground, because I had not seen nor heard of one since my departure from prison.

I turned into the tenement entrance and slowly climbed the dark, grubby stairs, chewing gum stuck to it all over the place. I saw everything in black and white now. Gone was the colour and tone of boyhood.

I arrived on my floor and opened up my flat before going through to the bathroom and staring at my reflection in the mirror. I looked old. I looked tired, and so grey. My eyes seemed dead, bereft of warmth. They were black when they had used to be blue, wide with laughter at Tommy barking at my heels as I cycled.

Tommy was dead. So were mother, father, and my older sister. So was I. Rubbing weary eyes, I looked down at the sink and stared at what lay there: a small pistol I had procured from an old friend and fellow ex-convict. I picked up the gun.

This is still life… but it is not enough.