Short Story.

This is my bench. It’s made of fake vandal-proof wood with the typical public seating furniture design. I love my bench- but technically, it’s not mine. Technically, it’s John Morrison’s bench, beloved husband, father and local baker. He died fifty years ago, but I still like to keep the bench immaculate. I like to think I borrow the bench, because it would be impossible to buy a bench from a dead man. I remember trying to purchase the bench from his daughter-in-law over the phone- but she had called me a brute. I don’t like his daughter very much, it has to be said.

The first time I ever sat on my bench was when I was but a seven-year-old called Terrence wearing the classic hand-me-down slacks and cap. I would come back to my bench once each month after that. I think mother still wants me to be a lovely, at-one-with-himself kind of child like nextdoor's Tom, however, that's not what I'd call myself at this stage in life, as all I have time for is my bench. Mother knows this is who I am, and thirty years on from our first discussion, I expect she still knows this, and I expect she still holds it against me.

My bench is just something I like to talk to, something I enjoy the time of- which is more than can be for the average woman. My bench has stood in the same spot in the shadow of the church for exactly fifty years. I can’t argue with this, because I am only thirty seven. My bench is sheltered from the weather underneath what I can only assume to be Birch trees. I was never good at acknowledging nature, so I couldn’t be expected to know about trees. The light condition is always similar to aeroplane mood lighting on my bench. It is forever in the cold shadow of the church; no matter how many times the sun seems to move across the sky. The traffic noises around here are a soothing contribution, even if the environmentalists beg to differ.

I only ever sit on the left side of the bench, because the right side is John’s. He told me he wanted to sit there because it would mean he was on the right hand of God, and that he thought I was a Satanist thus only to sit on the left side. I know I am not a Satanist- I am religionless, but I don’t see the harm in it. John only ever calls me Terrence, like Mother does and Aunt Beatrice does. Mother doesn’t believe in nicknames- or Halloween. She doesn’t believe in allowing me to move out into my own house either. I don’t blame her, maybe she just likes me as something to talk to and do laundry. A pigeon is always sitting on the low steeple of the church when I arrive. He enjoys soiling my bench with his white muck. I hate the pigeon; if I had a gun, I’d shoot him. But I don’t want to go to prison.

I take my journal out of the pocket of my Winter coat. Turning to the appropriate date, I write in my elongated scrawl:

“What I did: Sat on Bench.

Feeling:”

What am I feeling? I am feeling jovial. Like a contented squirrel in a nut factory.

“What I did: Sat on Bench.

Feeling: Like a tuna sandwich”

I laugh at the added humour, scratching my head with the short nail of my little finger. I think I am a very funny person personally. Nobody knows me better than myself, and in that aspect, I am my own best friend.

I sit back and enjoy the feeling of straight wood against the back of my maroon woolly jumper. My Winter coat brushes against the arm rest of the left side.

“Terrence?” said the late John Morrison.

“Yussir?”

“Get off of my bench.”

“Yessir.”

I wasn’t angry. This sort of thing happened all of the time.

The End.

A/N: Tell me your thoughts on my story through the reviews.