The Hedgehog
Getting colder now, she walks unsteadily,down the steps, they are steep, but she can manage.
Huddled in the shadows, sheltered from the blasts of the northeastern wind,she presses against the cobbled stones, the whitewashed wall,and remembers, almost by instinct, the way along the path to the sleep of October.
Old now, the seasons weighing heavy upon her heart, she feels the heaviness in her limbs, the shallow breaths she must take into the twilight months of the passing year.
Suddenly the light blinks above her.
She freezes.
Bristles instantly against the threat.
She can feel them above.
Looking down at her huddled form, panting in fear and still, so very still.
The brightness is overwhelming, blinding, against the dark, as harsh as a buzzard’s cry against the wind.
With an unexpected click, the light vanishes, as quickly as it came and again, the darkness presses into the harder blocks of shadows, as she reaches the bottom stair and for a moment rolls into a ball.
Feeling herself against herself, she can hold again the warmth of the four other lives within her.
She shuffles along the path, dry, brittle leaves, chase after her, over take her slow wobbling gait. They chase the emptiness of the hollow wind before her, deeper into the bushes, hedges and abandoned flower beds, deeper again into the autumn garden.
She stops again, sniffs the moist, cold, damp morning air and smells the first acrid smoke of morning fires, above the trees.
She watches the blue smoke curl in clouds and turns to go deeper between, then behind, the two water butts. They stand empty now, upturned, she smells the pile of logs, leaves and watering cans, the mess of sacks, wood shavings and old fencing posts.
With a shiver, a sigh, she again gathers herself to herself, wraps herself into a ball of warmth and familiar, and takes the dream of summer to sleep with her.
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p1964km@googlemail.com
