On the stack. How pigeons behave.In The Grove there is a children's party. They run everywhere, play with balls, race each other, roll on the ground, have picnics. The noise could be mistaken for the cries of seabirds nesting, The next morning there are stacks of plastic bags, containing empty bottles, wrappings, boxes, uneaten food. One the grass is a solitary lemon. By noon the bags have been collected. Relative silence and tidiness are restored.
I have noticed him before, our paper boy, standing on the garden path reading the paper which he is about to deliver. This morning his trolley is outside the front gate. I do not want to disturb him, so I do not seek to anticipate him at the door. Instead I go downstairs to the kitchen, where I put the kettle on. Only when tea is made and the tray prepared does he part company with the paper. As I carry the tray upstairs, I see the paper come though the letter box.
3 comments:
Thirty years later a new Press Baron emerges. I could have no more interrupted his deliberations than denied myself breath. A poignant moment.
Yes, delightful moment in time. And it stirs a bit of nostalgia for the past when papers were delivered right to the door, usually by a school aged boy or girl. Now it's by men who rarely step out of a car and merely toss the paper out the window onto the driveway.
They're probably much more interesting when you're delivering them to someone else's house, rather as they are when they're weeks old and you're lighting the fire with them.
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