Moss

For a second the wind is silent and empty. The only form of life in the distance is the flock of pigeons migrating towards the east. The silence is short lived, as the birds’ flap against the strength of the wind. In turn, the trees come to life valiantly bashing back and forth. The shack and farmhouse are tiny amongst the trees that surround them. A coat of perspiration across my forehead and the rim of my upper lip is all I have to show to the world.

In my hand I hold onto a list. The list is a reminder of the insignificance of the day before. I almost laugh at the words I’ve scribbled so carelessly in blue.

- Don’t forget to pick up Alastair
- Violently murder Slater
- Buy a new car or at least replace window, rear view mirror, engine etc
- Stop glaring at passerby’s on the street (babies included)
- Give to charity
- Stop lying about giving to charity

Almost at once I’m close to tears, as I walk the perimeter of the farm by the trees. Only the weak choose the cry. I am walking away yet again from responsibility. "Nothing is easy, or free. If you're not happy, then that's your own fault. Learn to make yourself happy. And if others beat down that happiness, the only logical thing to do is ... to beat the crap out of them"," Alastair had taught me that, a little boy next door who delivered two bottles of milk to my window every day and expected nothing in return. And on a good day he’d bring a few eggs. It had soon come to my attention, although much too late, that he lied to his father about the payment he was supposed to receive from me for the milk and thus he paid for all fourteen bottles that I'd received throughout the whole of the week himself. He was the boy I'd grown impatient with and had completely disregarded. But the special thing about him was that he saw passed that.

The troubling thing about him was that he never once gave up and used every excuse he could think of to visit me, "I didn't want the milk to get cold," they would be refrigerated anyway, "I needed a rest from all the walking," he only lived ten metres away my shack.

It was here that I smelt a smell that broke down my thoughts to little pieces and calmed my nerves. It was the moss. It lingered in the open fresh air, an aftermath of the rain that had dampened the nearby fields and the grass I stood on. By the farmhouse remained what was left of the old run down shack. So many memories ruined. And underneath the rubble lay my very own ruin. The moss not only still lingered in the air, but it had overtime had eaten away at a loss I would always remember and promised never to forget.

It wasn't in malcontent that I did what I did next. I tore the list, first into two halves and then four. I lay all of the pieces in the palm of my hands. I then blew them away with the approaching wind and they with the trees swam through the air.