Sunburnt Speculations

...with just a touch of the unusual. A Josip Novakovich exercise from “A Fiction Writer’s Workshop”.

Espresso Saucer

A scarlet espresso saucer sits, without its cup, on my writing table. It is of soft, thick china that shines, reflecting the late afternoon sun as a small bright light on its raised outer rim – a scattering of crumbs from my last biscuit held in stationary orbit like an asteroid ring in the space between its outer and inner lips. One of the crumbs has gravitated into the centre.

Two Wheelbarrows Side-by-Side

Two wheelbarrows rest side by side on the lawn – though it is now all weeds – over by the grey, slatted fence. The older of them, the one on the right, is metal. It is rusting and its wheel is going flat. But it has bright sulphur yellow handles. The newer barrow on the left is of dark grey plastic. Its wheel is not flat, but the powder coating on its handles has worn off. It might have been red once. Its royal blue framework is still good though. Both hold water from the recent rain. The frogs will come before long to lay their eggs. Then there’ll be tadpoles. We’ll leave them for now.

Flowerpot

A plastic flowerpot – once black but now faded to a mottled dusty grey – stands at the right corner of my old writing table, shedding particles of potting mix from its drainage holes like a trail of cockroach droppings as I move it away. The soil inside, from lack of water, has cracked and shrunk from the edges. Dead twigs have found their way into it. So too, the tendrils of some green plant and tiny trifold leaves of dwarfed clover – live things hanging on and held upright by a single thread of cobweb as if some tiny, careful gardener protects them against the wind.