The Quiet of Morning
(An Absolutely, Completely, and Utterly Emotive and Wonderful Story by my Gorgeous Friend John)
N�s hearpan wyn
gomen gleo-beames, ne god hafoc
geond s�l swinge�, ne se swifta mearh
burh-steade beate�. Bealo-cwealm hafa�
fela-feorh-cynna for� onsended!
The pale sickly sun shone down upon the droplets of dew lying on the great expanse of lawn. The dawn had forced its transfiguration from a dark wet heavy mass of organic matter to a new lighter, fresher place, but there was a stillness about the garden in the morning which might have led one to believe that the tall stately house which formed the garden's backdrop was deserted, no more than a ghost building. Any such feelings would have been soon blown away by the creak of the shed door, and the sight of a man emerging. The figure was hunched over, above the age of sixty, and when one looked closer, he wore a contented smile, the same smile he had worn every morning for the past forty years, unless he found himself battling against dark winter weather. Today, however, he smiled out into a warm June morning.
He walked onwards, pushing before him a mechanically operated lawnmower, in which the rotation of the wheels pushed around the well oiled and sharpened blades. Every morning, save when the grass was frozen rigid with frost, and he would not step on the lawn for fear of breaking the delicate leaves of glass while they were vulnerable, he would trim the lawn, giving it that golf-green-tennis-court-well-trimmed-lawn-of-a-stately-home look. After completing the ritual, the lawnmower was returned to the shed, and the old gardener re-emerged, carrying his secateurs. He approached the carefully arranged flowerbeds. He saw where the new day's blooms had sprung from, and once more flashed his smile. Then he set himself with determination against the old growth. Brown withered friable sepals surrounded a heart of black moist pistils, which, had the gardener not grown used to it by now, he could have scooped out with a finger like rotted flesh. He clipped these old blooms, briefly pondered their former beauty, and then looked back at the new growth which had supplanted them, and smiled wryly. This was all in the way of things.
He made his journey again, this time returning with a saw. That branch on the laburnum tree had become dangerous, it would have to go. The laburnum was hollow, its inner flesh long gone to fertilise the ground beneath it. The branch on which the gardener's eyes were set had been weakened by February's storms, and a recent gale meant it was no longer part of the tree, merely hanging there supported by other branches. Cutting a few pieces of wood, the tree's load was suddenly released and fell to the ground. The man slipped back down the trunk with an agility which belied his years. The laburnum's flowers were beginning to bloom. He remembered that when his employer's daughter was young she would have to be watched in case she might eat any of the beautiful but poisonous flowers. The smile was gone from his eyes, and they involuntarily jerked towards the main gate.
On the third floor bedroom the air was heavy with silence. On the bed, a pair of eyes had slowly opened. Perhaps they were still opening. These eyes belonged to the owner of the house, the employer of our relaxed gardener, the man who held the hereditary title to which his house belonged, the 12th Earl of Dunchester. His cousin would be the 13th Earl. How this decision came about was something he had not understood. It had probably been explained at the time it was made, but it was unlikely that this was something he had devoted any attention to at the time.
His daughter had been dead for two years.
His wife had left one year later, frustrated by his sudden lack of vitality. He was her second husband, she was already on her third.
The red curtains hanging at the window filtered the pale sun's morning light, giving it an artificial quality, and an extra weight that seemed to drag the rays of light towards the floor.
With the death of his only child, and the departure of his wife, the Earl to his friends seemed no longer any more than a shell, a pale body moving slowly and without any clear destination, and with the mental vacancy of one much older than his forty-seven years. The people with whom he had once gone hunting no longer knew him, the Earl had hardly enough drive left in him to get out of bed in the morning, let alone go on a hunt.
He rolled over onto his back and sighed, then pushing his right arm against the mattress levered himself into an upright position. The intensity of the light insinuating itself through the curtains was now greater, and it threw a feeble pink veil over the far wall of the room.
On this wall stood a bookshelf, and on the top shelf were stacked somewhat haphazardly a selection of volumes and albums on CD. His collection included The Collected Poetry of Dylan Thomas, several albums by The Doors, and a copy of Beowulf. To pass the time he had been translating it into modern Enlish, only to find himself beaten to it by Seamus Heaney. To compound his anger, three publishers had rejected his translation of the first section, citing the lack of demand for such a work. Also on the bookshelf were Kafka's The fasting-artist and other stories and several bottles of spirits.
The Earl felt cetain something should be done about the quality of the air in the room. And also the light. But there was no one to do anything. He had been acutely aware of this for several months. It was quiet. It was always quiet, but morning was the worst. In the morning there was birdsong, painfully oblivious to his suffering. He did not want birdsong. He wanted the noise of people. With a sharp focus of willpower he propelled himself forward off the bed, flung open the curtains, lifted the window and allowed the cool morning air gain entrance to his room.
Hidden in the drawers of various items of furniture in the room were mementoes of a past which were now too painful to retain in full view. Family photographs, the drawings of a five-year-old child, works of art in their own way, school reports for two years of primary school, various possessions of his wife which she had left behind. The room was filled with spirits, whether physical or metaphysical.
He looked out his window, and saw, as he always did, his gardener industriously regulating nature. Dead blooms were being snipped off the lilies. The hyacinths had not flowered for two years now- the gardener had no explanations to offer. The birdsong was temporarily disturbed by a car rushing past on the road outside his garden. Another had died on that road recently. A local man. He didn't know him. Or anybody else. He stood in the silence offering a Matins prayer and stared ahead for several minutes, thinking of nothing. A crash awoke him, and he looked back at the garden to see a cloud of birds resettling in the old laburnum as the gardener dragged off the dead and rotten branch. He resumed his empty meditation.
Despite the open window, the air was still heavy. The quiet of the morning rolled in like storm clouds, and breathing was difficult.
The Earl offered up a fresh prayer, withdrew into the room once more, and opened a drawer he only kept locked out of habit: there were no longer the little hands of inquisitive young children to worry about.
The gardener let drop his load. Time for a rest- not all that young.
The birds chattered on the laburnum tree.
The lilies stood, their fresh blooms proud in the wet dark earth, the hyacinths inexplicably muted still.
Another crash, and the birds once more left and returned to their tree with a fluttering of wings, their movement reminiscent of a mushroom cloud. The gardener stopped brushing the dirt from his hands as he looked up to the third floor.
