Promises to Keep
But I have promises to keep… And miles to go before I sleep.
– Robert Frost.
The branches of the trees stood bare and weightless. A sullen quietness hung in the air. To the right, a flash of squirrel tail in the undergrowth. To the left, nothing but the dank and stagnant pond. It seemed a good place to do it. The eyes – hooded, wrinkled – swivelled around the clearing again. No other signs of life. Good.
His fingers, fumbling in the cold, caught in the torn pockets of his coat. The container slipped from his grasp. He swore. Typical. His back creaked as he bent down to retrieve it. Impatient to get the thing done he blew on his hands. Some birds flapped skywards. Startled by ghosts. He spat out the phlegm that had risen in his throat and unscrewed the lid.
No words came to him. No prayers, either, just echoes. Curses flung into a room. The slam of a door. She would have had plenty to say. She should have died
roaring; you’d think that would have been the way she’d go. He could feel the cold seeping into his bones. This place had been warm and alive once. They had been
young once.
He tipped the container upside down, a swift pouring out, then scuffed at the ashes with his toe. His cheeks were numb. He rubbed them, streaking moisture across the grooves of his face. He cleared his throat, turned his back and headed away from the woods, the grey pile already absorbing the damp around it.
Carol Caffrey’s work has appeared in Bare Fiction and the Fish Anthology as well as online. She is a member of Room 204, the Writing West Midlands development programme for emerging writers.