Esther - Part Three

 Esther - Part three

I dreamt. Windows smashed, the dog barked, my mother screamed. Yet another man was kicked out of the house, and yet another bottle would be emptied. I’d hide under my duvet, and hug the empty gin bottle I had kept for years. Somehow, I found it comforting, and soothing, because she had said it would be her last ever bottle. We would move, I would find a new school: new people who would stare, new people to run away from me. And my mother would find someone new to meet, to eventually leave.

    I remembered a scene from Aristocats, where Edgar abandons the cats and they wake up under the bridge, alone and confused. Except when I woke up, I hadn’t been kidnapped and abandoned, at least not last night. There was no one who was looking for me, no one for me to go back to, no one who loved me to even miss me. I rolled up my anorak, stuffed it in my rucksack, splashed my face, and got up. Bending down under the bridge, I couldn’t stand up straight, the sound of the water made my urge to pee even stronger. I found a tall, thick bush and went about my business. That kind of thing never bothered me. I didn’t think anyone would be out at this time, even without a watch I could still tell it was early. The dewy grey colour that surrounded me, archetype of early mornings, where it seems almost foggy, but it isn’t. It was cold, the breeze lapped around my ears and whipped my cropped hair into my face. I dug around in my bag for my beanie and pulled it low over my head, trapping the thoughts that escaped from my ears. They swirled around my head. I took the beanie off, tipped my head forward and shook them out violently. They thudded onto the ground and I kicked them into the water. Replacing my beanie, I walked up the bank and began over the bridge, waiting for the troll to stop me. That was me, wasn’t it? The troll that sleeps under the bridge.

    The next right turning, took me past a row of apple trees, I plucked one and kept walking, the sound of the water disappeared with each plod. I stopped outside a barn to take off my anorak which, as the sun rose in the sky, was imprisoning my sweat on its inside. Once I had put it away in my rucksack I stood up and examined the barn as I stretched my arms out.  Metal corrugated roof, wooden slatted frame, and ivy spidered its way up one side. The gate in front of me sighed into the mud, leaning over as if an invitation. It was slightly ajar, dipping its hat at me, ushering me inside.

Part three of Esther. I promise the story is going somewhere !! this bit is a bit of character & backstory, and the travelling through the countryside is a kind of homage to my home town (village? hamlet? fields?) and so I wanted to have her walking through the countryside to a remote place to be alone and for once at peace in the peace. 

Ellen Victoria