He had taken his happy pills that morning – two amber and translucent, one round and smooth and russet-coloured like a precious seed – but, better still, he walked down the gravel road and through the long, wet grass to the avocado orchard.
There were perhaps eighty trees – their twisted, tortuous limbs rising from the ground with no main trunks, like neural dendrites – braided and contorted – with an electrical synapse-flash of green, electric foliage. The avocados themselves were visible through the leaves, dark orbs against the pale grey sky on the highest branches.
Despite the patter of rain on the leaves above, the birdsong was constant. A kingfisher flashed through and sat on a stone wall, its beady eye capturing all. Father Hopkins was right – kingfishers catch fire as dragonflies draw flame. Beyond the silver-rust and green-brown of the avocados’ new foliage, the pine trees were dark and gnarled and austere.
The ground beneath the trees was thick with grass and (‘weeds’ they call them) plants that crept or grew tall and had yellow or white or purple flowers. Other people had been here: ‘Durex: 1 preservatif en latex’.
Some of the pine trees had toppled and lay rotting away slowly, submerged in grass – ambiguous, misshapen, evanescent, attenuated, devolving into nothingness.
At the far side of the orchard, he sat down under a pine tree. Here it was dry – the pine needles and lichen fallen from above formed a thick mat, wind and birdsong the only sound. He sat and breathed – a gentle, repeated flow that calmed him.
It was only in his mind that, out beyond the orchard edge, the curved, silver blade and vast yellow bulk of a bulldozer waited, threatening destruction, presaging bare, flat earth and lifeless desolation.
But, high high up, still the avocados were out of reach.
Barnaby McBryde
There were perhaps eighty trees – their twisted, tortuous limbs rising from the ground with no main trunks, like neural dendrites – braided and contorted – with an electrical synapse-flash of green, electric foliage. The avocados themselves were visible through the leaves, dark orbs against the pale grey sky on the highest branches.
Despite the patter of rain on the leaves above, the birdsong was constant. A kingfisher flashed through and sat on a stone wall, its beady eye capturing all. Father Hopkins was right – kingfishers catch fire as dragonflies draw flame. Beyond the silver-rust and green-brown of the avocados’ new foliage, the pine trees were dark and gnarled and austere.
The ground beneath the trees was thick with grass and (‘weeds’ they call them) plants that crept or grew tall and had yellow or white or purple flowers. Other people had been here: ‘Durex: 1 preservatif en latex’.
Some of the pine trees had toppled and lay rotting away slowly, submerged in grass – ambiguous, misshapen, evanescent, attenuated, devolving into nothingness.
At the far side of the orchard, he sat down under a pine tree. Here it was dry – the pine needles and lichen fallen from above formed a thick mat, wind and birdsong the only sound. He sat and breathed – a gentle, repeated flow that calmed him.
It was only in his mind that, out beyond the orchard edge, the curved, silver blade and vast yellow bulk of a bulldozer waited, threatening destruction, presaging bare, flat earth and lifeless desolation.
But, high high up, still the avocados were out of reach.
Barnaby McBryde
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