They married young after he returned from the war
And soon the children came along.
They saved for a new home in the city where the work was
The boys grew up playing footy and making Billy carts
Their only daughter was abducted on her way to the beach
and never seen again.
The boys moved interstate and he retreated into the shed.
She kept the house and the peace but always dreamed of
travel.
For years they rattled about until one day a cheque arrived
They went abroad.
He stepped onto European soil for the first time in fifty
years
She joined all the dots on the map she'd pinned to the
kitchen wall.
The steins were amongst a trove of mementos that rested on the
mantelpiece.
They went back to their routines.
She got crook and he spent less time in the shed,
then the cancer took her.
The boys and their families stayed a while to help but soon
he was alone again.
Dust gathered, he ate less and listened to the voices on the
radio.
Soon he started forgetting everything and they moved him
into a home
and died at the dinner table on ‘Lasagne Night’
The house was packed up contents sold and put on the market.
A developer levelled it and built four new townhouses.
Nothing remained of a life once shared
Except these two steins
on an Op-Shop shelf.
2 comments:
A thoughtful, meaningful, poignant piece Steve.
Reminds me of a line from the old Rogers & Hammerstein "Carousel" - where main character is speaking with his girlfriend in front of the carousel where he works running it. He says to her "What are we? Just a coupla specks of nutthin'" He is talking about the human race as a whole when he asks "what are we", and saying essentially that if you were to look down from the stars above, you'd just see the two of them as a couple of specks ("of nothing").
Hi Rita and thanks for reading.
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