There I was

I sit outside a public house. It seems warm but not bright. Early autumn. That time of year when nature itself appears to slow down, but in reality is starting to prepare for next year. When there is still colour and warmth but that colour and warmth is of a more relaxed, subtle nature. The intense verve of summer has given way to the more reflective air of that cusp between summer and autumn. Everything and everyone seems quieter at this time of day, at this time of year. It is early evening and you know that there is, maybe, just a couple of hours of decent daylight left. So there isn't that determination to see the day out that there is in mid summer when people linger for hours and hours and the days seem endless and night time seems so far away.

I always seem to be here, I don't really know why but here I am in the same place that I sit every time I appear. It is to the right, rear corner of a courtyard filled with umbrella sheltered tables surrounded by wooden chairs. Hanging baskets adorn the windows and doorways of the pub, past their best but still colourful with late blooms. The pub itself is ancient and wears that age with pride but also a little embarrassment, for the owner has embellished and exaggerated it with signs and decorations that advertise how old the place is but emphasise how new the interest in that is. Before he did that no one cared how long it had been here. No one cared about time.

The ground is slabbed with stone pavings leading to a low wall which hugs the courtyard and its contents, protecting it from the outside world, the real world. Here the world is that of escape and those who enter the little space do so to leave their worries and concerns outside the wall for a while before venturing back out onto the path that runs on the other side of it.

The wall is only a couple of feet high but is solid with a decorative iron railing along its top. Between it and the path is a small grassy area and a border of well established shrubs. The path is quite wide, tarmacked like a little road rather than paved like a path. And it is used as a sort of road, what with all the cyclist who glide beneath the large beech trees that line it. Beyond this shady thoroughfare is more grass, another low wall and then the river, a wide languid river it is.

I sit and watch this window on the world I know, the courtyard with tables, the wall, the path, the trees, the grass, the next wall and then the river, almost like a theatre. People come and go in this world of mine. Most I take little notice of. They pass on the path. They rush, they dawdle. They are quiet. They are noisy. Sometimes they are alone, sometimes not. Sometimes they streak past on their bikes, sometimes they stop and look. They linger and gaze across the river lost in their thoughts.

I do not see them as individuals but merely as part of the theatre that unfolds before me every time I am here. They are part of a picture, part of a story that is without narrative, that is without end it seems. Each day starts, unfolds, develops and then ends. Like a miniature year. Like a life.

Every day is similar. A few more people when it is warm and dry. A few less when it is cold and wet. And they move more quickly when it is wet too. I never listen to their conversations. I don't have to. When I see a young man and a young woman gazing intently into each other's eyes I imagine the words that may pass between them. That is assuming words do pass, for often there is just silence whilst the eyes convey the meaning far more adroitly than any words could do. My own thoughts do for me anyway. The real words, should they risk them, might spoil it. Besides they will whisper words that have been whispered for millennia; words that no one owns for we all share them and all know what the meaning will be. So why listen to something that I know the meaning of anyway?

And when I see a middle aged couple in silent companionship I can imagine a thousand combinations of what thoughts pass between them. They don't need words so why should I want to listen to those who do need recourse to words? Do I need to know an individual story when all it will be is a variation on a theme; a theme that is repeated countless times between middle aged couples? Between any couple. I don't. I've heard it all thousands of times before and all the individual stories merge into a hum of uniformity.

And just as I take little notice of the vast majority of individuals, so they take little notice of me. On occasions, though, someone does. And if they notice me I find my attention grabbed by them. If they come over, which is rare, I beat a retreat. No one sits next to me.

A little girl of about six looks at me. She has noticed me. She is with her parents who seem submerged in some adult conversation that wafts over the little girls head. In the image within my mind their bodies are framed, their heads not. There is no sound. I am at the little girls level. She is quite pretty, with milky brown hair that has a hint of curl around the edges. She is quiet as she takes everything in and absorbs it into her silent little six year old world. A world she will leave behind at some point but which will seem, to her, for now, so immediate, all encompassing as well as everlasting.

She looks at me for some time, not just my face. Her eyes move over my torso and the clothes I wear and then, once all that has been recorded, she settles on my face. I look back with my mind more than my eyes. I don't really see her, I see an image, a picture. She smiles. Her eyes do too with an intoxicating infectiousness that is irresistible. I smile back, or at least I think I do. I must be, for her smile remains and shows no signs of abating. The smile grows into a giggle. I don't hear it but I can tell. Her body quivers like a funny little jelly.

The frame suddenly grows as her parents notice her distraction. Words fall from their mouths on top of her head but she doesn't really notice. The words become more insistent. She looks up, finally aware of her parents and taken away from her reverie, my reverie too.

She looks back and points over in my direction whilst turning her mouth from the sweet smile to words of explanation. The smile has gone now. More words from the parents. They don't so much fall now but are hurled down on the little girl who looks confused and hurt. She frowns and points again, insistently this time. I take my gaze from her and look at the unsmiling, unseeing faces of the parents. They are looking over towards me but they haven't seen me.

But then, I don't think the little girl has really seen me. I am a figment of her imagination maybe, and not really here.