Friday, September 10, 2010

253. Tuning out


Marianne thought of this as a nook, her nook. The slope was gradual and the surface even, well relatively. What she treasured about it was the ‘out-of-the-way’ quality. Sometimes a tennis ball landed up here, quickly followed by a dog of the snooty variety, but even they still slobbered. That was about the extent of the interruptions.

Being up here meant that the other people using the park ignored her, didn’t feel obliged to include her, which suited Marianne just fine. The sound of modern families playing always intrigued her. More so when the sound arrived as through a glass darkly. Modern families intrigued her, full stop. The very modernity was scandalous to her narrow Presbyterian upbringing. She blamed it on the ‘schism’ and those pesky ‘United” parishioners.

Scraping her foot in the gravel to form a red scar, Marianne wondered if this surface could host a game of boules.

1 comment:

Joan Elizabeth said...

There is a man who assumes a seat near our tennis court as his own. He is just about the only person I have ever seen sit there and he does it reasonably regularly. I'd love to get a photo. He is an aging European gentleman who wears a cap and has an amazing mouthful of metal teeth but instead I nod and say good morning and leave him to his peace in the sun.