pond
The cellophane wrapper, of a deepest blue, made the grey-green pond water seem positively sickly. It bobbed about upon the ripples, tide in and tide out, moving not a bit further from the muddy bank. Not the slightest crinkle, it shone whole and undiminished under the midday sun. Which, by contrast, did so little to revive the murk in the pond water. It was as if a terrible administrative error had been made. This little piece of affinity with the celestial let to perpetually mill about upon the primordial ooze of mud and larvae and urine and rotting reeds and listless tadpoles. So grotesque, so mindless. No wonder she dare not put her life back together, Leonara mused. Her chin pressing into the soft of the worn railing. Whereas the glint of the cellophane had merely caught passersby’s eyes, it had totally blinded Leonara. So much so that she had dropped the bag of crusts for the ducks. Her fingers usually so assured, when detailing a canvas, making the lower strings of her cello resonate, tickling the soft behind of her lover’s ear, or writing in neat cursive the labels in her flower shop, were given to tremors in public. The cellophane, a tremor. The ducks, nowhere to be seen. Leonara pushed herself back from the railing. All of a shudder, dripping wet, still rubbing out the glint in her eye, and clutching the cellophane in her other fist. She climbed the nearby eucalypt to think some more in the crook of its branches. Well, it’s crinkled now. This, spoiling a languorous summer's afternoon.