Sunday Mourning

Sunday morning dawns tentatively, gently, like a mother with her fingers on the curtains around her child’s bed in the hospital.     

The market square is deserted – last night’s revelry discarded like clothes at the beach. Broken glass from friendly bottles of yesterday catches the sunrays, breaking into spots of rainbow.  The trash cans are overflowing, there are stains you don’t want to identify on the cobbled stones of alleys, dried rivers of joy that cannot be contained in a human body. 

A few unashamed pigeons peck away at the remains of late night burgers, cold fries, sticky mayo, brown vomit.

The sun suddenly breaks free of the clingy, gloomy clouds and there is a break in the gray – the blue of the sky almost golden with the sun which is but a blinding smear you can only look at with your eyes closed.  It lights up the fragile leaves that stick out plainly on the branches of trees. 

That is just how Autumn is – a tragic mad brilliant artist who creates the beautiful magical hues of green lightening to yellow darkening to orange and then bright red like fresh flowing blood and then dark maroon and almost black, like old blood, bad blood, dirty blood, for a while the forests are breathless with beauty and then, like the self-loathing artist she is, Autumn destroys it all, harsh wild cold winds tear the leaves away and all the colour slowly disappears, like the end of a magic trick, all the leaves become a dull yellow, brown, fallen and they carpet the grounds and sidewalks and people don’t even realise how sad the crunch of dead leaves is.

The market square is empty – the last of the night crawlers have danced walked lolled and crawled back home and it is still a few hours before people wake up and come out into the streets today.

The morning is so still it feels like a photograph – time is taking a break, grateful for the respite that is only possible without people.

But the square isn’t completely empty.

There is a man sitting, cross legged, a gray hood over his bent head, a dirty scuffed backpack next to him, his smudged cold hands circled around a paper cup.  He has probably been there all night, maybe longer, under the eaves of a curry shop closed for refurbishing. 

He probably has a sad story to tell – maybe he ran away from an abusive father, or maybe he is the abusive father.  Maybe he is addicted to heroin.  Maybe he’s just heartbroken and has nobody who can hold the broken heart for him while he tries to get his breath back.

Slowly, people start coming out into the square and time flexes his muscles, ready to race again.

Shutters are pulled up, fruits and flowers laid out, the smell of coffee dances out cheekily from a cafe with bright teal walls.  People walk into church, and then out, children in pink mittens and woolly caps swing from their parents’ arms.

The minute hand swings to 12 and the church bells ring out, one, two, three – and then suddenly the man under the eaves of the closed curry shop lets out a yell.  For a moment the town centre freezes save for the ominous tolling of the bells and the broken, scarred tormented yelling of the man.  The screams are drenched in sorrow, painful to the ear – it is the scream of a heart broken into so many pieces they are sticking into his skin, his soul, making him drown in his own blood inside.  It is the choked dry scream of despair, despair so thick it dissolves all thought into a dark whirlwind of hopelessness and all he can do is scream, scream in an effort to get the darkness out of his body, just enough so he can draw in some air. Heads turn, people stop walking and they look on at the man.

Then the yells peter out, the minute hand moves ahead just a bit and the bells stop.

Time starts again and people move on, they stop looking and start walking – children to mind, groceries to buy, and what can they offer the broken man anyways? He’s probably just a drunk who wants some change so he can buy cigarettes – or worse.

And just like that life goes on, and the man under the eaves sits still with his head bent, not even watching as he gets left behind.