Pierre could hear his cane click on the cobblestones. He has to be careful not to fall. That happened last week and it was so embarrassing laying in the middle of the street and people asking if he were alright or should they call an ambulance.

He's limped home and Marie had called him a silly old man for forgetting the baguette he'd left on the ground.

Every morning he went out for the daily bread and the Independent.

He'd said bonjour to the green grocer, the pharmacist and the newspaper seller. The shops had changed hands many times over since he was a boy. 

The village had become gentrified. No more goats and chickens on the streets now filled with tourist from Paris, London, even  Amsterdam.

He held his baguette tight and the Independent under his arm.

He planned to go out every morning as long as he could --  Old age stunk

The Darkness Keeps Coming

 

The darkness kept coming.

No moon.

No stars. 

Only the headlights pushed pinpricks of light onto the forest road. 

No other cars were out. Why should they be? They were in the middle of the Maine wilderness after midnight.

"You okay?" she asked Jack. "Not sleepy?"

"Don't worry. We'll get to your folks in time."

In time. Time for her father to die. 

The forest's darkness didn't scare her. She'd grown up here. Her father's work was a botanist, a tree specialist. She'd learned to live with the loneliness. Her dog skipper had been her only friend.

How different her life had been when she went to Boston University, returning only for holidays. 

She loved her parents, loved Skipper, but she needed more things like the internet. She and Jack were a couple, but even in the city she valued solitude.

"Take a right at that big rock." It probably had been dropped by a glacier.

There were lights in the windows of her parents' cabin.

The door opened. Skipper hobbled out, his tail wagging at seeing her. 

Her mother followed. "You made it in time."

A New Life

 

Annabel sat on the terrace staring at the garden watching the bees flit among the pink flowers.

A calico cat strutted along the wall, looked at her and walked away.

Her gray hair was in a pony tail, the way she hadn't worn it since the 60s.

She glanced at her watch. Two more hours to kill before she could go home.

Home. That was a word that didn't fit her house. How long had she pretended, making sure it was decorated for holidays and parties. Only one room was hers where she escaped to paint, when social obligations lightened.

Harold had been shocked when she has said "good" to his "I want a divorce." He told her his new love would never go out in a sweat suit like she was now wearing.

She lit a newly bought cigarette, her first in 22 years. Harold didn't approve of smoking. Coughing, she wondered why she had ever enjoyed it.

The lake below glistened. She glistened.