A Break in the Weather
He
sighed into the dismal drama of his life and battled on. There were days when
he had little strength, moving forward with stiffness. He had a new home with
squared windows and a robust roof. Yet he felt imprisoned after the entirety of
green, the forest and the open sky. Although he walked under the same clouds,
his garden had shrunk to an allotment size.
Sometimes he heard his dead wife’s laughter,
but knew that was an illusion. He saw the same faces in the convoy of early
morning walkers and only had the company of his shadow when circuiting the park.
A few dog owners drifted past, nodding, others crooned about Pippa or Bluey,
and most were less impassioned about the weather. When they were gone there was
nothing more to add. It would have been easier just to ring an empty bell.
At night he watched TV, its flashes of
colour and noise livening up the room. One evening he watched a program that
gave him an idea to visit his local tavern.
The main bar was dark and musty, mostly men
his age seated on stools. On his second Friday night visit, he was hoping to
chat to one regular who had previously spoken to him, but the man leaned on the
crook of his arm, crouched at the bar, his empty glass propping up the sadness
in his face.
Come
this Saturday, the bartender said. We
get a good crowd and usually a country music band. You'll have fun.
The night wasn’t what he expected, and it
brought a change to his face. A younger crowd greeted him. Handshakes and
shoulders touched like a bridge. In that crossing, he encountered the
simplicity of conversation over a round of beers. He noticed, above the hubbub
of music, laughter and voices, all the young men sported beards. They were
impressive, neat and tidy, colourful and not at all housing breakfast crumbs,
toothpaste or foreign bodies.
It's the rage now, said one fellow. Why not grow one and join the club?
He went along every Saturday night. Why
hadn't he thought of growing a beard before? In all his eighty years he had
lathered and shaved, rinsed and patted.
Overnight the hairs inched forward beginning
as little brown wisps. He looked like Benjamin Disraeli. When it had grown and
bushed out he resembled Sir John Forrest. After several months of growing it
long and unkempt, he was Gandalf.
The young men invited him to car trials,
quiz nights, beard contests, and to zero birthdays. Mostly, it was a thirtieth
or fortieth and the talk revolved around shapes, styles and colour. There was the
Johnny Depp, the David Beckham, the Santa Claus, the goatee, the short-boxed
and the stubble. Words like 'soul patch, terminal and mouche' suited his
sensibilities. The men told him about a city barber where he could have his
beard trimmed and coloured, but if he couldn't afford that, there was the beard
trimmer at K-Mart.
Each morning he splashed water on his face,
and gazed at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was not a bearded Anthony
Hopkins or George Clooney, but it was easy to see what had taken place. His old
look had gone in a different direction while his new existence stared back at
him with a neatly trimmed moustache and a bristling, Silverfox beard.
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