Sadler's Birthday (2008)
“When you got old, or so he found, all that spring did to you was remind you of other springs, springs that had bloomed into summers and burned out long ago, springs when the sight of straight, bright grass coming up in last winter’s pale hay had been enough to set your mind muddling forward to some new endeavour, springs when you weren’t old.
He couldn’t remember when spring had started to hurt him. Ages ago, probably. He’d been old it seemed for so long. Old at fifty, and since then a shameful... decline. Looking at the buds, the contained, strong growth everywhere creeping out, he tried to imagine his body crushed and crammed into one of those tiny sheaths, reduced to something no bigger than a bean, but with the whole of its existence in front, not behind, the whole of his being curled there, growing, the flower and the leaf yet to come. He spat. Silly old fool, what thoughts!
But this happened quite a lot now, particularly on days when he was tired. He’d have these odd notions about himself, shunting his mind backwards in time, dwelling on things that once seemed important and on things that had never happened.MoreLess
He couldn’t remember when spring had started to hurt him. Ages ago, probably. He’d been old it seemed for so long. Old at fifty, and since then a shameful... decline. Looking at the buds, the contained, strong growth everywhere creeping out, he tried to imagine his body crushed and crammed into one of those tiny sheaths, reduced to something no bigger than a bean, but with the whole of its existence in front, not behind, the whole of his being curled there, growing, the flower and the leaf yet to come. He spat. Silly old fool, what thoughts!
But this happened quite a lot now, particularly on days when he was tired. He’d have these odd notions about himself, shunting his mind backwards in time, dwelling on things that once seemed important and on things that had never happened.MoreLess
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