Tom was an old boy-old for the time anyway. Most folk didn’t live past 60 those days. Truth is Tom didn’t know how old he was but he knew he was old. His knees him that. Nevertheless he got up at 6am every morning and worked till dusk. Tom was a fisherman. He spent most of the day on the lake and the rest selling what he could. It was hard work but it was all he knew. Tom smiled occasionally and hadn’t laughed in 20 years. He had no reason to. Tom’s hands were calloused and hard. He had a firm handshake and always went to the villagers funerals-even the ones he didn’t know personally. He said ‘what if no-one else shows up?Let there at least be 1 person’. Tom had a beard and smoked a pipe. He had a big black jacker which he almost always wore. Tom liked silence and dandelions (which he always kept in a glass vase on his windowsill). Tom made his bed every morning and always drank a cup of coffee before leaving for work. Tom’s wife was dead. Her name was Geri and she also loved dandelions. She talked more than Tom. She smelled like Rosemary. She always worked hard until she couldn’t. She was a great hugger. Geri is buried in the garden of their house. Her gravestone reads ‘Here lies Geri-she was loved’ on a wooden cross.
Tom misses Geri. He feels cold sometimes. He wants her arms around him. She wants to smell her again. He wants to feel her breath against his. Tom had thought about joining her…..but he didn’t. He got up at 6am and worked till dusk. He went to every funeral and gave firm handshakes. He seldom smiled and never laughed.
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