Lost in the Gardens

At the start I was looking for the light. It was nowhere. Just the branches, thick and heavy branches stretching out above and around me like a thousand rakish fingers dotted with leaves that contorted and knotted in their death throes as the autumn air suffocated and froze them. No light, well some light, the moon was above me but choked by clouds it’s light had dwindled until it was useless, just a sphere of cheese in orbit two-hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles above Dartington too dim to even illuminate the face of my watch. What time is it? Have to get through the Gardens, have to get to the Roundhouse. I’ve got a promise to keep and I’m not in the habit of letting people down, well okay, maybe I am but I do try to avoid it as best as I can.

My feet are wet, bloody canvas shoes. I’m kicking up flurries of leafy-mulch with every effortful stride. My straying from the pavement to find a shortcut has epically failed, this side-path is essentially a trail of exposed tree roots that no grass or weed can penetrate. I’m late already. Why aren’t the guiding lights of Lower Close and the Hall beaming through the scattering of trunks and bushes? This is hopeless. I won’t enjoy myself when I get there now anyway; knackered and wet and muddy. I’ll just apologetically get a round in a sit unenthusiastically at a table occupied by smiley, cheery laughing people. Bugger.