By the River [1]

I really, really liked it. Just the fact that you can write about old fashioned times so authentically, not resorting to cliches.

My eyes lost focus on the colours and textures of the water for a time I cannot predict, and the next thing I knew was Aunt Grace’s sinewy hand on my mine, pressing the soft, yielding flesh like baker’s dough

I watched from the wrought seat

I stood, clunking my mug down upon the table.

But, sure enough, a car came into view—with my knowledge of vehicles scant, I can only offer the information that it was black and rounded, with circular lights obtruding from the bonnet.

A bump for more reviews, anyone? xD

Ten
Lauren
Please excuse me if I accidentally miss out a letter or an apostrophe as my laptop doesn't like lemonade, how shocking?
I love reviewing anything by Lauren. Anything at all.
Anyway, I think I shall do a line by line, as this piece is rather short, and then do a review.

By the River
One
We had been sojourned in the garden all afternoon

under the willow tree beside the river.

It had always been my mother’s favourite spot, Aunt Grace often reminded me, and as girls

they had kept a little boat tied up against a protruding root, and they had rowed for hours up and down, up and down.

We had been sat so long in the shade that my cheeks felt slack at the touch, senseless in the chiding breeze. I wished for nothing more than to go inside, pick up a book and lose myself in somebody else’s adventures, for my own seemed quite stationary, but Aunt Grace was determined I should stay. We sat sipping the stewed tea, cold on our teeth by now, and Aunt Grace occasionally turned the page of her newspaper, talking in the words with slow, meticulous glances.


I myself

watched the river. It was a kind of greyish silver, but the last reign of sunlight reflected on the ripples and dips of the surface, producing the whitest light. It was my opinion that it would make a pretty painting, and that it would be a painting I would have liked to paint, had I ever learnt the skill. My eyes lost focus on the colours and textures of the water for a time I cannot

predict, and the next thing I knew was Aunt Grace’s sinewy hand on my mine, pressing the soft, yielding flesh like baker’s dough.


‘Ruth,’ she said. ‘Oh, my dear, brighten yourself up. I just heard a car. It must be them.’


My aunt

who had always been quite nimble to my knowledge, despite her hefty age and shrunken figure, stood. With a hand at her forehead as if in a frozen salute, she stared out into the distance. I looked also, but saw only the small, square redbrick house that I had been calling my home since the five months after my parents’ deaths. But, sure enough, a car came into view—with my knowledge of vehicles scant, I can only offer the information that it was black and rounded, with circular lights obtruding from the bonnet.

It was quite enchanting to Aunt Grace—or at least its inhabitants were—and she hitched up her dress to run towards it.


I watched from the wrought seat, hands tightening around my mug of tea. My aunt seemed so young then, and so alive; her youth did not embarrass me, but made me ashamed of myself, for being so old in comparison.

As she neared the car, the door at the driver’s seat opened and a young man got out—tall and with red hair, was all I could see, but I knew from the many photographs Aunt Grace had shown me that he was Frederick, her only son. He stood a moment, looking about with jerks of the head this way and that, and then moved in confident strides towards his mother, who enclosed him in her arms. Another door opened—on the passenger’s side—and another man got out. This, I realised, must be Simon, his university friend. He stood a distance apart.


Aunt Grace and Frederick let go of one another, and Simon neared her to shake her hand. I told myself that they were all acquainted and that now it was my turn to make myself known, but suddenly Aunt Grace was pointing in my direction and Frederick was waving in a manic manner. I stood, clunking my mug down upon the table. I began to wave back.