Repose

by beneaththesurfaces

Posted on the flash fiction blog The Angry Hourglass

We arrived shortly just before midnight exhausted from a full work day, the three hour transformative journey from urban to that far removed rural setting.  We had been too tired to do anything more than drag the few items we had brought into the cottage and turn in for the night.

I had arisen that next day at the crack of dawn.  I could have slept in, embraced the sloth like state that my body and mind desired.  Instead I quietly moved out onto the patio, so as not to awaken my wife. On the fence, which separated the properties, sat the neighbor’s cat in repose.  I had to remind myself that people actually spent all of their lives in this setting; not only those who sojourned to this remote location to escape the noise, the chaos of the city. Our friends had chided that we should vacation somewhere livelier, somewhere sexy. We laughed off these ideas. Life had been lively enough.

“Georgia, what should we do today?”  I asked the cat.  I had named her that, though it probably hadn’t been her name.  Everyone needed a name. She had been good company on our previous visits to the cottage.

“Nothing,” she said taking a moment to lick her paw. “We’re going relax here and enjoying the sun.”

“Yeah?”  I asked, still dubious.  Much left undone at the office; so my embittered co-workers had advised by text message; signals from civilization that I had promptly ignored. Yes, I had to push all of the noise that wasn’t in the present, the here and the now, deeper into the background.  Life’s adventure, misadventures, could wait.

My wife appeared on the porch, coffee cup in hand, stretching. She worked as an attorney for some of the most powerful people in the city. Gone was the power suit. In its place a tee shirt, no bra, sweat pants, hair a mess, no makeup.  She settled onto the chair beside me, eyes fixed on the now rising sun.  As she breathed in deeply, she closed her eyes, as her body bathed in the warmth, the solace of the silent morning.

“Precisely,” Georgia observed lazily.