Dantebury

The brightness was unusually comforting. My heart was gladdened with the light that seemed to seep through my eyelids and force them apart thus revealing to me the otherwise unappreciated beauty of the morning's first sun rays. It was just the perfect amount of sun, too. Not too warm, not too cool, considering it was the middle of November.


I moved ever so subtle-ly so as to not rouse Rosalind. She looked so peaceful in our bright purple duvet, like a white dove immersed in a love that only the sweetness of deep sleep can offer.


As I slid out of the double bed I flung my cardigan over my head. I noticed that out in the veranda, lay strewn all across the floor were remainders of last night's exercise. Last night's "exercise", I say because it sure did tire me out; all the book-sorting work that Rosalie imposed over my otherwise dull day at the House.


Rosalind and I have been married for the past seventeen years. Ours was a marriage of convenience. Both our parents were good noble hard-working couples, with good repute in the good County of Gamot. Once Rosalind entered the tender age of eighteen, they married us, and I at twenty-seven, fancying myself a wife, un-objectionably entered into this lifetime bond.


For as long as I've lived, I've worked at the Mill over at Dantebury Road. My life has been ordinary, satisfying. I have been happy; I am happy. There is nothing outstanding about our County either. We're a close-knit family of around sixty-three families and counting and have been about always self-contained in our own little world. Detached from the outside. But not imprisoned, I must add. Out of choice, as it is.


We have no children, Rosie and I. Never wanted to either. Strangely, we have never felt the need to reproduce. I guess that's what makes us separate from our neighbourhood. Often we have heard of social gatherings through general town news but never have attended a party. Never been invited to one, rather. Seemingly this does not deter us from our daily routine. We're so immersed in our lives as a couple that other people not being able to understand us or befriend us has not been very baffling or of much consequence to us.


I head to our den and realize that the fire from last night is still burning, though futilely for it's barely on the last log. I sit down on the armchair, and discover a stray leftover of last night's lasagna. "Silly Rosie." Bemusedly, I toss it into the remainder of the fire silently contemplating it's fate. The last of the fire is gone, and with it so is the lasagna.


Lasagna: only my best cooking masterpiece. Me and Rosie, we have these little competitions of our own often about who is the better chef in the House. Our beloved dog Radio being the judge of course, since he possesses the finest taste buds on a dog; and that we've agreed on mutually. (Although it is my dish that he always happens to finally lap his tongue over and gobble about!).


After all, he is my contribution to the House. We've had him eight years. One night I was walking down the street when I stumbled across the street and found a tiny black pup. He looked so small and in serious need of help that I brought him home. We didn't name him until after a week when one night we heard him indistinctly moaning. But it was unlike any other dog-moan. It sounded like singing, like a young boy in a choir singing to be specific. Radio just seemed a perfectly apt name then and there.


Wonderful, the light of day feels. The feel of the day feels so refreshingly new. In this vein, I enthusiastically sit up from Rosie's favourite book-reading area, and head to check whether she's up yet. No, although I can see that she is fidgety; she's fighting the brightness of the room in her sleep. Tenderly I move to the shades and draw it so as to block the sun rays through which the sun was streaming directly onto her face. Instantly, she looked content and flipped to the other side anyway, probably awakened now by the sudden slight darkness I happened to so lovingly bestow on her.


I move on to the kitchen and clear up last night's mess. We had quite an elaborate meal with Rosie's most treasured red wine followed by her reading to me. Her reading to me is why I started being interested in books. Even though, till this date I haven't ever read a book by myself. There's something about her voice when she reads that is so heavenly that I wouldn't have it any other way.


Today is a Sunday; this is the day we head out to Gamot River. We have a little picnic, just the three of us. We laze about, take the sun, chatter inconsequentially about things abstract often coming to crossroads over something trivial only to make up five minutes later because that's just how we are. How we've always been. I excitedly re-enter our room and announce that it's time Rosalind wakes up.


We sit to our regular Sunday breakfast. She has a magnificently efficient style of baking the softest and most intricate blueberry and cheese pancakes in no time. Radio knows this tradition, he is always waiting, purring; rather singing in his way for some yum breakfast.


I help Rosalind off the chair, she's been paralyzed waist-down ever since she was fourteen thanks to a biking accident. I embrace her and tell her how beautiful she looked when she slept. She smiles that smile that tells me; that has always told me, that life in all it's glory, is good. 


As good as it will ever be.