The Male Strain

An ordinary day by any measure.  Marie watched as her breath turned to vapour - an isolated figure in a patchwork of garden.  Her small piece of England; all that she would ever own.

November the 25th.  No sun, no wind, and the country had been swept into the clutches of first frost and the promise of snow.  The shrubs in her small but perfect garden bowed their heads in shame, their frigid violation witnessed only by the stars.

This was by far the best part of any day; whatever the season; whatever the weather.  5 AM and every morning Marie would position herself at the small table in her favourite garden chair, smoking her one cigarette of the day and waiting for the dawn chorus to reach full volume and intensity.  Before the traffic and noise pollution of inner-town life took hold, the innocence of this hour was charming and really quite beautiful in such an ugly and dirty world.