Becoming

It was the first time in three weeks that he had seen foxgloves. The first time, in fact, that he had been outside at all.

    The cane was not yet an extension of himself - he poked it tentatively through the tidy grass and pulled his robe in close with the other hand.

    An empty black motorcar was parked to his left. Had the driver and passengers been present, he would have duly greeted them with a shaky wave. ‘Good morning’, he would say, perhaps too loudly, because it was good. It was clear and beautiful and so much purer from the other side of the window.

    The air was fresh and crisp, and though the leaves lacked dew they were healthily green just the same. He stood with a head tilted back to acknowledge the world and all the change it scattered through the wind.

    He hobbled slowly, feeling trapped, too young to be reliant on a cane. But he was lucky to be alive - so said every doctor and nurse and well-wisher and stranger on the ward.

    A little way forward, that was all he would manage, just into the mouth of the tree tunnel before him. Branches dressed in green leaves stretched across to hold hands over him. The foxgloves stood with bowed heads, like hooded monks, and when he brushed his fingers over them a bumblebee escaped. It disappeared into the air, a small balloon.

    Everything was new. Everything here was not what lay behind - the same white, mute rooms of the recovery hospital. Soldiers like him found their stolen energy, groped the emptiness for a familiar and taken for granted sense of wellbeing. But that was not life. Only a copy: an omnipresent feeling of walking into a room and forgetting why.

    His hearing was damaged beyond repair; he would limp for the rest of his life. And yet, sheltered by curving trees, Earnest took great comfort in this moment of all things becoming.