'A Green Thought' by Robert Hume

A garden. The sun shining through the new leaves of the birches. Magical leaves, whispering. The boy. Running. Running towards mother. Her new summer dress, the bright reds and yellows of the tulips and daffodils. The boy, swinging in her arms. First the green of the grass, then the blue of the sky, green, then blue, until he was dizzy. Then easing the dizziness away slowly in the warm  closeness of her embrace. Her embrace. The clean, soapy smell of her skin, her perfume. The brightness of the sun, the blue of the sky, the greens and reds and yellows, his memory, and his alone.

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You had to be careful with the ledge. The concrete looked solid enough. But it wouldn’t take a nail, not properly. You had to chisel away to make a hole, not too roughly else it would go to crumbs, for the seating for the screw, with some plastic swarf acting like a rawlplug. The screw – brass was always best – had to be pre-drilled through the wooden pot. That way, if it clung to the pot, if it clung to the plastic swarf, if it managed to hold tight enough to the ledge, it wouldn’t be seen. The pot would stand there, proudly. The brown wool, from through the window, looked perfectly believable as the potting medium. And the plastic daffodils and tulips, with their yellows and reds against the blue of the sky  – well, they were just perfect. Perfect.  A garden. The garden.