The Gravy Boat Moustache.

Standing in mud with bright green wellingtons that had fat yellow dinosaurs imprinted on the plastic, turning this way then that, beneath the balmy fleeting rain from which a blue anorak defended him; his very own armour, what manner of creature could penetrate such a defence? However all defences could be breached “Not Kursk though!” Samson gladly remembered. Yet still a mountain citadel may never fall to a single man but still for all its peaceful and troubled eons be harassed by indiscriminate winds from around the world. Like a citadel atop a sheer rock face, upon an island feeling delightfully thoughtless Samson stood. Glancing vacantly out across the mere toward a small island which he skilfully thought next to nothing about; nor did he have any particular interest in the gurgling geese, barking ducks, sweeping swans or chugging boats. Samson enjoyed the beauty of mindless watching. The sprinkling grey shimmers fluffing along the tidal edge, had nothing of the spectacular about it. The azure sky with its monstrously deformed grey dark clouds, which swirled in a malodorous maelstrom of sullen coloured hues, amazed him not. Samson enjoyed the solid moribund thickness of things; such as his wellingtons, he barely noticed the ludicrously cartoonish dinosaurs, but he enjoyed squeezing the plastic between his thumb and forefinger, like his sister would do to his thighs and other places. Substance and not beauty struck Samson as remarkable, not that it brought joy but the simple fact it existed at all astounded him. Samson had read someplace that “to appreciate the significance of existence one had to be perfectly detached and above all else hushed and undisturbed by it”.

Suddenly his father smiling, gripped his little hand tightly, Samson startled squeaked his danger caterwaul. Closing his eyes and tilting his head back, Samson let out his high pitched fears. His father retreated calmly, but sadly, both neither amazed nor angry and unlike a few passersby not in the least bit alarmed. Merely glaring down at his son; Donald desperately desired to see into the calm of his quiet sons mind. Thinking it was his fault, Donald patted Samson on the head, a pat that Samson gladly ignored and which only increased his noise some defence. Donald walked some distance away, a greasy chancing otter, starving and desperate yet still fleeing from the pathetic yet piercing cries of baby voles. Away along the river bank, shunned by the sky and the tides alike, slinking back to his turgid abode amongst feral rat kings and lurid slug lords.Thought the fathers son.

Donald knew only by turning his back upon his son, would Samson quieten. The very moment he did so, the screaming ceased. Donald watched a kite hover unsteadily over by the ice cream van; two young girls teased what Donald assumed to be their grandmother about the most efficient technique for flying a kite on a windy day. ‘All you need is bloody wind’ Donald sourly thought.

-He’s unique' Donald continued ‘I know by now, he’s like a young bird, although I have rope to his feet, he’ll always prefer the free sky’ Donald who often hummed nervously, unknowing to himself as a means of re-assuring himself to no one but himself. Turned and watched Samson collecting brown pebbles from shore. ‘So it is a pebble day’ Donald who thoughtfully gave himself just the right piece of guidance just at the precise moment he required it. Which was a trick he had mastered from his father, Donald wondered what Samson had acquired from his grandmother, if anything.

-A dislike of me. He smiled to re-assure his caustious son, who did not feel re-assured, so Donald continued expressionless in his sons eyes watching his son watch nothing, and quickly pecking furtively with his tiny fingers at the tiny slimy pebbles like a nervous wading bird.

Donald smiled whilst pulling a brown cardboard package from his recyclable Marks and Spencer’s bag, Donald sat down upon the bench. Happily with an implausibly useful plastic white folk, he picked out a lump of poached crab and aniseed risotto lunch, the crab meat of which there was 15% Donald gladly noticed was fished according to fare trade regulations; thus because Donald purchased that sandwich a tiny fishing village somewhere had a new school. It tasted all the better knowing he had contributed to the education of strangers. Samson turned to face his father, who often appeared unfriendly and offensive.

Samson had always preferred grandmother, she at least or the most of all comprehended the wondrous serenity of substance watching. His father was a middle height man, with a thick brown moustache, drooping sad eyes. Eyes like grandmothers mash, often too soft, always too dry, mash one could smash about ones plate in delirious spoon fuelled splendour. Eyes that always made Samson want to scream, for this and possibly only this Samson distrusted his father. For the man ruined everything, yet grandmother had been immovable – no amount of dross movie romance could stir her heart, not a single ownerless pet advert on television contorted her guilt into a caring sympathetic sigh. Not even when Mr “Egg legs” died did she or Samson think twice or indeed at all. Yet the slightest glimpse into his father’s fathomlessly sad eyes made his entire body oscillate with a grief that merely fluttered like a half seen ocean seagull on the fringes of his consciousness. Yet all the same one knew it had been there, merely unintelligible and unknowable.

Gently kicking at the smooth wet pebbles that splattered the shore of the dank cold mere, Samson averted his gaze from his father, the rain fell in regular thuds on his anorak, large delirious splashes rippled on the water’s edge, Samson puzzled about clouds and why they could float so freely high away from the world and how he like a cumbersome rock was forever embedded on the saddening earth. Donald watched his unvoiced son play at kicking pebbles. Such a heartlessly peaceful manner, unaffected without knowing, suddenly Donald recalled cutting his hand on a kitchen knife as a child. How his mother calmly, almost scientifically watched him bleed and cry. Tiny under bed memories of his father shouting and stomping grumbled deep within. So Donald gladly ate some more crab risotto, several unwanted scoops he belligerently cannoned into his mouth; as if with each glob the several mortified crabs were actually still alive, and using their sharp pincers to pinch and claw their terrified carapaces out of his mouth, so chewing once he swallowed sullenly.

‘At least it’s helping them to read’ he pondered sourly. Yet still such a familiar ache rose within his stomach, his crab red gut gurgled with a nauseous sense of sea sickness. The crabs drumming upon his heart with their twin mandibles, drumming to which ever god crabs favoured.

- I think it’s time we left. Donald muttered more to himself than Samson. Samson silently headed toward the car park, the hoary spectre of a son, not delighted nor depressed to be in colourful clothing.