She Found The Morning Waiting

She found the morning waiting for her when she awoke. From the way the sunlight spilled around the edges of the ill-fitting curtains in the bedroom, it seemed to be quite late; it could even have been around midday.

By habit, she turned to look for the clock on her bedside table. This was not her bedroom, though, and there was no clock there. The quilt had slipped off her in the night. She had a vague half-dream memory of the heat of the night and hot, sweaty dreams that had twisted her about on the bed until her fingers had bought her enough relief for her to slip away into sleep.

The air was pleasantly cool on her skin as she rose out of the bed and headed off towards the bathroom.

She came back into the bedroom about half an hour later, her long black hair wrapped up in a towel. Another large towel was draped loosely over her shoulders and she dried parts of herself absently with a corner of the towel as she strolled over to the window and pulled back the curtains.

The sun was up high in the sky, well above the tops of the trees in the small wood that merged into the cottage’s garden. She could hear birdsong from the wood. She did not know enough about birds to recognise their songs, only that there seemed to be several different songs competing with each other.

Where she had grown up and lived – deep in the heart of big cities – the only bird noise that she had ever really noticed was the sound of pigeons coughing in the traffic fumes on her high window ledges.