First Day Out
Through the hospital gate, the world ... We're strangers here.
It's all too sudden, an astonishment of detail, every leaf too clear, the raddling of old brick in smog and sulphur, all too intricately tooled. Rust from the iron railings dries old tears and pansies' puggy faces thrust up at the sun. Wires sew the street together, tingling with news. Two doors ajar ... Mrs 63 and Mrs 65 conspire as we pass. They barely pause. We're nothing special with our new life tender as a wound. She lies unblinking, an Eskimo doll, dropped here without a word of the language. Sparrows chinking like empty bottles, a snatch of glottal-sloppy chat, a lorry's gritted snarl, a shout of brakes, sunlight and you and I are all becoming her: another lifer out on parole, no turning back.
Philip Gross
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