MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 65
EVIDENCE TRAILS
by Kate Meyer-Currey
Devon winters are dank and grey like granite tors
that loom over the valley and the village where my
mother lives. The house is old and has chinks in the
walls and damp, hidden corners like the fusty dining-room
cupboards which were a haven for sidling woodlice or
scuttering silverfish or the odd shoe-polished beetle,
as we put away the dinner-service or the cutlery-canteen.
That was nearly fifty years ago but I still associate the
whiff of damp leather and mould, with these darting invaders.
We don’t see them often now; they have drifted into memory
like silent films. One bold intruder remains. He evidences visits
in shining trails of glinting slime which swirl and loop across
the living room rug like a Jackson Pollock. He is anonymous like
Banksy. We don’t know whether he is a slug or a snail, as we
have never caught him in the act. He is part of the furniture and
goes with the flow, locked in stealth combat with my mother’s
cleaner and her hoover. Each time she erases his graffiti he’s back
again. His tag is all over the room, but he prefers the limelight under
the bay-window. He rests in the spring and goes back to his old haunts;
under the patio planters or the recycling box. But he’s still staking out
the joint. Early May was like November and he gave a command
performance for his socially-distanced audience. Drinking tea, a
tell tale glimmer caught my eye, like sky-writing, swathed across the
horizon of the rug. He’s the pantomime king of the front-room.
We’d miss him if he was gone, even when we erase his bold autograph
with our thoughtless shoes. The carpet is his winter-garden ballroom
and he provides us with family viewing, just like Strictly. He gets full
marks for his faultless footwork every time he glides across the floor,
in synch with the rhythm of the rain.
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