Jogger's Bench

The man led his wife further into the woods, as they jogged down a dry dusty pathway, in between tree trunks and over exposed roots that arched out of the ground like a mythical serpent. Crystals of light appeared through the leafy ceiling above as they left a trail of steam escaping out of their mouths, behind them. Another couple approached from behind.

‘Morning,’ the athletic man shouted as he put his hand up with a friendly smile. The other cheerful couple paced past, before the white-haired man and women shared an envious look for the younger, fitter couple.

The pair could see tree-like silhouettes which lay on their path as they slowly trotted over them, before they began to thin as the path twisted slightly to run along a calm river.  The woman’s pace slowed as she began to lean forward, as if her head were dragging the rest of her body forward. Her husband turned his head slightly.

‘Nearly there love,’ he said with a reassuring smile. They began to slowly progress towards a bench looking out on the river. The people sat on the bench noticed the duo moving towards them, and left with quick hast as their shift on the bench had come to an end.

He threw a bag off his back and onto the ground, and the two of them slouched on the bench, in their royal blue shell suits, panting with sweat forming on their brows and blood rushing to their faces. It looked like two scarecrows had been abandoned; she with her head dangling over the back of the bench, and he was slouched with his head drooping between his legs.

The bench they were sat on was on the grass embankment of the river, but the closer the grass got to the foot of the bench, the more it thinned. The man was sat looking at the moist mud that his feet where placed on, and began to look at the varying shoe shapes that had previously been placed there. Some were just random squiggles and others were a series of circles within each other. He also noticed a number of fag ends that had been stubbed out and then mashed into the mud.

As his breath began to slowly return to his body, his head slowly lifted up as if he were being inflated, and his wife too was slowly beginning to support the weight of her head again, and the pair then began to look out onto the river in front of them. They smiled.

‘You okay now love?’

‘Yeah. Much better for the view’, replied his wife before giving a slow sigh. ‘Shall we have our sandwiches?’ The man reached into the backpack next to him and pulled out two silver parcels and handed one to his wife and placed the other on his lap.

‘They’re both tuna’ he said as he handed it to her. They started to slowly nibble as they watched the World go past. ‘Weather’s nice.’

‘Certainly is’, she mumbled with a bread crumb balancing on her bottom lip.

They were silent as the trees by the river bank that shaded the elderly companions, slowly rocked in the wind and the grass shook.

‘Bit breezy’, said the man.

‘Hope it doesn’t get too cold.’

‘The weather man didn’t say it would.’

‘That’s good.’

The sun glistened on the calm, tranquil river as if a young child had just been armed and let loose with a pot of glitter. A large cormorant then clumsily swooped down out of the sky, and then fell onto the water causing a large splash of water and sending ripples across the river.

 ‘Could you put this foil in the bin?’

‘Sure’, she replied as she took the silvery ball from her husband and balanced it on the overflowing bin.

‘Come on love, better get a move on’. They quickly gathered their stuff and then took off in a slow pace as their shift on the bench had come to an end.

They jogged on for a few moments, her following and him leading, when the man heard what sounded like a heap of books being dropped on the floor, followed by a quiet cry, behind him.

He turned and saw his wife laying lifeless on the dusty soil and a young couple rushing to her aid.