Tea and Cakes

The old lady arrives every morning with the first light to take up her place on the steps. Her weather beaten face makes her age impossible to tell. She could be forty or seventy. She carries her belongings with her in a collection of old and dirty plastic bags, and wears all of her clothes at once, the multitude of torn and dirty layers making her appear shapeless. Every day she spends sitting on the steps, talking. To herself, to passers-by, to people long gone that only she can see. A tin cup sits on the step below her, collecting small change and disdainful looks. When she has food she shares it with the pigeons that gather on the steps. That doesn’t happen often, but somehow she survives.

A couple in their early twenties sit near the bottom, fresh off the bus in their matching hiking shoes and practical trousers. Their oversized backpacks rest a few steps below to act as a table for the map and guidebook that they pore over, making their plans.

The teenagers congregate at the top, to the left of the church door. Dressed identically in black t-shirts with black combat trousers, with dyed black, long hair, it’s hard to distinguish the boys from the girls. Sometimes they play music, sometimes they just sit, mostly they loiter, a few of them standing and a few sitting. Occasionally laughter emerges from the group, but it has an edge to it, as if they’re challenging people to accuse them of being happy and enjoying themselves just so they can deny it.

A woman in her thirties with short dark hair sits to one side on her break from work, occasionally drinking from the cardboard coffee cup placed next to her. She reads her book, occasionally looking up to watch the people walking by on the pavement below.

At noon the church bells ring, and a wedding party spills out, smiling faces and laughter in a rainbow of pastels and hats. There are cheers and applause as the guests throw handfuls of rose petals into the air as the bride and groom emerge blinking into the sunlight. The petals are carried by the breeze and scatter over the steps, the red a stunning contrast to the dull grey of the concrete.

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Inspired by This picture taken by YanivG from Flickr.

This too short and rushed piece that I really wanted to spend more time on was written for Flickr Fiction Friday. Others taking part are: Elimare, Donal, Chris and Aquafortis.