And so, the four then became five.
From terrified apologies to the vacuuming of the library lobby, Marla had rejoined the Balendup Library Running Club and the introduction of the ominously dusty Andrew to her fellow club members had both commenced and then slowly passed.
The grey air was heavy outside as the languid shadow of Winter tossed its morning forecast about in two minds, unsettled between the idea of blustery drizzle or torrential rain.
The library was quiet. An unattended radio burbled from the depths of the librarian’s office as clipping static and mumbled news called out to be unheard in the distance. A tired air conditioner—always set just slightly too cold for comfort—ticked and whirred, a clock ticked, the library slumbered.
‘Have you ever wondered why you can book a table at a restaurant, but you can’t borrow one from the library?’ Peter asked without care of reply.
It was a day of unanswered questions.
The ever-punctual Kate, who could read a clock in a way that made it self-conscious, was missing from her usual chair as a newspaper, a water bottle, and exactly four non-fiction books were similarly missing from her tidy corner of the running club’s regular nook. Arthur too, who had nothing planned to the point of personal pride, had bustled into the library, waved a distracted hello, and then bustled off again without explanation.
‘How much would you borrow a table for?’ Andrew asked, failing to understand the rhetorical nature of the question.
Leaning back with a daydreamer’s posture, Peter considered the grid ceiling and prepared himself for an answer. He was used to explaining himself but had never expected that someone would eventually ask him to explain how.
‘And didn’t we book this table?’
Peter raised an eyebrow. Andrew was an interesting fellow; he had a patient way of sitting that could be eerie if left undisturbed for too long and there was a breathlessness about the way he held himself. Maybe breathless was a poor word, Peter thought scratching his chin, not needing to breath seemed more appropriate. It was as if he was the face of a coin, still, easy to miss if you lost him within the rest of the room.
‘You can book a table in the library but in its essence, it remains as a definition. A restaurant exists in a state of unknown. It needs to be booked, or you may miss out.’
‘I suppose that you can see a restaurant close too. Good point!’
This was new, never had a member of the running club agreed with one of Peter’s hypotheticals and he felt the conversation unravel somewhat.
The radiator buzzed. Distantly a stamp patted against a list of outstanding returns.
‘Where is everyone?’ he asked after a moment of mono-directionally contentedness from Andrew, who always seemed happy just to be above the ground.
‘Well Marla, said that the blood moon was the first toll of an elder darkness and their division bell sung the final omen for mankind. But I think that she just was up too late making candles and wanted a lie in. Kate wanted to watch the open and probably dragged Arthur along. Nice of him to drop in though.’
Kate, who’s unique admiration of sport had kept her from the running club for a few weeks, had been spending more time with Arthur recently and Peter missed their afternoons of aimless bickering.
‘Well, here we are then,’ he mumbled, clutching at the loose ends of small talk, ‘it’s hardly a club with just two people.’ Drumming his fingers on the table Peter felt listless for a moment. The day felt unordered, it was as though the shape of things had been misinterpreted when sent off to the builder and instead of coming back with a table and chairs they had cobbled together a chair and a matching set of tables. Peter shook away the though and pointed at Andrew triumphantly.
‘An unusual day calls for unusual actions. Let’s go for a run.’
~
‘Have you ever seen someone running and wondered if you should too?’
Two friends trudged shoulder to shoulder along the pathway and huddled against the fading winter wind that still coiled down from the ranges to the west of Balendup national park.
The parklands, pre-empting the soon rising spring, were tinged with a greenness below the otherwise gloomy sky and a cheer was heard drifting distantly across the cricket oval.
With fleeting inspiration, the call of the marathon runner’s spirit had quickly died and a slower gait was deemed to be more appropriate.
Peter and Andrew stopped by the oval’s picket fence and watched a couple chase after a dog galloping away from them lead in mouth and enveloped by a sense of boundless freedom.
‘Depends on what they were wearing, I guess. You don’t often see someone running in a suit.’
The path was browned from the season’s discarded leaf-litter. Old concrete that had been lain as the parkland was first hemmed from an older Balendup.
Easing slowly towards the footbridge into town, Andrew coughed, and a plume of dust was shaken from his clothes.
‘Sorry, the wind always leaves me a bit moth-eaten.’ he said as the cloud slowly dispersed, settling back onto his shirt as if returning home, ‘How about this one? Water can run before it can walk.’
‘I like it,’ Peter replied after a moment of deep thought. ‘It sits, it falls, it runs, but it never walks. OK my turn. If you could only paint with memories, every picture would be a self-portrait.’
Laughing the two friends walked carelessly now, the dull sun setting behind the cloud line and darkening into a twilight yet unlit by streetlight.
Nearing the town, Peter and Andrew talked of varied nothings, of grand ideas, and of stiches within the seams that held this moment together. They passed by lovers lost in the eyes of their first smile, they passed by strangers nodding to them and then departing from their thoughts without word.
Kate and Arthur were found, rosy cheeked and hoarse from a day spent joyfully. And the four became five as Marla was dreamily sketched from her shadow and whisked off to join the running club, despite her protests of doom.
And so it was that the Balendup Library Running Club alighted to a restaurant and in time they argued against its closure.
As with all things this moment was too soon to pass. A moment that was lived so beautifully.
~
J. McCray
2024
Sunday Short Stories 