a fifth new story...'the back room'

We moved Esther into the back room, so she could have a view of the garden – the Sycamore trees at the end, and the crest of hills beyond.  She was heavy, even with wheels on her bed. 

‘Where are you taking me, boys?’, she croaked, her voice worn and rattling.  ‘To the back room’, we said.  ‘You’ll have something to look at’.  The bed scraped against the door jamb, flaking some paint.  ‘I’ve seen it all before’, she said.

Once we had got Esther and her bed set against the wall in the back room, we propped her up on two big feather pillows, and put her glasses back on the bridge of her nose. We wondered whether she would, in fact, see anything at all, still we thought she could at least imagine. 

‘She’s seen it all before, besides’, Arthur said, when we were sat on the back porch later that evening, looking up at the night sky, each with a beer, fresh from the cooler.

‘Can you read the stars?’, I asked.  They were quite a few out, winking on, off, set in the big, purple dome of the heavens.  Arthur, rocked back a little in his easy chair, took a long drag on his cigarette, tapped away the ash and embers.  ‘No’, he said. 

‘Do you believe in God’, I said.  He shrugged, crossed his legs, he was wearing a pair of dirty white Tennis trainers. I knew he had flirted with religion after the break-up of his first marriage. ‘Esther sure as hell does not’, he said.  ‘Do you?’, I pressed.  He laughed bitterly, and then silence fell between us. 

When Arthur had said ‘good night’, I stayed where I was on the back porch.  There was a cool breeze. ‘I believe in you’, I said, to no one and nothing.  I meant God.  ‘Look after Esther’, I said to the darkness. 

Esther was a weight, but she wasn’t all bad.