New Machine

Mr Flymo has entered the chat: The afternoon hung heavy with the sweet, sultry promise of something new, the kind of day where the light seemed to spill slowly, like treacle across the black railings. There was a bearable tension in the air while the slow clock ticked, back there on the pale kitchen wall.

He sat with the stillness of a man whose heart beat to the rhythm of a calm, almost narcotic anticipation, glancing now and then down the road that wound like a lazy ribbon through the grey hush of this dull suburban community. The old lawn mower, rusted and obstinate, lay discarded in the garage like a relic of a less dignified era, and in it's place, though not yet arrived, lived a gleaming promise. The new machine, all shiny plastic and controlled quiet, humming on electric power. 

It symbolized something ineffable: novelty, precision, a kind of modern and bright grace that whispered of a cleaner reinvention. It was made in and shipped from China, hardly an exotic thing these days. He slowly smoked half a cigarette, supped warm coffee, watching the shadows lengthen, waiting for the delivery truck as though it were summoned forwards by some imaginary green light at the end of his own driveway.

Meanwhile, a few miles away, the skies above Falkirk released an unexpected and unseasonal hailstorm upon the town. Another day was passing.