See The Pleasure, Ignore The Cold

As I stepped out of the shop, sliding the change into my pocket, I stepped into the cold air. The loaf of sliced bread swinging in it’s plastic bag. I raised the white paper lolly bag to my nose. I smelt deeply, the chocolate marshmallow fish, and greedily, took a bite. Biting off the tail. Ignoring the cold, revelling in the chocolate, the marshmallow. The taste of the illicit sweet. Delicious. Hah! Let those others sit at home in the warm eating their beef stew. I had a chocolate fish. Hard won (well, not won as such). Earned (that sounds better), earned in the wind and cold of the night. I ate it down. Mushing the chocolate and the soft marshmallow. Licking my lips intently. Licking all the chocolate from my teeth to ensure no evidence remained of the procured sweet.

Then once I was sure nothing was left on my face I climbed on my bike. The shopkeeper behind his counter watching me. I smiled in the pleasure of the moment, nodded to him and then gripping the bread bag as I gripped the hadlebars, I rode the bike through the cold and dark back home. However, now it wasn’t so cold and dark. The taste of the chocolate fish still in my mouth. Delicious and in its own way, warming. There is of course a phrase about pleasure and ill-gotten gains, but I was too young to be aware of it then (despite the hours spent at church). It’s from the bible, The book of Proverbs 1:19, ‘Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the lives of those who get it.’ Well, had I been a little more aware and paid a touch more attention, I may not have felt quite so ‘warmed’ by the chocolate fish as I cycled home in the rain.

Just before going through the gate, I wiped my cold face with the wet cuff of the raincoat. No trace remained of the procured delight. I trudged down the side of the house in my gumboots ‘Clumping’ loudly, so the others would hear my indignation. I tromped past the side window to the back yard and manoeuvred the wet bike into the small tool shed. I trudged up the back concrete steps and put the bread on the washing machine tub cover. The washing machine was an evil creature, whose wringers had tried on more than one occasion to swallow my fingers (see blog March 30^th 2012). Stepping out of the gumboots, now also wet inside. I stacked them with the others. Hung up the wet raincoat, which would not be dry by the morning for the trip to school and, taking the bread from the top of the washing tub, I stepped back inside the warm kitchen. Inside, a vastly different temperature than the outside, to hear the whining shrieks of those seated comfortably about the table. “Oh. Shut the door, its freezing”.

(Continued tomorrow)