Under a setting sun

The water was getting grey from dishwashing.
As usual, he could not make up his mind to replace it until it was no longer worthwhile. Postponed it as long as possible in order to economise. Now it was grey - and cold. And there was too little washing-up left to warrant another tub of water.He looked out of the window, across the fields undulating in the light summer breeze. The hills where he had played as a child rose into the distance. Once fairy-tale land, they were now just hills. But filled with memories. Those memories, pungent with the scent of opportunity, of life, were now redolent in his face.A flock of birds flew through the sunlight and disappeared.
In earlier times, he could have told what birds, just by their flight. Now he had forgotten how. And he no longer cared to fret about such things. There they fly, he thought for a moment, we call them free, and now they fly away.Little by little he began to accept the fact that things happen just the way they have to happen. Not because he agreed that they should. But in return, it did not alter much. The state of things and their changeability was their own. Just as he had his own, thank goodness.He could just reach the top window hasp by standing on tiptoe. He managed to push it ajar. The fresh evening air. How could anybody claim it as a human right?He looked straight into a towering brick wall. Five storeys high, it just allowed the sunset to roll over its top and cast its baffling shadows onto the wall behind him. The colours, on the other hand, were genuine enough.The stench from the bottom of the narrow yard turned his stomach. After just two days, the dustbins were overflowing with old plastic cutlery, half-rotten leftovers and half-emptied cans of unsavoury TV-dinners. What a waste. Even the alley-cats kept away from them.An overfed town pigeon was cooing merrily on the cornice, taking pleasure in the warmth seeping through the cracks. Winter had not quite arrived as yet. There was hardly any difference any more. The length of day only. And the pigeons were hatching all the year round. What else was to be expected?But it rarely amounted to anything.When he pulled the plug, the picture contracted into a bright spot in the middle of the screen. Concentrated into a single luminous dot, it remained hovering for a couple of seconds until it faded away. He had not caught all of it, every single shade and all the darkest nooks and crannies. It preyed on his mind a little, but he suppressed it and wiped it away in a tear. As far as he remembered, he had never claimed to know everything. On the other hand, who could, really?The last of the dishes remained untouched, the ones following him should have something to do, too. He could not procrastinate much longer. The others would arrive soon and then he knew it would be difficult to let go altogether.If they came, that is.