Reflections.

Water lapped over the edge as the whispering winds whistled around me. They spoke of voices from where I had been and where I was heading. These voices and my thoughts are all I have to comfort me on this journey. A journey of solitude.

The morning sun peeks over the horizon, tickling my back and I hear the first of the morning birds sing. The melodic tune reminds me of what lies ahead. Lavinia. I picture her sitting in her chair resting her cello on her shoulder. Her face has that silent smile, the one where only the eyes do the talking. A smile I know well, Agnes used to smile that way too. Lavinia’s urban hair is similar to the colour Agnes’s was also. In a lot of ways she reminds me of the way Agnes was.

I contemplate the thought as I walk over to the railing of the barge. My reflection skims the surface of the river. That’s all my life seems to be, a constant reflection. It sounds deep and meaningful, but it’s rather the opposite. I unload the goods from the train in Berlin onto my Barge. I don’t know what’s in the crates I haven’t bothered to ever ask. I just transport it and unload it at Poznan in Poland, in return for farming products. At 65, this is what my life has succumbed to, for 28 days of the month I’m stuck in transit. I’m lost in a state of transition.

I let my mind wander to my favourite painting back in Berlin, a lone black seagull flying between a green and brown stripe. From the moment I saw it I had to have it. I found comfort in the fact that someone out there understood how I felt.

Felt. Feelings. Feel. I long to feel the warmth of Lavinia’s embrace again. The thought of her brings me back to my skimming reflection which now smiles back. She always brings that out in me, that young man I was when I first met Agnes. Thinking of Lavinia gives hope to this endless journey and reminds me of distant memories. Memories dear to my heart. All of a sudden I don’t feel so alone anymore, I am comforted.

The sun has risen in the sky and I feel anxious, it’s only a matter of hours now. I reach over the side of the Barge and pull some lilies from the mangroves as I glide by. Lavinia loves lilies. I used to pick a lily and give it to Agnes when we walked by the river, she would slide it behind her right ear and say “looks like I’m taken.” She’d then flash her dazzling smile and my heart would just melt.

The dock comes into view and I can see a figure of a woman standing at the end. Her hair blowing ever so softly in the breeze. Squinting into the sun Lavinia shields her eyes with her hand. A warm tingling begins in my toes and slowly creeps up my body. It’s Lavinia standing on the dock but I see my wife, Agnes, when we were 25.