BIRTHDAY

They walk across the park. It is morning but high summer already flares across the water of the lake and the rising heat makes her skin feel red in the cool of the air. That coolness is the last breath of the evening just gone, and when it passes entirely, the heat of the day will be a taste of annihilation.

For now there’s lingering delight along the water’s edge as the swans and ducks move through the tall grass nearby. She tells her child, who is a year old today, that her favourite lie is that the ancient Egyptians could keep flowers alive in a vase for nine months! Her daughter squawks with the babbling waterfowl and seems happy to keep their secrets.