Sunshine

By Debbie Robson

The light has been playing tricks this long cold winter. Twice I saw hands pressed against glass in a building on one side of Martin Place, Sydney. A distortion of refracted sunlight I decided. Although on another occasion I thought I glimpsed my wings, as I barely saw them myself: pearl white feathers shifting in the cold wind. I studied my reflection until someone jostled me in the busy square and the image fractured, leaving this other life.

I generally avoid places such as this, where the press of humanity is overpowering but something drew me here today. I cast about as I enter the square, using some of my old skills in a bid to help, in the guise of a normal person.

And then I see her. My favourite flower seller is back after a short illness, her flowers and her thin face appearing more bedraggled. Her cart is chipped, and her pansies and late roses will never tempt passers-by. Probably discarded stock that she buys from the markets when the cock crows. Now hurrying workers on their lunch break do not look her way. 

I remember the gentians from my childhood in Illyria; the startling blue would draw the eye, even from the clouds. As I glance down, they are in my hands, several bunches that I shield from those passing by until I reach her barrow. 

“Hello, Zach. It is good to see you,” she tells me, pausing when she sees the flowers and her face lights up. “I have never seen the like.” She is unsure of what to do.

“They are a gift. Do you have some ribbons to tie them up?”

“Yes. Some pink.” She reaches into the bottom of the wooden cart and brings them out. 

I wait, as people rush behind my back along the front of the Colonial Mutual building. I watch their shadows move along with them. Finally, she lays each small bunch prominently between her faded bouquets just as two women approach, drawn by the empyreal blue. I feel sunshine on my back and glimpse my wings momentarily in a nearby window as I step away.

Debbie Robson loves to write fiction set in the first sixty years of the last century, particularly about a disgraced angel driving a cab in Sydney. She also writes poetry and has performed her poems in Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Newcastle.