Out on the Patio

I'm outside in the sun, drinking gut-rot wine that comes in cartons, reading a hardback copy of Slaughterhouse 5 and a What's on Guide for Summer '07. Down by my elbow, a bumblebee slips drunkenly on a tie-dyed Godetia. A clothes line shadow bobs up and down my face and my stomach sags with the weight of Sunday dinner. Overhead, there's the sound of budget airline engines; the drone fades into the snip, snip, snip of a hedge being trimmed and the stop-start whir of a lawnmower. In the trees, birds are talking.