100TWC - Day 76: Summer Haze

Joe slapped his arm, squashing another midge. In a few hours he'd be forced to take cover inside the house. The annoying little black flies would begin to swarm as the day cooled towards evening and for some reason his blood smelled sweeter than most to them.

For now, it was just the odd one or two, and Joe wasn't about to let them spoil his enjoyment of this glorious day. The last summer that he would have as a free man. Or at least, that's how he saw it. Freedom from the college work he had left a few weeks behind him. Freedom from the working life he was about to begin, still at least a few weeks in front of him.

He reached for his glass and let out an small, involuntary moan on remembering that he'd finished it only a few minutes before. He leaned over to lay his book on the grass, picked up the empty, still-cold glass, and walked inside. The air in the kitchen was still. A pair of house flies circled the light in eccentric orbits, almost colliding, avoiding, spinning. Always keeping the bulb in the approximate centre of their gyrations; never quite landing on it.

He refilled his glass and dropped in the remaining three ice cubes, pausing to listen to their familiar cracks and schisms before refilling the tray and replacing it in his old freezer, which hissed and wheezed in its efforts to defeat the heat of the day.

Outside, a heavy haze hung over the distant fields. Joe stood, glass in hand, staring out at the open country. Only the nearest details were visible. The further away he looked, the more indistinct the trees and haystacks became, outlines only, hints of shapes, suggestions of possibilities, until finally they disappeared altogether under the weight of summer.

It was like looking through time, Joe thought suddenly. Like a life stretching out in front of him, instead of a simple pastoral scene. The nearest objects were the things he knew were coming. Interviews. A week's holiday with mates in the Algarve. Fiona's birthday. A little further away, the months were indistinct. Possibility of... developments... in his relationship with Fiona. A new job. Travel, maybe. He still hadn't really made up his mind whether to stay in the UK or work abroad. The scene was painted with a broad brush. An impressionist's rendition of things to come, unfinished and with details and highlights yet to be added. He couldn't even see the horizon. That far away the future was a foreign land. What had they called it in that film Brian loved so much? The Undiscovered Country, that was it.

He was seized by a sudden urge to run through the field. To grasp the future and make it reveal its hazy secrets. To blaze a path through the mysteries and know. If only it were that simple. That sylvan, vaporous future that lay before him was separated from the now by more than a briar hedge. There was nothing for it but to wait and see. He laughed at the phrase, one of his father's favourites. His Dad had loved a good mystery, and there was nothing more unknown than the future. He stood on the edge of the fields and on the brink of his life and at that moment, he didn't feel free any more. His hand ached from holding the ice-cold glass for so long. He took a long, head-splitting drink of juice. His freedom was an illusion. He couldn't remain here, in the garden, in the sun. The ice would melt in his drink. The sun would set. The garden would die into winter. And Joe would travel into that future, whatever it was, with no more choice than anyone else.

A cloud passed over the sun. The hazy scene dimmed. Joe turned back toward the house and left the garden.