The sun shone down in wide, strong beams of yellow gold that pierced through the irregular branches of the overhanging trees and burst into flashes of errant colour on the swiftly coursing surface of the living river, or the iridescent scaly backs of the fishes that sometimes leaped out from underneath in the wild passion of their annual race to mate. It reflected also in starker, retina-burning brilliance from the clean white paint that graced the wooden hull of the little rowing boat, forcing Michael to squint his eyes. It gave his face an oddly joyous expression; stretching the flesh of his cheeks taut up over the high bones hidden within, then crinkling it up into an intricate maze of pink lines and canyons as it sank into the hollow of his eye socket and the thin white slits that lay at the centre. Coupled with the lazily curled edges of his thin lips at each end of his wide mouth, and the proud alternating arch and straighten motion of Michael’s body that fed down through his sun-ripening arms to the oars that pushed confidently through the water, you would be hard pressed to ever imagine this man looking anything other than content with his life and lot in the world.

This was the paradise of the English countryside in late summer! Children all along the winding, varied banks that Michael’s boat passed by were dancing and frolicking in merry play with each other and gambolling pet dogs, throwing balls and Frisbees, spraying water about, laughing and lost in this perfect sunny moment of carelessness. Parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and older siblings lay back on the viridian grass watching them with veiled, alert glances, whilst flicking pink tongues at escaping rivulets of melting ice cream down cones and hands, chatting quietly and occasionally calling out, swatting at bugs and shielding their eyes with their hands. Everywhere small birds performed aerial manoeuvres and hopping little quadrilles of equal beauty and comedy, chirping out a medley of different, blending, musical notes of every instrument and pitch, weaving the song of the summer months. Dazzling blue and orange kingfishers darted down from their perches to poach an unsuspecting trout or chub from the meandering flow, whilst watched haughtily by jealous herons gifted with ungainly lank form and a drab total lack of the kingfishers’ vivid colouring by nature’s diverse creative wit and appreciation for the contrast of opposites. All at once Michael was filled with infinite calm but also a keen sense of being totally alive and aware; each cell straining with energy whipped up into a thrumming buzz by the solar radiation saturating every pore of his exposed skin, or the clean sweat running down under his cotton polo shirt, tickling each hair caressed along the way.

Rowing a boat down a river in the English countryside and taking in the surroundings is the very finest thing to do of a day. Nothing can compare to it... but something was slightly amiss. The colours were beginning to wash out and fade... slipping away from Michael and leaving him filled with a pang of melancholy wistfulness; rubbing the daydream residue from his eyes, and watching the rain pound down outside from the dull flat grey clouds onto the glass windows of his bus, surrounded by bored men and women swathed in tired old raincoats, their faces hidden behind newspapers and the stony stares of automatons.