Petunias

There was a crumpled fan of gray, dispelling a residue of ink-smelling dust, near indistinguishable on his veiny fingers. A dappled wisp of gray hair, the same gray as the fan-and-crumple of the paper protruded into a vertical pose fanning out from one smashed diameter of pillow hair, swaying back and forth from the occasional shift of his skinny head. His eyes behind thick glass were half way closed, mostly from the simple act of looking down to read but partly from looking down into the burdens of the world. Wrinkles folded on top of each other at the bottom of his face, skin under his cheek bones were beginning to sink in: a sign of his deteriorating health of which was always a cause of argument between him and his housekeeper, Ophelia, who had "recently taken an exceedingly neurotic interest in his appearance and presence," as he would so vehemently explain. Each feature of his face had a protuberance that made his eyes sink in and sadden.

This was the posture of the every-morning at a table for two next to a dirty window opening into a garden of blooming petunias amidst sprouting weeds of what used to be a flower bed. The petunias stretched out their pink and blue petals, bathing in the seventy five degree morning sunlight. Swiping a small spider off his newly pressed white Polo shirt, now wrinkled at the belt, he took a bite of his plain buttered toast. The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee still lingered in the kitchen, flowing out of the window into the morning - into an exuberant filled reality totally other-than the stuffy kitchen.

For ten years he had been alone and been waking to the same buttered toast and for ten years had given his first thoughts of the morning to the world and its events; to the subtleties of the global political climate; to the adherence and confident assertion of his conservative democratic views, bloomed from an evolving career as a radioactive physicist, turned into upper management, turned into speaker and much sought after counselor in the academic world of study for liberal human rights by religious moderates. None of this was a planned destiny of his choosing of course, and the relative ease of "open doors" put him at rest in the morning as he always rested in the security of his planned day, given him by Ophelia, just as secure in her salary, although relatively meager.