A Village

A Village in Iberia Drove to the village where I was born, hadn’t been there for forty years, the lane was muddy and houses deserted; this village had been abandoned long time ago; what was I thinking of coming here? A tree had grown right through our cottage, roof smashed now walls were tumbling down. Puny human dwellings, here today and gone in less than Ten decades, the tree seemed to say. What a nostalgic fool I’m, this idea of returning, rebuild the old house and live here in happy retirement. This was no longer a village but a graveyard, houses were tombstones of a past that had nothing to offer but poverty, glassless window resembled crosses of a defunct faith. I sat on a stone smoking a cigarette the aroma of wafted through the drab silence, from behind a broken wall a dog came, young, and it looked eerily like Stella the dog I loved all those years ago, don’t tell me she has waited for five dog generations, to return from the wasteland of eternity just for me? “I’ll call you Stella”, I said and stroked the dog’s head. She knitted her brows together as to say, “What else? ” I opened the right hand car door, Stella jumped in like she had done this a thousand time before, drove off and didn’t look back once, the only memory I needed of my childhood, was alive and snoozing in the seat beside me.