The Decision

I wanted to delay the decision, and preferably, avoid it. Why? Well, it was difficult, obviously. I tapped on the desk with my pen. I was using a keyboard but I still held a pen in my hand, most of the time. Nerves. I put my sweater back on because I was chilly, having removed it just a few minutes earlier because it was warm. The weather, I could see through the square paneled bedroom window, was English-grey, April, nondescript. There was blossom on the mature apple tree in the garden, and a blackbird sang. It was evening.

What might occur, that was momentous enough to give me sufficient cause to delay, or fudge? Illness, but I could not fake one that was sufficiently grave. A major incident; only that. But we were hundreds of miles from an earthquake zone, and the apple tree branches were scarcely stirring, so the chance of a hurricane or even a great storm was below slim. Injured by lightning? The clouds were high. There was no electricity in the atmosphere. What about an armed siege? Or a terrorist incident. I stood up, pushed my chair back from the desk, turned and left the room, which was the spare room, and walked down the short landing to the master bedroom at the front of the house. It had a bay window, affording a clear view both ways along the straight avenue. I looked up and down the street, for signs of police activity. Nothing. I supposed an outbreak of war was out of the question, too. Next door still had a broken bookshelf in their front garden. Mind, their lawn was neater than ours. A blue tit flew out of tiny hole in their fence post, where they had made their nest. Nothing was perishing owing to a surprise attack of sarin gas.

I turned around, headed back to the spare room, and my desk. I clicked with the mouse to stir the screen back into life. I looked at the message in the inbox again. Bugger. I was going to have to reply.