My window has no seat, why would it? I wish it did. There is just a glossy magnolia ledge, barely wide enough to cater a slender bottom. Upon the ledge books and candles rest, illuminating the murk outside. Directly opposite orchard trees recede as I welcome autumn with a zealous smirk. For now faintly visible between their visceral arms are the all-seeing hillocks that in winter will dominate my view.
An impartial observer once stated they were mere freckles on the landscapes recumbent spine, but to me their sight alone is vertiginous. On balmy April days I would surmount them, a personal expedition, up there where I’m the valleys curator, wearing pristine white gloves I meticulously unravel the terrain: an ancient manuscript, the vellum inked with meandering streams, occasional farms, cursive hamlets and little else - a land of sobriety and dearth.
In November though there is a permanent mist and its source inexplicable. Does it simply effervesce from the precipitous tors about? Is it the villager’s enshrined collective sigh? No it is something more. Sitting atop the villages head it’s the beloved satin bonnet you wore religiously as a child. Wholly impractical for this season its gossamer fabric offers little solace or insulation to those below as its pleated extremities elope with the moss-brown hinterland.
Fervently stoking their hearths the villagers broaden the ethereal cloth with a smoke not acrid but satisfying and nourishing: with a terrifically edible, hardwood flavour. From my hillock vantage, the sanguine stone of the manorial chimneys is all that penetrates the film; casually they release torrents of smoke like ivory doves that weft patterns instinctively into the sky’s pallid damask.