Standing, at a crossroads, between a spring sea, a farmer’s field, with a great sycamore tree at it’s centre, Ira was still. Just for a moment. Before him was the path he had undertaken to walk. At his back, some way off, his house. There was a buzz about the air, straining to lift the dusk’s lingering haze. He was walking north, with the peeping sun at his right.

For the last fifteen days, Ira had woken up, rolled out of bed, and checked for post. Confirming nothing had arrived, he walked unaware through the rest of each day; hoping the following morning would not begin in the same way.

Every year, for the last fifteen, he had received a letter on the same date. And so without receipt of this year’s letter, he wondered what had happened, or was happening, at the address from which the letter should have come.

This letter would be sent by Ira’s sister. It would tell him he was missed, but that she understood it was difficult to see each other nowadays. That her child was now a year older and was exhibiting behaviours that followed on from those behaviours described in the letter the previous year, and finally, that she, Ira’s sister, was well. It was this last part that worried Ira, or more it’s absence. Though Ira had not replied to the letters, he had read them, and was always soothed to hear she was well. Not hearing this however raised the question: Was she, my sister, well?

So standing, as he was, by the sycamore and the sea, the sun tickling his skin, and the air waiting to be warm, Ira reflected on that question, and the fact it had carried him here.

He thought of other things then too. Whether he was chasing something real or fantasy? He knew his bed, and this road and tree were real. But a sister, unseen and animated only by letters for years: Was there realness in that? Feelings of remorse and dread then came to him. He thought of washing in the sea, and the momentary sharp relief it would offer. Or hanging from the sycamore tree, there would be relief in that too. Or should he walk, and find that this sister, that was both real to him at sometime and perhaps unreal to him now, was one or the other?

A quiver went through Ira’s left arm, it wasn’t yet warm enough to be standing around thinking.

Ira’s thoughts turned again, now they were latching on to other things, real things. They rose through loneliness to self-loathing and back again. From his isolation in his remote house, to remorse over other choices he had made. The choice to push his sister away. That he hadn’t tried to meet more people. That he had allowed himself to wallow and give up on love, and that he could not muster up enough lightness, when being introduced to people, so he might make a good impression. He would think about this and want to cry, but could not, which he mistook as a sign that he wasn’t truly that lonely.

Ira was accustomed to these thoughts, and so was used to rousing himself from them. He now listened to that quiver that had gone up his arm and took a step forward.

Ira walked along for a little while now, catching glimpses of birds going about their business, and hearing sounds of far off cars and tractors perhaps. A plane would fly overhead once in a while. Some sign of life would appear on his path. Some horse manure, an empty packet of crisps. No doubt thrown from a car sometime ago; not that any cars had passed him today. The sun climbed higher, and the air dried off.

The next time Ira stopped it was between two hedgerows, the road became a run. He felt he should go onward unquestioningly, and Ira would have, were it not for a dog. Black haired and scruffy, it was standing about five metres away, just next to a break in the hedgerow with a gate in it. The dog, Ira thought, had a friendly face.

He liked dogs. He often dreamt of them. The night before he first expected the letter, he had dreamt of a dog. An athletic ginger thing, with a snout for sniffing. He dreamt it was his, and he was lying with it attentively as it took it’s last breaths. But now this dog, not the dream dog, was facing him. Ira waited a moment, and understanding that the dog was definitely stopped in it’s tracks by him, as he was by it, he made up his mind to introduce himself. Hand outstretched, he presented his empty palm, as though his scent were a treat to be gobbled up. Ira made his frame small and looked plainly at the dog, not wanting to elicit any reaction of fear and began to approach.

Just then a robin, bored, threw itself stroppily across the road between the dog and the man; both of whom momentarily eyed its flight. Ira’s hand, now fractionally closer to the dog, startled it and the dog bolted round the gate and onto the field, a bundle of angst. Ira having been run away from and now crouching hand out, palm up, to nothing but a metal cattle gate, stood up, hurt, and decided it was time for a biscuit.

Ira got his biscuits out of his bag, sat back against the gate and thought again about his sister. He thought about when he had told her to leave, that she should not be living with him, her brother. That he, Ira wanted to meet new people, perhaps bring people home. That he had offered to help her find somewhere but only offered to help pay rent for a few months, even though he, by inheritance and privilege, had no such pressure of payment himself. He thought about the fact he had never fulfilled his wish of bringing people home. How he had not wanted to say that to his sister, and when he heard that she had met someone, how he had felt jealous and not wanted to meet them. How he had excluded his only family member because of his pride and fantasy, and how she had been so gracious with it all and had been rewarded with a lovely family and life because of it, and he had not, because he had not been gracious. Finally he thought about his niece. His niece that he had never met, that would forever see him as a distant figure, if she saw him at all. And that he, if he could, would make her understand that he does, and has, cared all along, just from afar, wrapped up in his own life. His mind then began to writhe. He thought of that time he spat at a bartender, after they wouldn’t serve him. He thought of his unsightly body and how it hadn’t been touched in years. He thought of his low self opinion and how that too was wretched. But he finished his biscuit. Time has a way of moving things on, biscuits and thoughts both. Besides Ira was good at rousing himself from such thoughts.

He got up, put his bag back on his back and began to walk off. He looked over his shoulder, checking he hadn’t left anything, and there, again, was the dog, behind the gate now, lying on it’s side. Ira, thought again about his dream dog, he wondered whether he should check on this non-dream dog, check it wasn’t dying too. He thought about how this dog had spurned his approach and, besides, he wasn’t sure whether these dog-death fears were real or a fantasy anyway. He wouldn’t want to act on a fantasy, that is what the lost do, he thought, as he turned to the tunnel of hedgerow and walked on.

When, ultimately, Ira had arrived at the address, he found the house that occupied it empty and run down; the roof missing some tiles. A passing man in a suit asked Ira if he needed some help and Ira had replied simply “Is there anyone living here?” The suit (out of place in this tired street), with the man it, told him the house had been empty for six months or so and that is was a “Good thing they moved on, I should think”. Ira had agreed with a nod. On leaving, the man then said “It’s not the most neighbourly here, I like to ask people how they are, but don’t tend to get much back, so it’s nice to chat to yourself” and Ira nodded again and turned back home. Maybe a letter would come next year.