Januariad

Along comes the metronomic slap of Simon’s long cane. It is distinctly a slap rather than a tap—each time its tip meets the kerb the length of white bends slightly under pressure. Simon is beating a path to the shops, furious.

His face is clean shaven but a little raw. His hair cropped to nothing. His head sits tilted back on his neck, looking upwards and outwards at not a thing. Simon wears a three-quarter length fleeced waterproof, baggy slacks and sensible boots in defence against the mild day. You can’t see it, but his socks match. All of his socks match.

There’s an amateur quality to his progression. He wanders too often off the straight line, his foot falls heavily down undetected steps, and each of these mistakes causes him to pause and nod out a quiet, heartfelt curse. His rod plinks the frames and spokes of parked bicycles and he curses them. Bins, he curses. Flowerpots, he curses. Postboxes and lampposts are left alone.

At the shop he asks for the proper milk, the blue one, and counts out coins using his thumbnail against their ribbed edges. After he’s awkwardly manoeuvred through the door, one shopkeeper turns to the other, half smiling, and asks how he knew it was blue he wanted.

Simon knows it’s blue for the same reason he curses at pots and stumbles on kerbs. He knows it’s blue for the same reason it takes him an hour to get dressed in the morning. He knows what blue is.