Januariad

Róisín’s face looks a little soft for the job she’s purportedly doing. She’s wearing a pinstripe grey skirted suit draped over by a barrister’s great black gown. The two white tails of the collar bands are whipping slightly in the wind as she beats her way down the river towards the courthouse. Her partner on this walk, an older man comfortable both in his stride and in his similarly telling clothing, is holding forth on what might be a legal dilemma or a longwinded joke—it is impossible to tell from his animated expressions.

Her teeth are gritted, her lips pulled back, her eyebrows hunkered. The wind is really blowing. For all that, she has an open face. She listens to his monologue with earnest attention, eyes flitting between his glance and the footpath ahead. Róisín breaks this rotation once, twice to look at her shoes and further furrow her brow in thought. Despite the wind grimace, despite the exaggerated mien of professional interaction, her countenance betrays an incongruous vulnerability. She looks too human for her clothes, too human for her company. Her eyes water from the gusts, revealing for a moment her soft, churning interior.