The Forever Bench by SJ Butler  

The same place: Hampstead Heath. A misty London morning, the rising sun at times peeking through the pea-souper; joggers, dog walkers, city slickers taking a short cut, coffees in hand, trailed by confused people with no inclination to be doing anything, but stumbling around like zombies searching for a familiar face. Me: Canon in hand, covert, waiting for that magic pic to arrive – I’m poised.

And there she is seated on the usual bench: long, tatty overcoat, two polythene bags of rags, muttering to herself, feeding the crows – a battered teddy with an ear missing by her side. Young, but old, long grey hair, sunglasses, she smokes a cigar, whilst from time to time drawing a circle with a nicotine finger in the air and eerily wailing: ‘Eddd..,ward!’

‘You can sit if you want,’ she says, then reminds me that the bench is hers and she goes by the name of Martha. A west country accent she sounds like a pirate. ‘That black box thing,’ she says briefly, turning to reveal a gappy, set of decaying yellow teeth.

‘The camera,’ I reply dumbly.

‘Paint me picture!’ she cackles, raising her hand as if waving a cutlass and going to slice my gizzard.

Bingo: springing to my feet, I have Martha in my sights: seated in a regal pose. For good measure a jogger passes – blurred motion mode I think, changing the setting as I click away like a soulless paparazzi-nasty. Time passes. Blinded by composition, unconscious of my surroundings, as if spinning into nothingness; shape and form wobble like a jelly before a hungry child.

And then I’m back: seated, fulfilled; creativity and adrenaline flushing warm through my veins. I sigh like a satisfied addict, but I’m totally alone. To my left – an empty space, just a whiff of cigar smoke and the squawking crows for company. There’s only a glimpse of before and after. Greedily, I flick to screen mode, clicking pictures, willing the image to come alive.

The same place: Hampstead Heath. A misty London morning. No Martha, no jogger in the background. An impish man in a three-cornered hat, ruffled white shirt, black knee length coat with breeches, stockings and buckled, pointed shoes, poses for the camera. Sitting proudly upright, he holds out a parchment in front of him.

Tell Martha I love her truly. Yours forever, Edward.

The world before me shifts to the right, re-centres, re-focuses, re-winds, freezes, shudders, then comes back again.

The fog lifts and a dog barks – another picture fades.

SJ Butler  

Image – A ghost bench set against autumn leaves by S J Butler