From here, he can see the grey colour of the wood, sil­ver almost, weath­ered by decades of rain and wind and sun, the darker spots of rust sur­round­ing the fat, large-headed nails used to hold every­thing in place. Beyond is the sky, its vast, cloud­less blue bowl inter­rupted by the apple-heavy branches of trees out­side the fence. He won­ders, idly, how the apples taste when ripe; now they are a greenish-yellow colour, surely sour.

There is a buzz in the air, not entirely unpleas­ant, a non­sen­si­cal slur of sound that he knows he should com­pre­hend, but which is, for some rea­son, just so much white noise right now.

A woman leans over him, famil­iar; red hair in ringlets to her shoul­ders, dishev­elled in a way sug­gest­ing that it was, until recently, tied back. He imag­ines her wrap­ping the black elas­tic around it, sit­ting on the cor­ner of her bed. Their bed.

Her lips move. White noise washes across him. His wife? Yes, she is his wife. Concerned.

Her lips move again. He strug­gles for com­pre­hen­sion. Are you okay?

He sits up, shakes his head, tastes blood. “I think I’ve lost a tooth,” he says.

“Lucky he di’n’t kill ya. Break yer fool neck.” The voice comes from behind him, gruff and unsym­pa­thetic; turn­ing his head, he sees a scowl­ing old man in a mesh­back ball cap and over­alls. The cap says POOL. “Damn­fool city kid. Sneak­ing up on a horse like that.”