The Morning Dance.

* I know I’m cheating but here is another piece from my uni workshop.

Side by side they stand in companionable silence, the smell of fresh sawdust hangs in the air. Busily their hands dance over the serpentine length of the freshly pressed sausage.

Outside is pre-dawn stillness; that breath the world takes before launching into it’s vital morning song, all the more beautiful in our quaint country street. This shop represents not just an occupation but a livelihood, a partnership and a family. The carcasses hanging stiff upon the steel hooks mean life and a future for my sister and I, tucked warm and safe up in our beds.

My dad cheekily bumps my mum with his hip. She responds in kind with a playful “oi”, never once breaking stride as she continues to link the days sausages. Loop and twist, loop and twist the dance goes on; though their fingers have turned a petrified purple. Loop and twist, loop and twist in mundane elegance; though their knuckles ache with the cold. Loop and twist, loop and twist; side by side they dance in our little shop on Station Street.

* This is based on a memory I have of my parents when I was a child. It was lovely to revisit it with the eyes of an adult, coloured by the wistfulness of nostalgia. Ah life as the butchers daughter! Now all of these years later I am proud to say that Mum and Dad are still dancing side by side through life. Just not with the sausages…