jml297

Myrtle had always wanted to travel. From a young age, she’d been obsessed with adventure books, which described worlds that seemed more exotic by far than her reality. When she showed an interest in nature documentaries on tele, her parents humoured her. But Myrtle felt a sense of disconnect between the images of lush, leech infested rainforests or icing-sugar dusted alps when she looked out at the wilting acres of wheat that carpeted the ground around their homestead.

Myrtle decided early on that if she ever married, it wouldn’t be to a farmer. She created swathes of sketches in ever larger notebooks, with the outlines of countries which shared borders if not languages. She’d close her eyes and place herself on winding tracks, feeling the wet caress of leaves on her arms, the filtered sunshine freckling through the canopy.

But these imaginings dissipated over time. Helping out at home, and then the freedom of leaving home for university filled the days. Whilst Myrtle still dreamed and talked at times of travelling, life seemed full enough as it was.

Though marriage was no longer the pinnacle of societal expectations, Myrtle somehow found herself married after all. Tony was a few years older, and loved to share stories of his time spent backpacking through Asia. Myrtle was fascinated by these stories, which called up images of the maps that she’d once created with such care. But Tony liked to talk about his adventures as if they belonged to another era, as if such travel and adventures were beyond the reach of now.

This was written to a prompt at my local writing group.

Photo: airplane wing above the clouds