Sometimes I have to take
matters into my own hands, so I walked to the British Heart Foundation charity
shop; went straight to the men’s clothes section I browsed through winter
jumpers and sweaters, I picked the largest, coziest looking one; greenish brown,
knitted wool, old and worn out. It had a bit of orange paint on the bottom tip
of the right sleeve, so I decided it belonged to a painter, a large man, his
name is probably Keith! I’m not sure why Keith, but I have a feeling this is a
jumper a Keith would wear. He’s an older man in his mid-sixties, tall, with
broad shoulders and has a small belly, he’s interesting, he worked in
education, now retired, loves to read, mostly about nature and history,
sometimes when he’s bored he picks up a paint brush, attempts a still life or a
simple landscape, some daffodils perhaps. Although he pretends to miss warm weather like
all Brits, he’s secretly excited when the weather is cold again, he likes woolly jumpers, this one was a Christmas gift from one of his children. He wore it a
lot, he wore it and wore it, until it was fully his, every fiber, every stitch
but his wife Sharon kept nagging at him “will you please stop wearing
that scruffy shabby thing Keith, it’s served its purpose, done it’s time,
exceeded its life expectancy, donate it to a charity if you can’t bear throwing
it away”.
I take Keith’s old jumper
home, I wear it, with nothing else, it’s warm and cozy like a tender embrace.
