Tiger eyes.

Passing on the baton at ninety-seven.

Hello lovelies, hope you’re having a good week. Here’s Thursday’s story ready for the weekend, bang on time.

She gently scooped the flock of fringe back over his ear. The old man’s head, resting on a starched pillow. Sleepy eyes opened. Rare, green-crystal eyes, the same eyes she herself had inherited. At school they’d called her Tiger Eyes.

Those who knew her well knew she had a heart of gold deep down, but nearer the surface, well, Tiger or no, things were..

Complicated.

She had a wild streak, good-wild, not evil-wild, but it got her into trouble over the years, not enough to end up in prison, but enough to have to pay a fine from time to time.

Then again, she hadn’t had it easy and maybe it was thanks to that wild streak there’d been bread on the table when times had been tough. Her husband, who’d turned out to like his drink just a bit too much, wouldn’t listen to her when she tried to remind him, for the hundredth time, that his medication for Epilepsy did not mix well with his booze. His family even tried to blame her for his death, saying she’d given up reminding him, ‘not to mix the two’. They didn’t talk for years after that.

She knew it was the alcohol alone that won, knocking him off his motorbike, lying drunk on tarmac, yellow and blue lights flashing at the crossroads, on Christmas Eve.

Her new year present: two cute toddlers to bring up all alone.

From that day she never drank. Not a drop. Except maybe a sip of a toast at weddings, to be polite. Alcohol had turned her not only into a widow, but into a single mum, in a country not famous for welfare support. How she’s fought! How she had to fight. First as a practice nurse and then when the children got older, caring for the elderly on days off to make ends meet. She’s seen many an old delicate face, their head as light as a sparrow on a hospital pillow.

And later? Real estate. She’d discovered a talent when she sold her brother’s old apartment for a pretty sum, despite the menopause flinging her a few more bruises and keeping her up all night. Nursing hardly paid the bills so in no time at all she passed the exam and opened her own office. Wheeling and dealing. It was a tough market at the best of times but somehow she found a way to steer the rudder through the storm. She instinctively knew how to drive a hard bargain, managing to sell anything from a meagre plot of land to a seafront mansion.

She was looking into her father’s eyes while thinking that it was about time she retired. She was well passed retirement age too and real estate had become a nightmare. It had become a digital nomad’s dream; anyone could set themselves up without capital and so they did. Estate agents were mushrooming all over town. She was tired. Her office, that she’d felt so proud to buy outright when she’d turned sixty was surplus. Defunct. It was up for sale and looking very likely to be some hemp CBD shop.

She sighed a deep sigh. Enough was enough. She would pass on the business to her daughter who could work out from her laptop. She’d taught her well, set her up in the same business; she’d been hungry to learn when her man had walked out and left her with their two young teenagers to bring up singlehandedly. She had tiger eyes too. The tiger in them keeps being passed on.

Her father was studying his daughter’s face, trying to read the news along the lines on her brow. She smiled at her him.

‘Mm? What is it Dad?’

‘Am I dead?’

With a big smile and beautiful creases at the corner of her tiger-eyes, his daughter replied, ‘No Dad. You’re not dead!...I wouldn’t be here, talking to you, if you were dead, would I?’

He thought for a moment, taking it in.

‘How old am I?’

‘You’re ninety-seven pops.’

‘Seriously? That old? Ninety-seven? That’s nearly a bloody century!’

With a gentle hand on her father’s shoulder, she replied, ‘You’re doing just fine Dad.’

‘I’ll get up now and we’ll check out. Where’s my wallet?’

‘Your wallet? No Dad, I got this covered, don’t you worry about a thing’.

‘No. What time is it?’

‘It’s twelve Dad. Midday.’

‘That late? We must be going’.

‘No, pops. Look. It’s all fine. We’re all good… I asked for late checkout.’ She smiled at her father who dropped back into another nap.

And one week later they celebrated the old man’s life in the old, whitewashed church that towers above the town, layer upon layer of thick gold paint, glimmering in candlelight around the wooden alter, as they celebrated his long and colourful life.

‘A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough’ ~ Benjamin Franklin

. ~**~ .. ~**~ .. ~**~ .. ~**~ .. ~**~ .

I walked through the woods this morning, dodging huge puddles with tide-like marks of pollen in faint yellow, after the night’s rains from the heavens. Plants in shock at such a blessing, bending with the weight of the leftovers. I can’t help but think; this should be enough, and I instantly rethink, how I should know better; I spend hours in the countryside and any fool can see how parched everything is.

Thank you for reading. It’s so nice to meet you here. This scene unravelled as I walked. I don’t know why it came to me then, but it did. Conversations we’ve had jump into stories on my path, like celandines popcorning in the spring breeze.

Here’s a light two minute read from

Donna McArthur

to breathe some air into the day’s lungs for hopefully, a long and peaceful weekend ahead.

Please do join me again next week and share if you liked it. Lots of love.

Corrected for a minor typo!! Sorry! Will I ever write a story without a typo??