RETIRED AND DECORATED

I’ve written this for a blog by author Teagan Geneviene about the senses. You can read her piece and find links to others in the comments at the following link:

https://teagansbooks.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/mini-series-the-senses-hearing/

RETIRED AND DECORATED By P.S. Joshi

There she sat, year in and year out, alone, decorated by nature to make the eyes glad and the nose grateful.

The old locomotive had been a majestic sight in her day. As she barrelled down the track, coal smoke rose up her mighty chimney and billowed into the air.

But she’d been retired to a side track and the flowering groundnut vine had wound around her to give her a second glory she’d not known in her working life.

From spring to mid-summer  the vine bloomed with a canopy of fragrant lavender flowers. Butterflies and bees flitted and buzzed about and birds sang and nested. It provided both home and food.

The locomotive felt a peace she’d not know before. She was still useful.