In the park, she watched it float up and up, the largest bubble she’d ever seen. A massive orb glinting with hints of rainbow colours. She couldn’t work out where it had come from. This didn’t surprise her. She had little idea of many things these days. A few years back, so much had seemed clearer. Now the world fell on her in an odd way. And today she was in the park, watching an enormous bubble drift into the sky.
“Bubble,” said a voice. The woman turned to see a man with white hair and a bearded collie on a lead. ‘Bubble,” he said again, as if making sure the word sounded real.
“Yes.” She offered him a gentle smile.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, you don’t always know…”
“You don’t.”
They both stared up at the bubble. It was high now, moving across the face of a cloud.
“Only came to the park on a whim today. Normally walk the dog by the river. Now I’ve seen the bubble,” he said.
“You have.”
“Sounds silly, but I don’t want it to vanish from view. Ever,” he said.
“It will.”
“I know. I don’t want it to.”
“No.”
They stretched their heads back, gazing. The bubble got smaller and smaller, shrinking to a dot in the sky.
“Imagine. Something so big, improbable, marvellous, becomes…a point in the distance,” he said.
“That’s perspective,” she said.
“That’s everything,” he said.