Botanical study

One hand in his pocket, jingling coins and car keys, eyes unfocussed as he gazed beyond the grimy sash window, the other taking the final half inch of roll-up from his mouth and squashing it absent-mindedly into the matt black saucer sat beneath the pot containing the dead ... dead what?  Hard to tell, same as it was hard to tell how long it had been dead.   You’d need to have studied it to know how many weeks it took for leaves to drop, desiccate and crumble;  at what point the stems became hollow and fragile. 

Easier to do though, than study the similar death of a marriage.  No way of decoding those ambiguous, coded signs.  Those sighs, intended to both convey to and conceal.  In her case, first the one and then the other.   Convey her unhappiness;  conceal her affair.

Stupid that it should have been the dog who told him.  Barking – barking a welcome – at the man coming along the river bank towards him.

His death would not have been desiccated;  his body not dry and crisped.

Prompted by two Thinking Ten prompts from last week