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112
Matthew And
His Companion
he would stroll down her drive, raising his arms high above his head, until one day.
One day, she didn’t come. She didn’t open the door to ask him, ‘And what are we
doing today?’, and he wasn’t given the chance to reply, ‘Just adding a little
something.’ She didn’t gaze at him, loving him, caressing him with her eyes only.
She was gone. On this fateful day he approached the house, his feet bearing down
audibly on the crunching gravel, stinging in the painful silence. ‘Meredith!’ he
implored, his voice bouncing with hollow reverberation against the emptiness of
the house.
Through tears he saw it. Sitting on the door step. The hat, with all its bizarre
additions and amendments. On Meredith’s head it was a masterpiece, an ingenious
creation. Without Meredith, it looked ridiculous, overstated and ugly. There was
no note, but the house was empty. Like the hat without Meredith, The Grange
was nothing but a gaudy, vacant shell. Matthew Taylor picked up the hat, put it
on his head and walked through town alone. He walked home and has stayed there
until this very day. Quite alone, and quite mad.
So if one was to walk past 63 Cogdon St Pittsborough at around
6 o’clock, without fail one could spot Matthew Taylor. He sits there
on his maroon couch. He sits there, opposite the hat. Her hat, his
companion. And to the hat he talks, from 6 o’clock until half past
eight, at which time he rises, pulls a chord to his left, revealing a
massive bookshelf. Then with the utmost care, he places the hat on
the far end of the top shelf next to another hat. Which is next to
another hat. Which is next to another, which is above another, which
is above another, which is part of a bookshelf consisting entirely of
hats. Her hat, all the same, all in line.
He then gently taps each hat, before pulling the chord and turning
out the light.
‘
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