Seven Years Ago
“Jenny? Are you alright?”
Mr Kalkowski, leaning on his stick, looks down from the bank which swoops down to the lake’s edge. A figure lies prone across a grassy mound by the pebbled shore.
She twists, squinting upwards, a hand against her eyes, against brilliant sunshine. “Hello, Mr Kalkowski. Yes, I’m fine. I was just watching this.” She waves a hand across a patch of reeds which edges the shore where a stream meets the lake.
Her teacher descends the slope carefully, using his stick as support while he guides himself along a six-inch wide, sheep-trotted path between slippery grassy hummocks. Drawing closer, he can see the elaborate zig-zag manoeuvres of dragonflies over the water. In brilliant shades of electric blue and iridescent green, their scintillating wings comp
