My Grandfather's Ring

A most remarkable set of events unfolded before me yesterday morning, events that reminded me of how deeply we are immersed in a flowing stream of time where the past is still remorselessly flowing past us. Three weeks ago, I had been to the sleepy little village of Mildred, twenty miles from Cambridge, to meet a college friend, and since my grandfather too had lived there most of his life, I decided to step into the local library to see if his name was mentioned in any of the council records there. I browsed through several dusty volumes until I came across a black and white photograph of him standing beside a woman wearing a hat in front of a local pub. The photograph heightened my curiosity and I sent an advertisement to The Mildred Herald for any information about it.

I returned to Cambridge the next evening, and forgot all about the advertisement. Yesterday morning, however, I received a brown package from the Royal Mail, and on opening it I found a small blue box with a beautiful silver ring inside it. I took it near the window, and in the morning sunlight I saw the following letters engraved on the rim : 'M.B. to E.D.' Since M.B. were my grandfather's initials, I was highly intrigued and decided to take the ring to my granduncle at the other end of town and ask him if he knew who E.D. was. On the way I crossed the Cam behind Trinity, and I saw a young woman sitting down under the winter-struck elms near the Backs. When she saw me approaching, she asked me if I could lend her a matchstick. I gave her one and as she lit a cigarette the sharp smell of burning tobacco filled the windy air.

'Why are you sitting down here? Isn't it a cold morning?', I asked her.

'Me? Oh, I am waiting. When you are waiting, there is nothing colder than the coldness of the wait.'

'What are you waiting for?'

'Oh, I don't know. Maybe for something. Maybe for nothing.'

'How long are you going to keep on waiting here?'

'I don't know. Maybe until my heart is shattered into pieces.'

I left her there under the leafless elms, and slowly walked down into the noisy traffic of Queen's road. I looked back once at her from the other side of the smoky road. A black raven was now quietly sitting beside her and giving her company with its eloquent muteness, and her white cigarette fumes were slowly rising into the sky. And in front of me, I could rows and rows of neatly-dressed people madly rushing to work, people who have become sleep-walkers in a heart-broken world.