A pair of wellingtons

That’s not actually a pond behind me; it is the deliquescent remains of a tall building which gazed upon my blue-and-red awesomeness.  

Respect is due also to my little sister, rocking the junior streetwalker look. And while we’re on the subject: the turban; the coat; the gloves! I have no idea who that lady is, but she is killing it.  

But the wellingtons are the object of my gaze now. This photo must predate the only clear memory I have of them: at the bottom of the garden, by the compost heaps, playing with the broken-handled gardening fork that my father used to pile and pack things onto the bonfire.  It would have been almost my height.  I raised it high and drove a half-inch tine through the toe of my boot.  

I don’t remember what happened next; but I do remember the black rubber square of puncture-repair that my father placed over the toe. No one would bother to do that today.

What are she and I looking at? That; my same nervy, awkward hands; and my sister’s gaze looking out across the years, are the things that pierce me now.