Under the Sycamore Tree - Part One

He was adamant he'd done the right thing.
Joseph stood by himself in the carriage of a metro, unaware of which station he was leaving; unaware, even, of which line he was on. He was certain he'd done the right thing. Opposite him by the doors of the carriage stood a tall woman holding an umbrella. Its blunt point was resting on the floor. A pool of water was forming on the dull red floor of the carriage where the water was running off the point of the soaked umbrella. It was raining outside, Joseph reminded himself. If he stared long enough, it looked as though the point was piercing the floor and a pool of dark blood was forming around the wound. The woman with the umbrella must have been almost 6 and a half feet tall, much too tall to be a woman, he thought. Her dark hair was cut short, and she wore long black trousers and a dark overcoat. The hands holding the umbrella were huge, and Joseph could even make out tiny scars and blisters in the rough skin. The woman suddenly stepped aside for a second, as a swarm of children stepped onto the carriage. Each one of them carried a small rucksack, each one with a different design. His eyes caught the bag of a girl with dark brown eyes. It was covered with flowers. Simple, beautiful flowers.
Had he done the right thing?
He'd had no qualms about his actions the moment he left the the building where S lived. The fact that he could have made a mistake though, grew in his heart the more he thought about it. Where had the seed for this thought come from? The ominous woman opposite him only infuriated him. What was she trying to say? What is she trying to accuse me of? he thought. The dark pool around the umbrella had grown larger now, and was beginning to run towards Joseph's feet, he noticed in fear.

The fish had only just stopped moving.

The fish had only just stopped moving.
It's gaping mouth lay open, and an eye pointed in the direction of the sky. The scales on its belly shimmered rainbow-like in the mid-afternoon sun, each one like a single newly polished salver. The fish was lying in a shallow pool of water on a wooden chair in the back yard. I was standing above it thinking how beautiful it looked, and wished I'd had a camera to hand. The chair was a low-legged one, and had a simple straight back that made sitting on it far from comfortable. That being said, I regularly enjoyed being seated in this chair with its back leaning against the oak tree. I would sit in this position for hours in the shade under the tree when it was warm, reading the paper or just watching planes traverse across the sky.
I had no idea how the fish had gotten there. I wasn't even sure of the type of fish it was, not being any more familiar with dead fish than the average person. Not being happy with this resolution, I nevertheless decided that it was a kipper. There was a cat that lived in the neighbourhood that could have been responsible for bringing it here, but I couldn't make out any visible marks on the fish that a cat could have made in transferring it from its previous lodging to its present place of rest. The fact that it had been half alive when I had first found it made me think otherwise, too. Although the chair was still underneath the oak tree, I wasn't happy with the possibility that the fish had fallen out of it. Fish don't grow on trees, and they very rarely fall out of them. I decided conclusively that it was brought to me as a gift, and I needn't ask any more questions. I picked up the dead fish and made my way through the yard and into the kitchen door to make smoked kippers for lunch.