Ariadne

You wake to the sound of the orchard before you wake to the light. The trees are old enough to have a voice — a slow, dry rustle when the wind comes from the south, which is most mornings. The window is open. The wall by the bed is hand-troweled, thick, cool to the palm.

Inside, the room is gathered around its own quiet. A woven beaded textile hangs above the headboard, made by a woman in the village whose mother taught her, whose mother taught her. The floor is dark slate, warm by mid-morning. The bed is raw linen, the colour of cut flax. A single terracotta cushion. Nothing is trying.

Outside the sliding doors, your terrace begins — pergola overhead, a small table, two chairs, a banana plant taller than you are. Past the pergola, the orchard. Past the orchard, the sea.