Downstream

midday sun, providing a
glimpse of blue sky, Gothic
spires and a distant flagpole.
All I can hear is the soft
breathing of my companion
who then tells me quietly that
he’s researching fifteenth-
century Fellows of Eton
College. I open the first book
Penny has laid out for me on
the table, The Eton Book of
the River, published in 1935.
It’s a weighty tome with
pages that have turned a pale