Late summer

Ready for river swimming, early evening. Swinging round the curves of road, music suffocating my common sense. And then, sudden lights in my mirror. Second speeding ticket in two months, happens also to be the second in 12 years. And in EXACTLY the same part of the road. Sighing, my wheels chewed to a stop on a grassy verge a metre from my destination.
I changed into my bathing suit as he wrote out the ticket.

Stones in my back and sandflies on my legs I watched the river fill with retired couples swimming in each other's circles. The light was fading but the river was still warm, leafy shadows skittered across the surface. I waded in, feeling the water cut through my layer of end-of-summer sweat. With a stick and a leaf I made a sailboat. It sunk immediately.

Me with a wet ponytail, the ticket crumpled in my purse, together we drove home uncomfortably slow.