A conversation heard in The Old Mill.

The old man sat at the kitchen table sipping his cup of tea. His brow had a forlorn look to it.

“I need to fix the leaky roof,” he stated.

“What leaky roof?” said the old woman, hard at work scrubbing dishes.

“The leaky roof you’re standing under is what leaky roof I’m talking about.”

“Since when does the roof leak? I don’t recall the roof leaking,” the old woman retorted.

“When it rains. The roof leaks when it rains. Don’t you hear the ‘drippity-drop?”

“What’s a drippity-drop?” she asked.

"The sound of the leaking water from the roof hittin' the pail that's set there to catch the leaking water. You do live under the same roof as I, don't you?"

“Now what kind of question is that, you ask me?”

“The sort of question one asks someone who doesn’t hear the ‘drippity-drop’ of the leaky roof water hitting the pail in her own home. The same home she’s been livin’ in for 35 years.”

The old woman laughs. “Ah! You’re hearing things, you are. Leaking roofs and ‘drippity-drops’. 35 years, you say? Seems more like a hundred, if the truth be told.”

“All the more reason why a hundred-year-old roof would be leaking, don’t you think?”

“I don’t do the thinking around here. You do all the thinking around here. You spend all your time thinking while this house falls to pieces around us.”

“Falls to pieces?" the old man says. "Why there’s nothing wrong with this house. This house is as solid as the day the first stones were laid, woman.”

“What about the leaky roof you’ve been going on about?”

“You don’t know a thing about roofs, do you? Do you know how many different roofs have been laid on this house? That is certainly not the original roof.”

The old woman grunts as she continues washing dishes.

“What was that?” asks the old man.

“What was what?”

“That – what you just did?”

“I sighed. It’s a sigh.” she says.

“Never heard you do that before.”

“We’ve been married for 50 years and you’ve never heard me sigh?”

“Not like that.”

“Oh go on, you.”

“I think it was a grunt and you’re just saying it was a sigh ‘cause a sigh sounds more cultured than a grunt,” stated the old man, feeling quite confident that after 35 years of marriage he can discern between a sigh and a grunt.

“What do sighs and grunts have to do with a leaky roof anyways?”

The old man sips his tea. “Nothing. But you’re the one who said the roof didn’t leak.”

“It doesn’t.”

The old man rose, grabbed his tea and walked over to the window, peering out over the pond situated in front of the mill house.

“Maybe I’ll do some fishing today.”

“Fishing where?” the old woman asked.

“Fishing where. Fishing right out here in our pond is where I’d be fishing.”

The old woman shook her head. “You’ll be getting’ no fish from that pond.”

“Why’s that?”

“ ’Cause there’s no fish that live in that pond, is why. Don’t you think that if there were fish in that pond we’d know about it? Don’t you think that after 35 years of livin’ here that if you would’ve caught one fish from that pond that I’d know because I do all the cooking and fryin’ ‘round her and I’d remember if I was fryin’ fish you caught from that pond?”

“I’ve fished that pond hundreds of times, you know.”

“Then where’s the fish?” the old woman asks.

“They’re still in the pond, bastard fish.”

“Don’t be blamin’ the fish for your inability to use a rod and reel properly.”

“I know how to handle a rod and reel. And even if I couldn’t, what difference would it make as, according to you, there are no fish in that pond.” The old man takes a long, slow sip of tea and speaks under his breath. What did she know about fishing anyways? The old man thinks some more. “I’ll bet there’s not one fish in that pond. All killed off by the mill. I bet that’s the reason I’ve never caught a fish from that pond.”

“What was that you said?” says the old woman, half listening and half cleaning the dishes.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve never caught one fish from that pond,” said the old woman, half listening and half cleaning the dishes.

“Right,” says the old man. He takes another long sip of his tea, smiles and mutters under his breath. “Throw her in that pond, is what I’d like to do.”

“What was that you said?” asked the old woman.

“Fishing in that pond is for fools, is what I said.”

“Oh. Well, now you’re finally talking sense.”

“Sure,” said the old man back. As he gazed out the window, he noticed sections of the stone wall near the pond falling into disrepair. He turned to his left and saw the vines crawling up the side of the house wall onto the roof. Those would need to be cut back. Maybe the old woman is right. Maybe the old mill is falling apart. His eyes then averted down to the mill waterwheel – silent. How fun, the old man thought, if he could get that wheel moving again. Just for show, of course.

“What was that?” yelled the old woman, still washing dishes.

“What’s what?” the old man yelled back.

“Didn’t you say something?” she asked him.

“No,” the old man firmly stated. “It was just a grunt.”