A Moment Alone

The sky is black with a few speckled stars. Isa’s black truck is parked twenty feet away in a row of 10 empty parking spots beside the sidewalk. The only thing separating the cars from the ocean is a wide sidewalk and a cliff side covered in ice plants and a few invasive species of grass. 
Isa is nestled in the thick coiling roots of a Monterrey Cypress. The roots are curved and exposed to the air like tentacles that emerge from the earth and then dive back into it after a series of loops.  The trunk of the tree is massive, the bark scratches against her back which is only covered in a thin cotton long-sleeved shirt. The roots hide her body from anyone that might be walking along the sidewalk or the occasional car that passes by, their headlights illuminating the tree for just a second before driving on. 
She is just a few steps and a leap from the ocean.  Fifteen feet below, the waves crash into the rocks, colliding not with violence, but with a persistent relaxed motion that moves forever without rest.  The sound is calming, like a nighttime lullaby.
Isa looks out into the black ocean sparkling with faint moonlight.  The air is crisp with approaching fall. The elements seem more alive, and she feels more real in it.  With acute clarity, she feels the coolness of the salty cliff covered in fine dust, the rough bark of the trunk, the breeze full of salt and moisture, the roar of elements as water and rock meet. 
Her left hand is in her pants, feeling the warmth of her bare skin.  Her thumb and pointer finger are expertly holding a vibrator to her clit while her others hold back the cotton of her panties.  She is hidden there, alone under the cloak of a dark sky, the protruding tree roots and the ocean sounds.
Her eyes are open, alternating her gaze from the sea to the cypress canopy above, barely visible against the dark sky, to her stomach and her legs.  Isa closes her eyes as she gets closer, clenches her abdomen and imagines tied-up young women on stage in front of a barely visible audience, women bent over metal contraptions, gagged, helpless.
The fantasies quicken her excitement and her clitoris swells with blood. She moves rhythmically and opens her eyes, watching the approach of foam-tipped waves and the serene rise and fall of salt water in the distance. 
She is alone out here, alone but accompanied by all the elements. She begins to ride the tide, pushes her breath out a little quicker, tightens her lower abdomen, and she soars over the edge.

The Wish

It was a perfect dandelion, set under a crisp plain of bright blue sky. It was straight and tall, a white puff of individual seeds that almost begged the wind to scatter it, each one holding on with the most gentle touch of strength. The dandelion was ripe and ready, finding itself alone in a wide open green field of grass, where bare-boughed oaks stayed in the distance, on the soft sloping hillsides that rimmed the field like the jewels on a crown. A gentle wind began to blow, rattling the long stem in its place. Bending from side to side, but not a seed ventured out. The time had not come, the world was not yet ready. They could all wait, holding onto the stem just a little longer.

She gathered what they needed for a picnic, looking with discerning eyes through her small pantry. There was already a thin pink tablecloth in her black canvas backpack, two ham and cheese sandwiches she had made in the morning while her heart raced with bursts of excitement. There were a couple room temperature bottles of water and a handful of paper napkins. She grabbed a handful of chocolate kisses from a half-full plastic bag and dropped them into the side pocket. She zipped up the backpack and headed out the door, warm golden sunlight greeting her. It was time to play.
The day outside was so fresh. It had rained for several weeks, nearly non-stop, and now it was time to reap the rewards of endurance. In every garden were daffodils and the buds of Icelandic poppies just about to burst. Something about the air was so different, it almost had a sweetness, like the rain had washed away every sad thought and tear. There was something so clean, she couldn’t quite place what it reminded her of, but she felt like she had lived it before.
She drank in the air, the day, enjoying every lick of the cool breeze that slid past her round red cheeks. She walked five block to the park, passing single story houses with large front yards and no gates. Everyone seemed to be gone. No cars in the driveway, no human sounds. It was just her and the quiet dance of leaves, the sun and its returning loyalty, the color of soft petals. The park was more of an open green field, not a place new mothers would bring their children to. There were no play structures or a basketball court. Just a large stretch of grass and oaks along the edges. She liked it, it was a place she came to often, perhaps the last wild, undeveloped place in the city. A breath of fresh, green air.

She saw him in the distance and her heart both jumped out of and fell into her stomach. He was a small shape amid green covered earth and blue sky. Knowing he was there, she walked slightly faster, her heart beating, her palms beginning to sweat. His broad shoulders looked wide in the uncompromising light. He stood now, watching her approach, and with each step closer, she felt ever more shy in his steady gaze. She could not stop smiling. Wind whipped across her teeth, drying them completely. Another step across soft earth, then another. Where he stood was home, within his body was everything she dreamed of. The space between them grew smaller and smaller, until there was no space, their bodies pressing tightly.

“Hi,” he said, taking a small step back. “right here, this is the perfect spot, look,” he pointed to the ground, “I thought you might want to make a wish.”

She followed the invisible trail from his finger to the grass, and there, was a dandelion. Ripe with seed and wishes, ready for her hopes, for all she wanted to tell the sky. She looked up, smiling at him, giving him a kiss on his wide lips. She looked at him for a moment, then bent over, plucking the dandelion gently from its base. She stood up straight again, looked at him once and then closed her eyes. She made a wish...and blew, sending her dreams towards the moon.

Circle

The man slowly stood up from the wrinkled bed. It was already past noon and he had just opened his eyes fully for the first time. He had halfway opened them a few times as the morning progressed, but each time the light would hit his pupils like acid sliding across sandy paper, and he decided it was still too early. That kept on happening until the morning was gone. Now he was finally getting up and the light still hurt his eyes as it fell through the window in a mass of yellow transparent harshness and the wooden floor felt cold on his naked feet but he was hot and sweaty all over because it was noon and it should have been morning and then it would have been cool, but the morning was gone by now, and nothing he could do would bring it back. He walked into the bathroom and the white tiles of the floor were even colder than the wooden floor in his room. He shook all over for a moment and then he let out a loud burp and smiled at himself in the mirror. He reached down and felt his hard penis, which was so hard it that it rubbed up against his lower belly and that gave him a slight taste of pleasure. It made him think of the Vietnamese girl he had seen a few days before in the park, the one with the long black hair and brown, tanned skin, the one who danced for a moment on the bright green grass while he played the drums. He knew that she wasn’t just dancing for him right then, or for anybody for that matter, but it felt as if she was. Just the thought of her slender body moving to the deep sound of the drums made him even harder. He walked over to the toilet and realized that he couldn’t pee as long as he was this hard. So he masturbated quickly, quick rapid wrist movements and closed eyes, and, as he climaxed, he exhaled loudly, he opened his eyes wide, and he looked up at the dirty yellow ceiling of the bathroom. He just barely heard the small splash of sperm as it fell inside the water of the toilet bowl. He breathed slowly for a moment and then he peed, looking down to see his penis shriveling back down to its normal size. He exhaled once again, finished peeing, flushed the toilet and walked over to the sink. Again he smiled at his own image as he washed his face quickly and then he walked back out into his room. That was as good as having a morning. Now he was ready for the day.
He surveyed the expanse of his kingdom and he found it to be very small, specially now with all that light streaming through the window. He thought that soon he should get a curtain. If it was dark enough maybe he could sleep even longer. Now it just looked like a little room, about four hundred square feet, with a single door, a little closet, a bathroom and a window, a window that he wished wasn’t so bright. He sat on the bed and looked up at the little frame that held his three medals. In a flash, he was back where there was rain and tall green trees and pain and arms that would come off of their sockets and wide open eyes and friends that asked for help when you didn’t have any help to give them and it was all too much to think about right now, and that had been true all along but it became true once again with every day, specially in the daylight.
Now the morning was gone and he leaned over towards the bedside table and took out a few marijuana joints that he had thoughtfully rolled up a few days before. He lit one up and sucked in the smelly smoke, and then, once again, the dark trees and the screams of pain and the friend asking for help, it all faded away as it usually did. He walked over to the window and the light wasn’t so bright anymore, in fact it was becoming very beautiful. He looked outside and he could see the green lawns of the park from his window and he remembered that that was why he picked this little room over all the others. He got dressed quickly, still taking quick tokes from the joint, and he began to smile. It was always good when he began to smile, that meant the day had truly begun and the light that was so harsh just a moment ago was about to hit him like a shower of little kisses as he walked out the door.
He arrived at the heart of the long lawn, not even a half hour after taking the first hit. The glimmering colors were already multiplying. What had been golden and warm and simply delicious, now became a rainbow of ecstasy, in the shape of a girl in tight blue pants and a light top, swirling and dancing in front of him, and smiling, smiling so beautifully that right then he could see the whole love of the world in her eyes. He looked around himself and there was an old man looking up at the sky, with his eyes wide open in a gesture of pure wonder and amazement, and there was the love of the world once again. He walked towards the circle, where the loud sound of the drumming was coming from. He stepped right into the center and everyone knew him and everyone smiled and tacitly welcomed him even as the drumming continued and he placed his own conga drum in between two others who shifted aside to make room for him. He began to beat the drum with abandon right away, falling smoothly into the driving pulse that the others had established. There was an old Latino man swinging the maracas and there was an old black man banging on a djembe and there was an old hippie banging on the bongos and here he was drumming with them, whoever they were. For as much as they were strangers, they were the circle, and the circle changed every day, but the circle always stayed the same. He was now at the center and he was no longer in pain. The help that he couldn’t give so long ago would now be openly forthcoming, and the drums were loud all around him, and some girls were dancing, and some men were juggling, and a few couples were kissing and rolling around up on the hill behind him and the pain had disappeared as easily as a puff of smoke disappears on a breezy sunlit day.

Web of Trust

They make trust with the people of the web, a makeshift arrangement that sets loose an army of powerful crystal giants. Like peasants born in El Salvador they dream of escape, and ultimately will do anything, even flee to the Evil Empire, rather than stay in their own ravaged country.
"We’d up and fly if we had wings for flying, can’t you see these tears were crying, can’t there be some happiness for me…"
Not in the Empire of the gods of sloth and gluttony, not under the dominion of the army of slow cold death. The rhythm will sweep you up, send you under a carpet to live in the eternal night. Then you might make your way through subterranean tunnels, an invisible something with tendrils, with a mouth, living beneath the lake at the heart of the mountains. Taking the wrong passageway, tromping down the wrong lane, dodging into unfortunate alleys where fear makes you her lover and grips you so tight with want that it suffocates your best impulse. Those tendrils stretched out in search of heat, of one lost fragment of warmth and light to steal away. The feathers weight is a fairy tale ending. Here we all end leaded, with feet submerged in tubs of dried cement pulling us down, down, into the murky waters. Sucking the liquid into our lungs, grasping for life, we are inviting death instead.
In this bleak end we trust, we count on it. And it makes us strong. It makes us kind. Hope is like a drug; abused, taken in excess, it leads to brain death. The misery is not in endlessly repeating the same toil, the same guest, the same day for eternity. The misery evolves from the hope that it could be otherwise. Accepting our lot, keeping to the trust that we know what anguish lies ahead. We merrily greet it, teeth bared in a grimace/smile. Trust guns. Trust regime. Trust weakness. Above all trust work, toil and work.
The big black Woman’s deep gaze earned my trust. I looked into the depth of her and let her look back into the depth of me. She saw something which she did not like, but I let her see it and I was unashamed. Changing shape is how I fuel this economy. I love the planet. I trust that Greenland will melt away and the three feet of water gained globally will make me a mermaid. If only we could sustain global warming. The creators of the Hummer knew that I would get a kick out of joining king Triton at the bottom of the sea, and goodbye California. The lost state of California. And down there in the briny blue I’ll swim with the polar bears that sunk with Greenland.
It could have been a musician, a painter, an engineer, a cement balloon. It could have been Frankie.
I love nature. I love watching everything decay and turn to shit all around me, I love watching myself and others grow wrinkly and wobbly, I love watching the silent hunter creep up on us all with her scythe in hand. But until she catches me, I’ll delight in the chamber pot. It’s not me. It’s you. Death is imminent enough, without us going around trying to hurry it. It’s not an option. We can’t hope our way out of it. At least not without microphones.
With a dime bag of hope, two turntables and a microphone, perhaps we could sneak over old man times wall. We’ll pick the fruit from his trees and swim in his swimming pool (I might find California at the bottom, which would be cool because I could grab some of that shit I lost when it sank) while he’s out working. He’s got a nice yard, built before it became popular to have everything covered in white quartz rock. There’s real grass growing there. Yeah, you know what I mean. The kind cows like to eat. Then they crap it back out and someone comes along and puts it in a bag and sells it to someone else in the suburbs so they can spread it over their yard and grow more GRASS!
Or at least they used to before the irrational fear that cows were causing global warming sprouted up. After that the government rationed out all of the available white quartz rock available. It became illegal to grow grass, sell grass, or even have grass in your possession. You could even get into trouble for holding someone else’s grass for them. The underground cult of the Golden Cow rose in popularity with the rebellious younger generation, spreading its pale roots far and wide.
Anyway, it’s a nice yard. His pet dog, Unknowable, lays in the shade of the trees where he tries to piece together a strawberry shortcake puzzle somebody bought for him at the 99cent store. The trouble, you see, lays in that the puzzle is so poorly manufactured that even the wrong pieces fit together sometimes. All he really has to go on is the picture. The best part about Unknowable is that he never barks when strangers hop over the old man’s wall. Turns out that he’s been on strike for a while now and refuses to resume his usual guard dog duties until Time gives him a raise. He’s totally cool with whoever creeps back there, just so long as nobody tries to take away his puzzle.
"Don’t Step on the Grass" signs are planted all over the yard. Unknowable once hunted for a promise, and it eluded him, so now anybody can break laws written on gator board signs and embrace the Proud Way. Someday. Hands at the ready, ashes in the mouth, we run barefoot through the forests of the future, lay gasping in the sudden present, die trembling in the past. The rulers of the world get together and corner peasants and slap them around demanding gold but get only wooden buttons to break their teeth on. Shit happens, its no secret.
When the great grand daddy of all floods came, it wiped clean all traces of peasant life, because food stamps couldn’t pay for a ticket to higher ground. The keepers of the Empire watched from the mountain tops, picking their teeth with the branch of an olive tree.

The Couple Holding Hands

The woman walked out of the museum first, with a steady movement that clearly embodied confidence. She had black hair, long enough to barely touch her shoulders and fall in soft curves around her cheeks. She was wearing small glasses and her face was hard, as if the skin had ossified into permanent features that now would hardly move at all. She wore a long white shirt and blue jeans. She walked with the decisive manner of a soldier and her mouth was pressed together into the promise of a frown. She turned around to look at her boyfriend as he crossed the glass doorway and stepped out into the sunlit sidewalk. He was taller than her, thin and wiry. His hair was also black but cut much shorter. His eyes had a sense of calm that bordered on sleepiness. He wore a long brown T-shirt and blue jeans like hers. He walked toward the woman nodding, as if to say without words: ‘Now, that’s done.’ After him came her friend, a younger woman in a flowery dress and medium heels. She held a camera in her hand and she walked towards them with an enthusiastic grin drawn from cheek to cheek. The three of them came together at the top of the stairs and then walked down the gray cement steps. The boyfriend looked over towards the wide open plaza, covered in thin little trees and the sound of kids playing and birds singing. The woman looked straight towards the sidewalk instead, ready to move on. The friend smiled some more and looked towards a dark sculpture that stood in the middle of the lawn that surrounded the museum.
"Look at that… what is that?"
The sculpture had the shape of a black inverted funnel. The surface was shiny and polished, making a deep contrast with the grass and the gray sidewalk around it. The inverted funnel was covered with little angels, cherubim, who climbed up the slippery surface and over each other, trying to reach the top. Each of the angels was different and each made its effort in a particular and distinct way. Some were falling backwards, some were almost reaching their goal. The friend walked ahead of the couple and examined the sculpture carefully, even running her fingers over the angelic bodies, trying to feel their struggle through her hands.
"Look… they’re angels… they’re climbing and climbing…"
The man nodded and the woman looked at her friend and at her boyfriend with a sense of growing impatience.
"Well… we should be going back and…" she said, trying to sound as if it meant nothing, as if anything that happened would be fine with her, but she was unable to betray a bit of annoyance, a touch of cold impatience at the edges of her words.
"Just a second… I want to take a picture of the two of you… right here… in front of the sculpture."
The woman looked at her boyfriend, looking to see how he would react. He shrugged his shoulders and his eyes looked more sleepy than ever. Then, in a voice that was barely loud enough to be heard, he said:
"Sure… why not?"
The friend, lifting the camera to her eyes, looked at the woman and nodded towards the large black funnel that rose up from the green grass. "Well?"
The woman shrugged her shoulders like her boyfriend had and said: "I guess it’s ok…let’s just do it quickly."
The two of them walked towards the sculpture, which rose to three times their height. They stood in front of it, about a feet apart, waiting for the friend to take the picture. The friend made a gesture with her free hand and said:
"Closer you guys! You have to get closer!"
She stepped back slightly, trying to make sure she got them both into the picture as well as the dark shiny figure that rose behind them. The woman stepped closer to her boyfriend and he stepped a bit closer to her, without looking at each other. Their shoulders bumped together awkwardly and they both looked towards the friend, who was still getting ready to take the photo.
"Well? Go ahead and take it!" the woman said, feeling her boyfriend’s shoulder against her own.
"Just a second…" the friend said, and she stepped a bit farther back. "I think I got it… but you guys need to smile more… why don’t you hold hands?"The boyfriend sighed lightly and the woman couldn’t stop a burst of nervous laughter.
"Just take the picture!" She looked sideways at her boyfriend whose eyes were squinting against the sun.
"I want you to hold hands. It will look much better that way!"
Again a burst of nervous laughter came from the woman’s lips. She turned towards her boyfriend who was still just squinting into the sun and she grabbed his hand in hers and pulled both their hands, now pressed together, in front of them.
"There! You happy?" her voice dripping with a forced nonchalance.
The friend shook her head. "No, it doesn’t look right. You both still seem very awkward…. Like something’s wrong. It will come through clearly in the picture."
The woman tried to press closer to the boyfriend, feeling the tight muscles of his left arm against her shoulder. She rearranged the hands again and she smiled towards the camera. The boyfriend just stared ahead.
"You have to smile too!", the friend said to the boyfriend.
"C’mon! Just take the picture!" the woman said, feeling that there truly was something wrong but completely unsure of how to fix it.
The boyfriend turned to her then, looking steadily into her eyes. His pupils opened up slightly and he pulled on her hand and turned it over, so that his own hand was secure on top of hers. Then he pulled her closer to him and turned towards the camera with a smile. The woman smiled then, but it was not for the picture. The smile rose from her like mist from a clear lagoon in the middle of summer. It spread across her face like a transparent cloud barely touched by blue and pink, and her face became softer, and her cheeks became red and her eyes became brighter. Her body suddenly seemed to acquire curves it didn’t have before. She could feel her right hip barely touching the edge of his thigh and the sensation sent shivers all over her now relaxed body.
"There!" the friend said, and the camera clicked a couple of times. "That was good!"
The friend put the camera away. The boyfriend released the woman’s hands and the woman stepped away from the touch of his upper thigh and his wiry forearm. He started towards the sidewalk and the friend followed. The woman looked up at the shiny surface of the inverted funnel and at the angels that still struggled to climb to the peak. For a moment she admired their effort and she wondered at the nature of their plight. She wondered if it was love that propelled them forward and she wondered at the power of such love, love that could last a lifetime, love that could last beyond. For each of these angels, she thought, there must be many down in the darkness, unable even to start. She felt sympathy then for the lost ones, the ones that would always live in the shadows, the ones that would never make it up through the ground. When she turned back to the sidewalk, the friend and the boyfriend were already a hundred feet ahead. She rushed to catch up with them. In the distance, a violin was playing a strange sad melody. A car passed by and a group of teenagers were laughing loudly inside.
The friend turned around to see if the woman was coming. The friend smiled brightly when she saw the woman walking towards her, but the woman’s smile was gone again, along with the softness of her body and the brightness of her cheeks. The sunlight was too bright just then and the woman had to look down, away from her smiling friend, away from the shadow of her boyfriend, away from the bright light that would make her cry.

Harmless Intruder

We were driving down a gently twisting two lane road of paved black tar, slowly descending from a series of elevated hills down into a lower, flat valley. The land on either side of the car rolled with small supple hills; the gentleness of the hills was a reflection of the softness in the wind, which moved constantly like a controlled breath, cooling our skin with the grace and strength of a woman gliding across an empty dance floor. The unclouded sun was working to dry out each stalk of grass. There was still evidence of some green, although light gold was the predominant color of the landscape. The sun was high overhead and the light around us was bright white and crisp and we all wore sunglasses to protect ourselves against its radiation. The paved road was black and warm, it accepted us into its narrow passageway and we hugged the tight curves slowly, trying to capture every detail with our pens and lens.
We were alone on this stretch of road. We passed pale colored houses every now and again. Light blue single story houses with white curtains, cream colored barns and small family-sized vegetable gardens. We passed a few large pickup trucks in the driveways of the houses and American flags on the porches, but never an actual person. In this small stretch of country road, we seemed to be alone. These were small farms, miles away from the large industrial farms that extended their tight geometric rows of almonds trees for miles. This was family land and the houses were long ranch structures, built years ago and slightly beaten by the elements.
As we drove slowly along a tight curve in the road which veered to the right, I saw a cluster of decaying oak trees out the right back window of the car. I jolted upright and moved to grab my camera, but the vision went past before I could push the button. I couldn’t let it become a fuzzy thought in my memory, so we turned the car around and pulled the car over on the other side of the road, about fifty feet from the trees. I stepped out of the car and onto the soft earth. The ground was the color of white corn and fine as dust. The ignition was turned off, and we were left with the silence of the land. There were no motors, no voices or engines, just a soft buzzing of distant insects and my footsteps crunching small rocks on the pavement. I crossed the road and walked up the right side along a short fence. The fence was made of graying wood beams and barbed wire.
As I walked closer to the trees, I saw a cluster of cows on the right that I had missed as we drove past the first time. There were at least three dozen, all of them were adult and a shiny reddish brown color. Some were standing and eating, others were laying down, making larger imprints on the grass. There was a large oak tree close to them and a couple of cows were resting in the shade. They were large and their strength was impressive and I felt small as I approached the herd. They heard my approaching footsteps and turned to locate the source of the sound. Three dozen sets of eyes turned towards me all at once, each one seeking eye contact. Those whose bodies were turned from me twisted their heads in my direction. Some, caught chewing, watched me with blades of grass spurting from their mouths. Whatever they had been doing, they all found me and watched me walk. I was an outsider, walking through their world. Like the new arrival in a country western movie just stepping into the town’s saloon, they all turned to size me up. They looked at me, silent, observant, and feeling no threat, because none of them made a move to flee. They swooshed their tails and flies continued to land close to their eyes. I kept walking, a bit nervous, a bit self conscious in front of so many eyes. They stared, I stared. Behind low barbed wire fence. I passed them by a couple dozen feet and walked past them to the cluster of oak trees. Last I saw them, they were still looking at me, still examining the strange intruder that trespassed the silence of their quiet lives.

A Bucket of Grapes

The grass was smooth and short and moist. It covered a rectangular space about forty feet long by thirty feet wide. On its southern edge was the road that came up towards the lake from one of the main roads of the large city park. On its northern edge, it bordered with the concrete walking path that surrounded the lake in all directions. There were several tall thick trees that loomed over the grassy open area, their branches and leaves partially covering it in shadow. A light breeze blew gently through the bushes and the trees, making the leaves tremble and sometimes fall, like little flat colorful dancers making their final appearance before an empty house. On the western edge there was a path that lead up to the lake, connecting the road to the concrete path. Every few minutes, some people walked up that little path and a few others walked down, subtly interrupting the stillness of the little meadow with bits of conversation and the rhythmic sound of heels upon concrete. Cars drove up from the main road every so often, sliding up the curving street with ease and disappearing once again around the bend, on their way to the little parking lot behind the big wooden building or to the northern side of the park. Except for those slight interruptions, the grassy slanted meadow was quiet and peaceful and self contained, like a little rectangular room with grass for a carpet and trees and brush for walls. Close to the trees, on the northern side, a couple frolicked together, laying on the grass, pressing against each other, kissing and touching and giggling lightly as their bodies shivered with delight. Their little giggles mixed in with the soft calls of the birds to form a single gentle chaos that emphasized the delicate silence, outlining the emptiness with a kind of music, giving it an edge of crystalline beauty and sweaty lusty song.
Towards the south side, close to the center, a woman was sitting and, just a few feet away, a girl was sitting next to her. The woman was dressed all in black, a short black skirt and a shoulderless black top. Her hair was also black, long and smooth, falling all the way to her higher back, past the nape of her neck. Her skin was a light chocolate color, her eyes were slim and focused, her nose was small and pointed, her smile was wide and tight, as if it was being held back from making a full appearance. Her legs were crossed and she sat on the wet grass, her naked dark thighs pressing down on the wet long leaves which left tiny lines of green on her smooth skin. There was a blue bucket full of grapes close to her right hand and she reached every so often to grab one of the grapes and drop it into her mouth. As she chewed on the little spheres of sweetness, she smiled some more, in the tight way that she did, and she talked to the young girl that sat beside her.
The girl was about sixteen or seventeen. She also wore black, a sleeveless simple black top and a short black skirt. Her skin was white and it was shining like a pink mirror under the rays of sunlight that hit directly on the unprotected spot where she sat. The girl had long blonde hair, which was tied in a single long braid that fell down her back. Her face still had traces of the little girl that might have once ran around the lake, squealing and jumping, hoping to catch a duck or a pigeon in her hands. Her cheeks were round and smooth, her eyes were blue and soft, her smile was broad and simple, holding a light of truthful innocence that was missing in the woman. The girl also leaned over, every so often, to grab a single grape and drop it into her mouth. When she chewed, she remained silent and listened carefully to what the older woman was saying. She nodded and smiled at the appropriate moments, trying with difficulty to not be distracted by the lustful couple that was lying on the grass just a few feet away. Her eyes would wander over to them for rapid moments of indulgence, just enough to take in what was happening, what were they doing, what were they about to do. Then the girl would bring her eyes back to the woman, who never looked away.
"It takes time to understand these things… there is no simple, easy solution…", the woman spoke through the remains of a single grape that still rolled around in her mouth. The girl nodded, taking in the woman’s words and presence through her wide open eyes. "There is a real difference between theory and practice… I cannot emphasize that enough."
The woman looked at the girl, trying to gauge whether her words were making their way into her, whether something was leaving a mark. She then reached over into the bucket, took out another grape and plopped it into her mouth. She extended her lower lip, caught the little purple sphere easily between her teeth and smiled at her skill. Then she started to chew again and she turned to the girl to speak: "Do you understand what I am saying? It is not enough to just hear about these things…"
The girl nodded, swallowed the last bit of her grape and then smiled broadly: "Yes, I believe I do… I am very eager to learn."
The woman bent her right knee towards her and nodded with exaggerated motions. "That’s what I’m saying. I know you are… I have no question about it…All I’m saying is that you will need a lot of practice…Practice, real world practice, is crucial…"
She chewed through her grape and let her eyes wander over the smooth young face of the girl. It was clear to the dark skinned woman that there was so much work to do and there was only so much that she could say to help her. It was also clear that the young girl was there to learn and that it was her place to make sure that she did.
"I will find others to work with you…there are always plenty of students ready to find a new project… it won’t be difficult. I will find people that are better than you so that you can learn from them. That way you will be forced to make an extra effort, an effort you might not have made otherwise."
She reached once again into the bucket and grabbed a new grape, very dark, very purple and very round. The woman was feeling very playful and happy just then so she threw it up into the air in front of herself and she leaned over to once again catch it in her open mouth. The young girl laughed at the woman’s playfulness.
As the woman ripped apart the perfect purple grape with her teeth, she said: "I have been coming here, to this very spot, for many years. I like to sit here, eating grapes. I used to sit here without doing anything, but I would get too restless. I then tried to read, but I would get too distracted. I tried to sleep but then I felt like I was missing the experience. So I got the grapes… and once I got the grapes, I could sit here for hours, just chewing and eating and chewing and eating…like the cows." Then she burst out laughing and a tiny bit of grape flew out of her mouth and fell on the moist grass. The young girl laughed as well, and she imagined them both as cows on a wide open range, chewing on grass for days on end. They both kept on laughing for a bit and then the woman leaned over and slapped the girl’s naked knee.
"Don’t worry… we’ll make something out of you yet… a real something."
Right then the girl’s eyes were wide open and shining and the woman’s words were like little purple spheres of sweetness that, for a moment, covered up the dryness of a cold world of empty silence. The breeze made the woman’s black hair fly up slightly and the young girl could only wonder at her beauty and her wisdom and her kindness. Then the woman reached into the bucket to grab another grape and she offered it to the young girl, with her careful smile drawn tightly across her face. The young girl nodded and took it and dropped it into her own mouth. She started chewing once again while a car passed by behind them and the couple giggled once again by the tall old trees that surrounded the green lake. The girl’s wide eyes were still on the woman and the woman’s eyes were still on her, and the breeze felt like a shower of kisses on the soft pink valleys of her naked skin.