Here are some stories - my english extension two major work. All done! And a few days early, too.
Some of the spacing and stuff is a bit dodge here, but you get the idea.
And if there are any typos or anything PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
Other than that, I would love to hear what you think of them
Enjoy
:)
There’s Something In The Water
Come, come, whoever you are!
Wanderer, worshipper,
lover of leaving,
come.
This is not a caravan of despair.
It doesn't matter if you've broken your vow
a thousand times,
still, come,
and yet again, Come!
- Jelalludin Rumi -
Swimming
Meet me.
You know where.
Whispers exchanged within a chatting congregation.
Like a pearl hunter, I could dive into those dark eyes, swim deep into their depths on a single breath. I’d brave sharks for you. A shaft of sunlight inlaid with drifting dust pours through a stained glass window, bathing the girl below in a wash of blue radiance, touching her long black hair so that it glows as if made of light itself. The minister standing before us delivers a sermon that teeters precariously between wrath and love, and I float languidly on the currents of thoughts and memories…
A voice in my head. Her voice. Dancing between the audible and the nearly imperceptible sounds that bubble below, like a running stream as it tumbles stones and fallen leaves, pours over rocks, into hollows deep and secret…
And I remember hearing her voice through a crowd…
Girls fluttering around like hummingbirds, lacing up boots, tying ribbons, chattering, giggling, fluffing the sleeves of their best dresses. Hurry up girls, you’ll be late, Mama calls, and in a flurry of excitement we file into the cart that waits to take us the half hour trip into the town to the bush dance: an occasion designed for the meeting of boys and girls, for the forging of bonds that they spend their young lives preparing for and the rest of their lives living. We three girls barely manage a goodbye to father before we are out of the cart, greeting friends with squeals and hurrying into the hall to join the circle of dancers.
Gema was there, in a light blue dress, sapphire ribbon in her hair, laughing and dancing with her sister. She’s Italian, her family had migrated to Australia only a few years before, and I have heard stories; that they are witches and dance naked under the full moon and cast hexes on innocent victims. A friend had sworn the family attacked chickens, used the blood for their satanic rites.
Still, I thought Gema had the most beautiful hair I had ever seen.
Everyone was thoroughly engaged in their day of rest. My four younger brothers and sisters were playing cricket in the yard with Papa; Mama was watching from the shade and applauding enthusiastically despite her ignorance of the game, and my older sister Vivian was having tea with her fiancé. I dreaded their imminent marriage for I would miss Viv something awful. Mama told me I was not to fret, I should be happy for her and look forward to the day when I too would find a husband of my own. Indeed it seemed that day was fast approaching. At a dance a few months ago I met David, a man who had since provoked many giggles from my sisters. He was courteous and not unpleasant to talk to, and I was not opposed to the idea of an impending engagement. But today I had dodged his attentions after church with the excuse of a headache, and so slipped quietly away while my family was occupied.
The resonance of the distant ocean and the occasional calls of birds were the only sounds that intermingled with the salty atmosphere as I made my way around the rim of the lagoon. The water shone a brilliant blue in reflection of the sky that stretched above, and bright midday sunlight sparkled on the water’s surface. The cool water licked my toes as I walked, past swamp hens fossicking for food in the reeds, and a single pelican floating lazily on the soft current. Tiny fish, specks of brown like fallen leaves, darted at the suggestion of my approaching footsteps. If I crouched, still, patient, I would be able to catch them in my hands. But that would be the activity of another day. Eager to hasten my journey, I began to skip like the little girl I had not long ago left behind, splashing water, scattering ducks in my wake, thinking of all the things I would say to Gema. I wanted to tell her about the baby lorikeet that had been pushed out of its nest and fallen at my feet like a precious gift but wouldn’t eat anything I gave it, so it had died in my hands and I buried it in the mud of the swamp. But as I anointed its grave with my tears, I heard a twittering screech, looked up, saw a lorikeet flying overhead. And I wanted to tell her of my bubbling fantasy to not only run away and join the circus, but start one all of my own. Lemon meringue tent with pink polka dots. She would be a mermaid in the freak show and it would be our little secret that she wasn’t really a freak at all, and we could be together forever in our spotted tent, drinking tea and playing games with the elephants and the tigers and the clowns and the real freaks.
Suddenly I stopped in my tracks, almost stepping on something. Some thing laid out on the sand. A fan-shaped shell, shades of white, encircled by a ring of little dark green orbs of seaweed flesh joined as if beads on a string. Carefully placed twigs radiated out from the circle like rays of light penetrating mist. I wondered if Gema had left this as a sign to me. Or if perhaps some other soul had come along and left it there for me to find; a widow with no friends but the sea and the birds she would feed every morning, or a drunk whose favourite hobby was to leave little blessings for people to find, and watch the look on their faces when they discovered them. I glanced around but saw no distant form on the sand, no eyes in the bushes. Just to be sure, I said a thank you aloud before walking on.
Sand gave way to a carpet of leaves and dune brush became trees. Peering into the shade of the melaleucas, I saw nothing but the trees. Until a suppressed giggle reached my listening ears, and, gazing around, I spied a figure that seemed to materialise out of the white bark of a tree. Gema, cradled on a melaleuca bough. She launched herself to the ground and began to run, glancing back at me with a gleeful giggle. A challenge. Her hair flew after her, and I followed. Trees seemed to appear in front of me out of nowhere and it was as if I was running full pelt in some labyrinthine quest for a prize as elusive as a cloud. Laughter rang through the atmosphere and dissolved air like dew in the sun, and when I caught her I had the feeling it was nothing to do with my own athletic merit. Hugging her, I felt the dampness of her hair, smelt salt on her skin. That was Gema’s scent, a salty sweetness that somehow seemed to follow me wherever I went, as if it were trapped within my own clothes, my own skin.
She must have been swimming. She loved to swim. Even when she was not in the water I felt that she was, that she moved through some other world, her own fluid surreality, and to me she was a dolphin, or a mermaid, some beautiful creature of water. I wanted to submerge myself in her world, dive in and swim with her, through her, navigate the sea of her like the explorers who set out, blind, to discover new lands.
Taking my hand, she led me through the paperbark forest and when I asked where we were going she answered only with a smile. We walked amid the trees and when we neared the water’s edge she told me she had made a discovery. She lifted her arm, parting the wall of reeds, and beyond, there floated a wooden canoe, complete with oars.
Doesn’t it look like it’s just waiting for us, Claire? It’s like God himself liberated it from the bondage of ownership and sent it downstream to this very spot to await our arrival!
There’s water in the bottom, I laughed.
We’ll empty it out.
It might have a hole.
Only one way to know. Help me.
We climbed in, rowed out onto the lagoon. We floated on the gentle current in silence, watching the world around us, running fingers through the water as if it were hair. So quiet. No one around but she and I, the wilderness and the soft sound of the sea. I smiled, held her hand.
She told me stories of mermaids and sailors, sea monsters and deserted islands. And she asked, with a mischievous grin, how David was and I told her I did not want to marry him, I wanted to marry her. I knelt before her and asked if she would be my wife. We talked of how we would live in a house by the lagoon and eat fish for every meal and swim every morning before breakfast and our children would learn to swim before they learnt to walk because it was without doubt a far more valuable skill. She pitied the poor people who could not do it. I admitted that I did not do it well but said I was eager to learn. She smiled, leaned towards me, touched my face softly with her fingers, put her lips to mine.
Eyes still closed, I heard a splash of water, or was it her laugh? I opened my eyes and she was gone and for a moment I panicked, until a head draped in black hair appeared, looked at me with liquid eyes, then submerged itself again. I gazed over the edge of the canoe and caught sight of Gema’s diluted form swimming below.
I longed to join her, but worried what Mama would say if I arrived home with my dress ruined. She didn’t much approve of me spending so much time with Gema as it was, said she was a bad influence. When I asked how this was I was answered only with a scolding and a disapproving look from my father that sent a pang of regret through my heart.
Boo!
The decision about whether or not to join Gema was made for me. I found myself toppling and before I knew it I was submerged in a silent world. My body seemed weightless, inconsequential, and as it sunk deeper into the water a cool, gentle peace washed over me. Suddenly it did not matter that Gema was a girl, as long as I loved her. Trying to whisper a thank you to the water, all that escaped my mouth were bubbles and I realised where I was. I looked up. Rays of sunlight poured into the water and I flapped my arms, trying to reach them. My head broke through the surface. Air filled my lungs, driving out the fluid that had crept in, and I struggled against the weight of my waterlogged clothes to get back to the little boat. I held on to its overturned body, spluttering and coughing. I felt a pressure on my shoulder and a voice in my ear.
It’s all right Claire.
Suddenly the air was pierced by a screeching cacophony as dozens of white forms rose from the greenness of distant trees into the huge blueness of the sky, flew through the infinite azure firmament, tearing me from whatever it was I thought I might say...and I just started to laugh. I laughed until the whole environment around seemed filled with a noise that didn’t sound like me at all. It seemed that the hills themselves had joined in this insane chorus. Or maybe I had joined them. Even when I stopped, the sound seemed to ring in the air about and I went all silent and just listened. And listening I heard the sound of the ocean beyond, and I realised that this lagoon was but part of the immeasurable sea. It was nature’s nursery for creatures that would, when the rain had fallen heavily for days, be released into the vast enigma that waited beyond.
And closer, I heard Gema’s breath, soft, seeming to whisper secrets in my ear and I turned around and chuckled at the mystified look on her face.
Let’s swim, I laughed, and duck dived down into the water.
Liquid Blessings
The red earth already shimmered with heat as Kathleen watched the school bus pull away. The sky shone a clear piercing blue and a few bony sheep huddled in the sparse shade of a mallee tree, taking what they could get and, being sheep, not complaining about what little that was.
Not a cloud in sight. Not that she expected otherwise. Still, it would be nice one time to look up and be greeted with the hope of rain. She remembered when she was a kid: her first thunderstorm. The firmament had been transformed into billowing dark cloud that hung over the earth and the children had screamed.
The sky is falling.
A sense of tense anticipation filled Kathleen’s world, an expectant pause that invoked a feeling almost of dread, like the peak of pressure before the burst of a dam. It was this feeling that she remembered most about her childhood. A colossal clap of thunder inspired a crescendo in the screams of the kids, but their voices were drowned out by the downpour as it pummelled the corrugated iron roof. Eventually regaining their courage, they ran outside and played in the red mud. After that day, as if by magic, the earth was for a time covered in a carpet of wildflowers, and she and her brothers and sisters explored this newly created landscape, playing hide and seek in fields of flowers and presenting bouquets to each other, to parents, to friends; posies were exchanged even between the white kids and the black.
Kathleen had carried the smell of that poignant moment with her since - the thick, fresh smell of rain - so that whenever the scent reached her in years to come she would, like the sky, feel such release she would cry.
She walked into the house, the same house in which she had grown up. And even though so much had happened over the years, so much had changed, the feeling of the place remained, as if it were somehow inscribed on the memory of the land itself. It was that desert feeling, so potent, yet so hard to describe. Like the body of some creature - ancient, elemental, vital – made up the very substance of the land.
She said good morning to her parents. They ate breakfast together, although they had already been up for hours. They chatted about the weather and wondered when the rain would come, the standard talk of the breakfast table, and Kathleen sipped coffee and thought about the day ahead. She hoped her parents would go out so she could steal away before the kids got home. She chuckled to herself. Still sneaking around like a teenager.
Maybe she should feel guilty. Her husband had been killed in the war and she had been given the medal of bravery that was meant for him. It now hung, framed, in her bedroom and the children would admire it and beg her to tell them the story of how their father had died saving his best friend. A hero. She had been invited to services, had met the Prime Minister and been told how proud, how honoured she should feel that she was given the great gift of being able to send her man to death to secure peace on earth. Yet, from the day the dreaded telegram arrived at her door she could not shake the oppressive melancholy that settled over her eyes and her heart. She stopped going to church, the church that had told them all of their sacred duty, convinced her husband of it. The mood in the house became despondent; the children missed their father terribly, and she could not bring herself to be the mother they needed.
Years ago after she married her husband, a new wife eager to please, she had agreed without hesitation to move to the city. She did not at the time realise what she was leaving behind and it did not matter while he was around, for she had reason to live like a wife and mother should. After he went to war she busied herself with the children and charity work, knitting socks for the men on the front and writing letters for those poor souls who had no one to care for them. She decided that he would come back one day when the war was over. She held on to this faith through the long years even when it seemed the war would never end.
But it did, and her husband did not come back to her, so she did the only thing she thought she could do; go back home.
Home. That’s what the property was to her, not because of the house, the memories, the people, but because of the sense of it. It was the only place where she felt that there really was something sublime to life, something beyond her existence that would go on into eternity even when she couldn’t. The silent expanse of the land pulled her from a state of mind she could hardly stand, pulled the whole family from the shadow of a man that pressed in upon their lives. And so maybe she should be content with what she had been given; but sometimes things happen, and although everyone tells you they’re wrong, you simply do not believe them.
Walking across the land towards a dilapidated wooden shack crouching amongst dry shrub and mallee trees, Kathleen wondered what would happen if her parents found out. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, they couldn’t punish her, they couldn’t really do anything. Still, she dreaded discovery. Yet the dread was not potent enough to stop her and as she reached the hut, knocked on the door, his greeting removed all such fears from her mind.
On her birthday, Paul had had nothing to give to her. He took her out into the desert and after they had walked for almost an hour he stopped and began to dig at the scorched earth of a dry riverbed. Perplexed, she watched him digging in silence. Until he spoke. Look. There at the base of the hole lay a pool of water. Laughing, she had dipped her hands in and let the mud and holy water trickle down her arms.
He taught her about the desert. Told her how she could find water herself by following the flights of birds, tapping into tree roots, digging in riverbeds that seemed all but dried up. He told her which plants she could eat, which were medicinal, which made the best spears. He taught her desert survival, even though they both knew she would never really need it. You never know when you might be sent out into the desert alone to face the devil. Best to be prepared.
She asked him about his family. He said he was born on a mission and didn’t know who his father was. His mother had died when he was young and he could hardly remember her. But he didn’t miss not having parents, for the Aboriginal community on the mission was like a single family. Ancestral distinctions blurred and faded away. They were beaten if they spoke their own language so they learnt it in secret, learnt to speak it in tones barely audible, whispered it from bed to bed in the dark.
When he was fourteen a white woman, a widow, invited him to her house. Her breath smelt like brandy, her clothes like perfume, and she would give him treats; dried fruit, caramels. One day she took his hand and put it between her legs. Nine months later she had a baby with dark skin and when they took it away from her she cried so hard. So did he.
Paul maintained that his most potent memory of growing up was when once he spilt a cup of precious water. Salty tears welled up in his eyes and the cup blurred on the dirt before him. But he heard a timid cough, and when he looked up a little white girl was standing before him, and, with sparkling blue eyes, she held out her cup to him.
Some nights Kathleen drove herself crazy because she would get so lonely and yet could not have him there with her. Anger shot through her mind, blame, and then she worried that everyone was right to hate them, and then she would eat herself up inside with the guilt of betraying both her dead husband and her lover, one in action, the other in thought. Which was worse?
But morning would come, she would look out over the desert and pray and feel somewhere within her that everything was all right.
Lazing together in the heat. His dark arms reminded her of the branches of trees as he held her - their strength, their weathered texture, the way they made her feel she was cradled in the spirit of the earth itself. Tracing his skin, pale fingers against dark flesh, trailing down his breastbone, the ridge of his nose, the edge of his jaw, winding through his hair.
A light breeze caressed her skin, picked up a dry leaf on the floor. There was moisture in the air.
Look!
Through an opening in the wall of the shack they caught sight of a hint of greyness. Could it be? They dressed, dashed outside. Dark clouds approaching fast, soon to cover the whole sky. A fresh, chill wind blew. That sense of tense anticipation crept up on Kathleen, prickling the back of her neck. She took his hand in hers.
As the sky broke open and rain fell to the earth, so too did tears fall from her eyes. She lifted her face to the sky, and opened her mouth to receive the liquid blessing.
Warming the Snow
Late night. Early morning. The glow of streetlights seeps in through the curtains, illuminating the room with an eerie night-timely light that shimmers and pulsates almost imperceptibly, or is it just my tired mind? By this time (what time is it, anyway?) my brain has softened into a lovely mush and I prod at it like a child discovering the feel of sand or play dough or rain-soaked soil. Let’s see what happens if I do this...
Three sleeping forms lie in one bed, exhausted after a long day of driving and sing-alongs, too poor to bother with two rooms even in this cheap motel. I yawn and, restless, stare past the curtains through the window to the parking lot outside. Coloured metal gleaming silently in the night. I envisage where those cars have been and the lives they have touched. I picture an old tan van chugging along the Nullarbor Plain, surrounded by nothing but low shrub and space space space. A middle aged woman with dark grey hair dozes on a mattress in the back, wearing nothing but a single earring on her left ear - a black pearl enmeshed in silver thread, glinting in a tiny beam of sunlight that rests upon only it. The teenager driving wears a purple shirt decorated with a hand-painted red rose out of which bursts a crucifix, and he sings along to the music emanating from the speakers…thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox…and he turns around and sings loudly into the back while the woman snores in a very unladylike manner indeed. But the way he looks at her, with those piercing blue eyes…
Beyond the parking lot lies a deserted road and silhouetted houses. From the window of one, a dim light radiates, and then the curtain parts and the face of a girl appears. A girl with golden hair and red eyes and faint green skin, looking out into the night. Why? Maybe she’s doing the same thing as I am - searching for a soft, warm bed to lay her mind upon a while. Or maybe she’s thinking about…androgynous ponies like Botticelli angels with vampire teeth frolicking amongst deep purple storm clouds…Perhaps she’s waiting for her knight in shining armour to come whisk her away, but she doesn’t know that when he comes he will be robed in a deep jade dress, holding a brass chalice filled with some dark, thick liquid and singing hymns to Persephone…And beyond the houses stretch hills furry with trees, seen only as darker forms against a dark sky.
I turn around. My eyes meet another’s and I smile, put my finger to my lips. With a yawn the eyes are closed and again it is just me awake in the room. Like a guardian angel, or a stalker, watching over three forms as they sleep.
Tessa, Kaitlyn, Joel and I. We have just finished university and so embarked upon a long-awaited road trip, starting at Sydney, probably ending at Sydney. That was the extent of our planning. We’ve been talking about this for years, though. Our great escapade, our chance to see the sights, to live the life, you know how it goes, and as the final exams came around our idle dreams began to take form, to pull themselves from the murky depths of imaginings and into clearer, crisper waters. The semester ended leaving each of us with a certificate in hand and a buzz of anticipation in head. We threw up our caps, saw them suspended in the blue sky, and headed off before they came back down again.
The night before we left we built a bonfire to send us on our way, fell into a sort of silent vigil as the sun set, each of us absorbed in our own worlds. Dreams of the future, fears and hopes intertwining, weaving the fabric of our shared existence under a shifting sky of shimmering misty yellows, oranges, pinks, finally fading away slowly to hues of blue and eventual darkness. The bonfire crackled and consumed the wood with which it was fed. Stars appeared above, until the darkened firmament was dotted with points of brilliant white light, and I got to thinking. Freed from the institution of education that had dominated my life, our lives, I was afraid of the strange path that lay ahead. How on earth would I be able make my own way out there in the big world?
Joel spoke of the vast expanse of the universe. He’s studying to be an astrophysicist (he’s like a bloody genius, I tell you; we all say he’s crazy but really we’re just in awe of him). It’s his great passion, contemplating the unfathomable. He obsesses about things that the rest of us only like to think about for a minute or two, here and there. The idea that we are all made of stardust, or the incredible distance of even the nearest star, or the billions of galaxies far beyond our own. He told us that ninety-six percent of the universe is concealed from any human perception to date, while I contemplated the fire lit area surrounding me. I thought it was funny that he spent his life with darkness and telescopes where you couldn’t see the beautiful blue of his eyes…I imagined stars gazing down towards this little corner of the universe in millions of years time and spying two sapphire points gazing back at them, minute but persistent, and I imagined the stars would wave back with their arms of stardust and glow extra bright.
We danced together in circles around the fire, rings and rings, forging a solid ring of gold out of our whirling selves. And we chatted about this and about that; about our mutual trepidation of the lives that lay ahead of us; and about the more immediate adventure we were soon to embark upon. Through the talk, though, and through my efforts to focus on the texture of the piece of bark I held in my hand, I felt some faintly discomforting sense shimmering before or maybe within me that could not be put into words. Even when I tried to grasp it, it remained elusive until finally I gave up, gave in, and let it float and pulsate while I bobbed on the surface of this inextricable something like a cork in the ocean.
We get up and leave first thing in the morning. Of course, for us first thing means eleven-thirty, after check out I know, but between heaving our arses out of bed, showering, eating breakfast, the time just seems to fly by and next thing you know you’re late. We play I Spy in the car and, with exclamations of cosy nostalgia, listen to songs from our childhood. Hit me baby one more time.
We get to the village where we’re staying (or at least hoping to stay if we can manage to get accommodation). At the Information Centre we’re given an address and Tessa grabs a couple of pamphlets to keep her entertained. We discover that this town was further down the valley once upon a time, until it was relocated in the sixties. The place was flooded, the whole valley, and a lake created where before there was none. Apparently, when water levels are low the remains of the old town can be seen jutting out of the water, as if reaching from their submergence to the world in which they once belonged.
The place we get is pretty cheap but looks all right. We dump our stuff in our room and have a look about the lodge, which pretty much means checking out the dining room and the TV lounge, deserted at this time of day with everyone still up at the slopes. Joel, ever the macho slob, sits down and turns on the TV.
What do you think you’re doing? We didn’t come here to watch TV you know. Come on, let’s go for a walk.
By the time we get back the lodge is starting to fill up and we’re just in time for dinner. The food is decent, the company good, and we get nicely toasted and chat away to the others, who are mostly around our age except for a middle aged couple who blend in anyway. We follow the crowd to the lounge room and talk some more for a few hours, make a few friends. This girl starts chatting to me, says she’s Alex from Perth. She’s flicking her shiny blonde hair, the type that seems to slide perfectly back into place no matter how many times she runs her hand back through it, and telling me she’s just broken up with her boyfriend so her oh-so-wonderful friends whisked her broken heart over here in the hope of driving him from her mind. I’m looking for an escape, but all my friends seem to be enthralled in conversation with someone or other and she’s just about to make me guess her bra size when my saviour comes along.
Thank god. Kaitlyn, you’re my knight in shining armour.
I was watching for a while to see how far it would go. When it looked like she was on the verge of jumping on you right then and there I figured the time had come. You’re so cute, darling. She laughs.
People start filing off to their rooms until eventually only the four of us are left in front of the fireplace that’s almost devoid of fire. We sit in silence for a while. I lie back, watch through a shimmering golden veil as the firelight makes things look a little different, shows them in a new light, so to speak. I chuckle to myself.
Eventually I venture a question.
Do you guys think you can be in love with more than one person at once?
There’s a pause.
Maybe. But it wouldn’t work. Jealousy and all that.
Throughout all history people have been paired, so, you know, there must be something in that.
Yeah, I suppose.
I get to thinking about that lake down there, how surreal it seems that there is a whole town submerged within it. This image comes to my head; a town asleep, soundless. A ghost town just lying there like some ancient ruined city that has long since reached its inevitable demise. Life, in fast motion.
This morning we actually did manage to leave early and head for the slopes. We travel on up the mountain, weaving around, sometimes downhill even though we want to go up, up, up to the highest parts of the country. But sometimes down is up and you just have to roll along wherever the road takes you. First past farms with light brown paddocks, almost yellow, where sheep and cattle stand amongst grey rocks and chew on grass that seems inedible, dead. It seems so strange how little water there is here, as if the mountains and the lake have taken it all for themselves. The land becomes national park and snow begins to appear. One minute I’m gazing out the window at the green and brown of the bush and the next thing I know it’s all covered in white, the branches of trees laden with white, white fields stretching out between hills, and the whole sense of the place is transformed into something else, something silent and beautiful, laid out on all sides forever.
We reach the ski fields, hire skis. Neither Tessa nor Kaitlyn have been to the snow before and they get a rude surprise at the discovery that it’s cold and wet. Joel and I laugh. We try to convince the girls to take a lesson but they reckon they’ll give it a go, can’t be that hard. We snigger.
Suit yourselves.
Little yelps as they board the chairlift. I take off my goggles to get a good look at the fields around me. The white carpet reflects the sunlight so brightly it becomes this luminous shroud over the earth that lies beneath, concealing life. Life that will come back again and thrive in the spring when the snow melts as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be unharmed after being crushed and frozen and deprived of nutrients for months. It’s amazing the way the experience of a snow-covered forest really does feel like they say – the whole landscape seems so silent, like it’s this subtly vital life form that has receded into slumberous solitude for the winter months. I never expected literature to tell the truth. Well, I did, but that’s another story…The snow shimmers, sparkles, twinkles, melts in the sun and magically becomes some other substance, forming droplets filled with rainbows and micro worlds at the tips of hanging leaves. How strange to think that all of this is just water in a different form, water in disguise, and in a couple of months it will shed its disguise and run down the mountains into streams, creeks, rivers, and eventually become part of the ocean or clouds in the sky, be transported to some distant corner of the world, and continue on forever.
The top of the lift, and in a flurry of screams and tangled skis the girls end up in a heap on the ground. We laugh and help them up.
And they’re off, speeding down the slope, poles in the air, whizzing down at full pelt. In hysterics, we ski down after them, meet them in a groaning clump at the bottom and help them up again.
How about we grab a coffee?
What, giving up already?
Sitting together, still laughing, I feel the heat of the liquid move through me. I watch as the steam rises, swirls, instils itself in clothes, hair, skin. The sense of smiling faces, a crystal vibrato, resonates throughout the air, seeps through the glass and the material and the metal into the environment outside, mingles with the air and warms it up, just a little.
