This is the Story I Would Tell You if We Were in Bed Together Late at Night


One day, a boy and a girl were walking along a quiet dirt road that flanked a rushing river. This was a day that smelled of humidity, a day in late July that exuded a hopeful lethargy. Contentment.

The boy walked with a stick that he used as a sort of divining rod. He had a face like a Picasso - his features were all over the place.  Christmas light eyes were Northeast and West, a narrow, strangely delicate nose somewhere near the center, and a wide grin with full red lips that completely controlled the Southern region. Hair was abound in crooked waves and half-circles. A countenance that might overwhelm you with uneasiness, like those paintings that creep a sneaky shiver up the back of your legs.

She was probably more symmetrical - precocious air sign eyes, cupid's bow lips and full cheeks with a tendency toward a double chin due to her own melancholy - laziness in holding the head up. Extra pockets of fat as the result of too much stored energy - for emergencies.

His comparable lankiness had him bounding around like a sprite. Perhaps this continual jostling is what kept his features in motion like Mexican jumping beans.

The two came upon a flood. The river had poured onto the roadway, covering it with about a foot or two of water for the next ten feet.

"Hey, look at all the water over the road," he said, his eyes of tourmaline looking at the flood, and then at her. Eyebrows quivering above unsurely, but with intrigue.

"We should turn back."

"No, it's only," he measured with his stick and then held it out to her, "See, it's only that much."

"No, let's just turn back. We'll have to go over it again on our way back home tonight. We'll have wet socks all day."

"We'll take our socks off."

She looked down and held out her arms. "What about my pants?"

"Take your pants off too."

It was her turn for a paradoxical expression.

"Take your pants off too," he repeated, with a grin.

"No."

"All right," he relented, and the two headed back home for an afternoon of lying in the grass and drinking ice-cold lemonade. But as they walked away from the flood, he in the lead, she turned back, wondering if he would have held her hand as they treaded the tepid water.

Then it would be quiet, I'd feel like I'd said too much, you'd kiss me, and we'd never speak of it again. But the next night you'd ask me for another story - I'd have none prepared, of course - but at least I'd know then that I hadn't frightened you off.

~

words: Lisa Wright, Conneticut (wrightwrong)
painting: Natalie Abadzis, London (byebyeballoon)