This is an exercise derived from one of my favorite novels. Playing with words and styles can be so much fun..
She walked naked across the yard. The street lay far in the distance. A sharp trickle of sun floated downward from the sky over the vacant grass. The grass seemed resolute, the dirt rotating. The dirt had the warmness of one sliced moment when expectation meets simplicity and emotions are held in a fusion more powerful than nature. The dirt was dark, compounded over centuries.
The street in the distance was only a thin black barrier breaking the world into two. The ground below grew deep, unchanged. It existed purely to sustain—so that the world seemed planted in space, a rock positioned on nothing, anchored to the body of the girl in the yard.
Her body ascended above the earth. It was a body of smooth curves and angles, each segment broken into lines. She walked simply, her hands moving with her body, effortlessly. She felt the ease of her shoulders hanging below her head, the curve of her belly, and the blood resting in her veins. She felt the air around her, at the edges of her skin. The air blew her hair gently into waves. Her hair was neither blond nor red, but the exact color of ripe sunrise.
She smiled at the event that happened earlier that night and at the events to follow in the future.
She knew the minutes to come would be hard. There were inquiries to face and decisions to be made. She realized that she needed action. She also knew that she could not think, because everything was already apparent, because her decision was made long ago, and because she needed to smile.
She tried to ponder. But she digressed. She was looking at a blade of grass.
She ceased smiling as she reached awareness of the world around her. Her face was like a gift of nature—a thing one could appreciate, accept, and adore. It had round cheeks over smooth, rosy dimples; green eyes, warm and exploding; a full mouth, slightly open, the mouth of a thinker or an idler.
She paused, lay her bare skin against the smooth slivers. Today she needed to feel. Tomorrow she would re-enter the world on her own terms.
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Also, I plan to add some artwork to this piece later, if packing and a going-away luncheon don’t eat up my entire day.
©Lindsay Oberst
