by Réka Vojkoj

It was a dry July, the Mississippi was dwindling; only the cotton plantations were blossoming in their strange way, laughing at the perspiring women who have been trying to gather their crops with an intangible audacity. On this Sunday the sun was shining brighter than ever, and a profound silence was reigning over the lifeless bushes, high in the hill, just an eagle’s shriek disturbed sometimes the solitary contemplation of the wild roses, which were still alive in the shelter of a wizened tree, and a river’ rush could be heard somewhere in the deep.

From a wicked path two figures were approaching with fast but tired steps; their bodies absorbed the sunshine, melting them into the black ground. After reaching the trees they stopped: the rough man leaned on a tree, holding his body with his strong muscled shoulders. His arms fell lifelessly on his heavy thighs; he was looking at the woman lying next to his legs, the glints in his black bulging eyes were blending with an endless desperation. Lying there the woman, with her quickly moving chest and her fragile shape, looked like a finely carved ebony statue. She looked at him as well, with the deep and sad look which at one time had made him fall in love with her. Their eyes met in the heat and time stopped for a moment, when suddenly dogs barking and clatters of hoofs could be heard from the distance.

She stood up with her chest moving faster than before, took a look to her bleeding soles, while he left his eyes on her sweaty shoulders and breasts, the rag sticking to it and showing her beauty. She used to be a lively and childish girl once, but now an inside burning flame made this thin young woman look stronger than the cliff she was standing on.

They didn’t say a word, but both knew what was going to happen. The man dig his crusty palm in her fuzzy hair and moved his mouth, trying to say something, but she hugged him with such force that his legs shivered. The clatters of hoofs and the dogs’ barking were getting closer. Closer and louder, almost louder than the river’s roar.

’Are you sure?’ the woman asked.

’I won’t go back, Liz……….I won’t…….I’ll be free……..free………….with you……I won’t belong to anyone………….I’ll be free…………..nobody will take it away from me………….nobody……………’ and his glassy eyes looked through her, through the trees, through the sky, to a place he just dreamed about.

The sun embraced with it’s beams the two falling dark bodies, and the wild roses on the cliff were blossoming whiter when the splashing stopped down in the river, forever.