Enga mellom fjella

Before the showing (300 words) [139] (13.July.2020)

He fights back tears as he cuts her hair, each strand a memory of wild days and wilder nights.

There was Malibu and Mallorca, Rome in Italy and Rome, New York.

It was that night he remembered most.

They were on their way from Albany to Rochester when roads got icy and the radio warned that it was worse ahead. They found a place in Rome. No fountains, no ancient ruins, just an old copper town in the Leatherstocking region. With plenty of snow.

Winter is a great time to snuggle and the young lady he picked up hitchhiking was fair game for that and more. The Summer of Love? It was more like the Winter of Undress. So they did.

They explored each other as if it were a field trip in geology. This landscape was soft and yielding, this one rock hard. His family owned a flower shop; hers grew grapes. It was a night of wine and roses.

The next two days, snowed in, they drank and explored some more. It was amazing how the taste of wine mingled well with other fragrances. She smelled of lily-of-the-valley, the room redolent from sandalwood incense. They bathed in patchouli bath salts. They drank in each other inch-by-inch with their lips, traveling each road and by-way. They didn't seem to find their journey's end.

They traveled for two years ... and almost married.

But this last week ... Her grandson had been the only family allowed to visit. He'd brought news of her passing and here he was standing there, with a smile so much like hers.

He arranges her hair; he's finished.

It's time for the showing. He places a pink rose behind her ear, another in her hands, as her grandson tucks in a bottle of wine by her side.

© Kåre Enga [177.139] (13.juli.2020)