On The Write Path

Hand-in-hand

For: "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  If you won a free trip to any foreign country, all expenses paid in your own private jet and had the time to go (and there were no travel restrictions due to a global pandemic *Pthb*), what is the first foreign country you would visit? Who would you bring with you? What would you spend your time doing? Mars ... by myself I post an appropriate story I wrote.

Hand-in-hand

They walked hand-in-hand down the red dirt path, around the circle of green scum covering the pond they had dug. Michele spoke about the last time she had tossed back a Guinness as Miguela closed her eyes and inhaled, hoping to recall the fragrance of a deep red wine.

The air was dry and still.

—I remember the old men making dough, guarding their recipes as if their life depended on it.
—I'm sure their livelihood did.
—No—their life. "Pizzo paid by pizza" my father always cackled.
Miguela pulled a comb thru her snarled wires. Michele just winked and tossed her long black locks.
—Want to stop for tea and scones?
Her eyes crinkled.
—Only if you remembered the garlic and extra oregano.

Miguela laughed. She loved laughter, eyes twinkling more than those stars looking down at them thru the black sky. Her homeland rocked to a volcanic beat, she'd always snicker. Michele would just smile, pretending they were walking the Giant's Causeway every time they wandered out to the pond's dock.

It was afternoon. They needed no clock; they just knew. The movement of the small blue starlet and big yellow star informed them.

Back home, one wall showed a scene of a distant Emerald Isle, the other white stones and blue shutters baking in the heat. Michele served tea and they both sat quietly.

Time passed.

Michele grabbed her bodhrán and Miguela started to sing. They wove a melody and beat that no one could hear. It was the year...

87...

and the denizens of the cemetery were stone deaf, each grave hand dug, the most recent mouldering now for 50 years.

Mars was a lonely place for a party of one.

Calmed, Miguela quietly stowed her stiletto. Michele knowingly smiled... lost in thoughts of all the worlds she had once visited. She looked up. Beyond the empty sky she could see...

Forever.

© Kåre Enga [14.March.2017]

Originally written in 15 minutes and posted in "Hand-in-hand"