Over Smooth Pebbles
by MaryAnne McCollister
I climb in to get out of the sun, and find myself bathed in red. Michael follows me in and leaves the tent screen opened. Mosquitoes swarm inside. They follow us because we taste sweet and salty, salty from the climb to Worry Rock and back again.
Michael is bathed in red too and I photograph him. I shoot him from all angles and undress him so I can capture his servitude, capture his vulnerable masculine innocence.
A mosquito lands on his back and I smack it, kill it, right there on his lat. It leaves a drop of blood amongst its remains. I wipe the blood off with my finger.
The tent becomes stagnant and hot, we find no relief. The sun strikes the red canopy directly and tints us; it washes us with a hue and then fades as clouds cover and pour buckets of summer storm down. The rain cools us, brings down the mercury. I undress and zip the doors shut and press against.
His scent is on me now and I drift into sleep, but first we speak.
“This will always be our place,” he says.
“Worry Rock is our place.”
We hold each other and listen for his footsteps; we listen for Anthony in the brush, and sometimes hear his whisper in the breeze. It sounds like cool creek water over smooth pebbles, then like laughter, and then screams.
I wake up not to Anthony’s screams, those have long since departed, but to Michael’s. He can never leave here, not until the voice of our son and his final words fade. So we sleep here at Worry Rock and we wait and we listen, for time to walk back to the day that we climbed the promontory and he didn’t fall.
~end~