He
was stooped over, tying his shoes. A truck outlined itself in the
distance, trailed by swift flashing sneakers with their glimmering
white capturing the verdant green of the expansive lawn. He kicked
off his left shoe and his sock-clad foot swaddled itself in the
bristly grass stalks. It was here that his portly frame staked its
claim. It was at this very crossroads of layered concrete and lush
pasture that he awaited the arrival of her highness, her sleek
stature vaulting into his field of vision, her maroon tresses adding
a glossy sheen to a more murky brown of the thick tree trunk that she
whirled past before finally stopping directly in front of him. He
heard her uttering, "Yes, I accept your proposal."
The
folds of her blue-green
shirt seemed to intermingle with the gurgling
lake whose eddies gathered into knotty lumps before unraveling into
thin, vaporous threads of the fabric that enveloped her quivering
belly, surging with her breath. It was his own breath he felt spread
in cool jets over his gums as he came to. Ensconced in a
swampy
mattress whose sticky fingers gently tugged at him, he felt himself
rising up as his
muscles twitched, but the ooze kept him glued in
place. The hospital stay would be brief. Just a few more days and he
would see her again. He would embrace her and his affection would
acquire a solid character; cast she would be in a form concrete, and
not diffused like a gossamer shroud over lakes, grasses, and skies.