She
By Robert Mariner, East Sierra Branch
The dark has always been good to me, especially during the warm moonless nights of summer, when the river of stars that is the Milky Way blazes overhead and it seems almost as bright as day outdoors. The scent of pines, the perfume of sagebrush, the sharp tang of lava rock cooling from the heat of the day — the sound of the brook in the canyon, the call of night birds, the howl of a distant coyote ….
One such summer’s night while I was stationed at a remote site, lying in my hammock and letting God’s own symphony lull me to sleep, the sound of approaching footsteps brought me awake. Mind, I was miles from the nearest public road, and the service trail to my cabin was steep, not suited for anything less than a good four-wheel-drive Jeep with a really skilled driver, yet on came these soft footsteps.
There was no effort by whoever was walking to sneak up on me, even if the footfalls were soft and muffled. No indication of anyone doing anything other than just walking along, knowing exactly where they were going, as if they were completely at home. The footsteps continued to approach, and then I caught the delicate bouquet of her scent floating in the air.
She walked out of the forest, and I couldn’t see her. Well, that’s not quite true. Hair a deep black mist, skin darker than midnight, eyes great deep mysterious pools, clad only in shadow, she came to sit upon the edge of my hammock and put one slender hand comfortably on mine. Not the touch of a stranger, not the touch of a seductress, but the touch of long intimacy and love, the touch of someone who belongs forever in one’s life.
Her voice was a breath of peace, and our conversation took us far into distant realms of time and space, of things we had done together, of people we had been, of events we had witnessed. The images came sharp and new as if we were seeing them for the first time, and had nothing to do with this life and this reality. It seemed that we dreamed, joined in soul and mind and body, as eons flickered past and all of Eternity wrapped us in a gentle blanket.
With the sunrise she was gone, nor has she returned. Yet even today, as I gaze upon war-torn lands and human suffering, she is always near, always present, and often do I feel those soft lips brush my cheek, hear that gentle voice, and understand that some things will be forever beyond our ken.
I suppose some professionals might say I suffered some sort of trauma, or maybe that I’ve gone insane. Some could say I’m not strongly anchored in the present, in the here and now.
But no one can explain the mark of lips, puckered as for a kiss, that appears on my cheek of a warm, moonless summer night.
“She” won second prize at the Weird Weekend Storytelling Competition, which celebrates the stranger side of the Mojave Desert.
Read more about Robert Mariner at
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RobertM256
and on his website http://therefugeconfederation.com/