|
Page 4.
 In an exchange of startled looks, they burst out laughing—softly, of course—rolling about in a pummel and writhe of limbs.
“I’m getting chill,” he said, burrowing deeper into the sleeping bag. With one long arm, he reached down past his fetally raised knees and icy toes. He sought his underpants among the clothing their trampling feet had compressed far down in the bottom of the sleeping bag.
She huddled down, too, while tightly zipping the mouth of the sleeping back around their brushing necks. “I suppose we’ll catch our deaths. What are you reaching for?” She brought her knees up and aside, and added her hand to the search. Their fingertips scrabbled together over the pressed clothing.
“My underpants,” he chattered.
“The primal fig leaf,” she remarked sympathetically. To the changeless night she added, “This had to end.”
“We could do it again,” he muttered, knowing it was impossible. Finding the needed undergarment, he sat up and pulled its one large and two smaller apertures over his numb feet. In so doing, he let in a blast of cold air that raked their backs. With a subdued shriek, she flailed through their mingled clothes. “I’m putting on my shirt first,” she chattered. Thus together they struggled to clothe themselves as quickly as possible.
He sneezed.
“See?” she said.
Their shoes came last; already their nylon ski parkas enclosed their body heats separately. The sleeping bag lay open and its newly exposed innards were becoming lightly fuzzed with blown snow.
With the heat of motion retained by the airtight parka, he hurried under the impeding pine branches to wrap the sleeping bag into a tight ball while she stood beside him, a figure of innocence. She kept her fingers linked over the opacity of blue parka and ski tag veiling her pleased secret. She remarked, “Say, we melted the snow in a circle.”
Wheezing from icy air in his lungs, he swept the downy nylon hull under his arm, feeling it deflate slowly, and looked at the crushed, bare grass which was already covered by platelets of ice.
“Nobody would believe it,” she observed.
He straightened up and looked at her. “Would you?”
In the blue light, her teeth were like china as she smiled. “I’m very happy.” She was a tall, slim blonde with long smooth hair and an elegant sort of long-faced prettiness, ruddy and radiant as if just from the ski slopes.
He was dark-haired, lean, and muscular, with an angular, narrow head of short-clipped dark hair, a strong jaw covered with twice-a-day shadow, and mournful dark eyes.
“We made one mistake,” he said, pointing to the scars their feet had made in the freshly fallen snow. The holes were already filled with snow, but had raised edges like moon craters filled with dust, mysterious in origin.
She shook her head. “It’s going to snow some more very soon now.” She put her hands in her parka pockets and looked around. “Suppose somebody was watching?”
He touched her elbow and drew her back into the shadows. “Come gaze into my eyes one last time.”
“What about the footprints?”
He said, “If anyone comes by, we’ll tell them it was a Yeti and we were chasing it.”
“I have to get going in a few minutes,” she said, staring worriedly at a foot of fresh snow already blanketing the street.
He shrugged. “We’ll manage.” He looked aside. “I think we’ve melted the snow in a circle around us.”
Laughing brightly, she stuck a snowball down his shirt and he in genuine anguish made jerky motions like one who had been shot, falling finally face-first into the down.
Minutes later, he chased her over the glaciers of snow and ice that oozed from among somnolent houses. Disregarding man-made fences and barriers, Marc and Emma capered under tinkling and ice-laden trees while the moon shone gaily, trapped in the suffusive blue haze of the street lights. The night just sort of floated in a sympathy of winking stars as they held hands atop windy orchards and gazed toward the humming highway, to eternity; and toward the unknowable future for each of them.
|
This generous program allows you to read half the book free. If you like it, you can buy the whole book safe, secure, and quickly at Amazon (print or e-book). The e-book is priced about like a cup of coffee (painless, fun). Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you don't care for it, please do no harm; easy refund, and just move on. Authors need your support! Thank you (JTC).
|
E-Book
|
Print Book
|
TOP
|
