Bottled Poison

I lay back amid the advancing and the receding waters basking in the 5:00p.m sun. There was virtually no one around as people find no more the enjoyment of the enchanting but the slow boring beach when compared to the visual images of colorful moving objects in the T.V screen these days. The water kept kissing my feet and secretly threatening me by incessantly removing the soft sand beneath me. A few nearly naked boys played football with seemingly empty coconut shells, giggling and rant with all the pulling and pushing. My thoughts rushed back to my own childhood. My old memories, those carefree times, that innocent childishness. I know that I'm late, late by so many years. I grew out of my childhood, my youth but never out of my memories and they continue to linger with me, sometimes mellow, sometimes afflictive with the associations which have gone away from my life. Some dead, some lost with time.

A sudden spray of sand into my eyes jolted me into reality and I grimaced and sat up rubbing my eyes in fear. I felt a soft hand and a pleading voice intrude my space.

"I'm sorry, I'm very, very sorry"
"what the fu__?"
"I'm so sorry, I..I'm wearing slippers.."
"Oh, shit," I spluttered, now spitting some sand too away from my mouth
"My feet...I was playing. I'm so...so sorry"

I felt the warmth, a soft lingering smell of feminine deodorant and the jingle of innocent bangles. Someone was now blowing into my eyes and rubbing my eyes with a softer cloth which held it. I blindly searched for the bottle of mineral water beside me and slowly stood up to wash my burning eyes. Slowly the lightness returned around me. I twitched the shutters of my sight and invited my trouble maker into my eye. A wide eye peeped into me and a smile broke into laughter. At the same moment the sun came out brighter, radiantly glowing her up. Her now golden hair laughed with the oceanic breeze and her twinkling eyes hallowed with the evening sun. Mystified I looked on. She was clad in a plain dress of blue chiffon with white delicate laces. She frolicked a nipped-in waist, loose neckline and free flowing swing skirt which bounced around upon umpteen layers of petticoats in time to the playful shakings of her head. Her full lips, perfectly heart shaped, were delicately moist and her eyebrows, pencil thin, recently beauty parloured.

Suddenly, the sky opened with lightning and the thunder overwhelmed the graceful capering of our moments. She dramatically looked up, crossed her arms petulantly across her bosom, as a sudden chill engulfed us. Rain appeared out of nowhere and began to moisten us slowly as if in a sweet domestic bliss. Our eyes simultaneously enjoined to a shack just by the beach and our feet carried us in unison.

The low roof of the shanty was cleverly placed above a long flat boulder dug deep as if from time immemorial. We sat gratefully. She bade up her long welling skirt and assayed to mop my mane. Sheepishly I no-no'ed her endeavor but her rebuke bowed my head. She lent herself too the aid as I attempted to be disinterested. Soon, we were watching the rain through the horizon created by the frame of the low roof shack and trying to escape the droplets cleverly making their way towards us through the feeble thatch.

The sudden proximity of warmth affected us both and we attempted to seek the corners of the stone bed. I could almost smell the enchanting aroma siring from her hair which half perched on my shoulders. An unmistakable spell lay upon us both and the pleasures of subservience shamefully encroached us both. I fished the corner of her eyes attempting to seek mine and the genesis of the growing heat in her body

Suddenly, my thoughts rushed upon my reality. They pricked the past and vomited it out. A sort of apology arose to my lips and I walked out in the relishing rain amid calls of a feminine soul


It's a legendary cliche to say that love is a juggling act, but there is some trueness to it. But to become responsible for another human soul casts your life out of balance.