Saturday, September 27, 2008

What Sakha Said On A May Afternoon

I called him Sakha and he called me Sakhi. And we did not quite care what the others thought. He didn’t. He was used to unusual relationships. I didn’t, I was well married. Five times married and never divorced.

Anyway, this thing happened one afternoon in May – and was it like last year – or was it the year before – sometimes you can’t quite tell how long ago things happened. It’s like the skin on your bones. You look at it and you see the wrinkles, but you don’t feel the years. It feels like it’s been there all along. Like you’re still the woman you were, arrow-eyed, fire-breathed, curved along the waist and shadowed under the ankles and the elbows and the small of the back and fragrant under the knots and creases.

Oh did I digress? It must be the summer riding down the foot-trails. So what was I saying? Oh yes. The month of May that year. It was way into the other part of hot season and we were all tired and run down, camping in the forests, trudging along so slowly that it made the snails appear like the spring winds...read the full story here