She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. She couldn’t look back at that book. It was a thought that she would had never told anyone. It was the memories that came back when she captured that smell, that perfectly framed musty scent.
Anglise stroked the back of her cousin’s hair. The silky strands brushed through the young child’s fingers. Tangle less, black strands, of hair shimmered with Eva’s glow. So young, the girls sat on the floor, despite the fact that it was glazed with a hidden layer of shoe dirt. They didn’t care, it was a place to sit.
Rain splashed outside the window, the sound of fallen leaves being smothered by water droplets was soothing in Anglise’s right ear. The sound of Eva was in her left.
“Why d-oes the c-cow say mo-o?” Eva read, out loud. Her reading was shaky, at best. The cardboard pages of the book were bent, the paper peeling off. Little shreds had fallen to the floor as Eva turned the pages.
The blond child looked down at her friend. Both blue eyes were filled with the wonder of the pages. She looked over her cousin’s slouched shoulder. “That’s an easy one. The cow moos ‘cause it doesn’t wanna get eaten.” she stated so simply, her fragrant voice cooing through the room.
Eva looked back, her face now dropped with horror. “That’s not actually true, is it? Is it Pop?” Her voice was rimmed with franticness, as she looked to Anglise for the desperate answer.
The other laughed nervously, and laid her hand on her cousin’s shoulder. Anglise then smiled her bright smile. That smile always reassured Eva, like the sun was coming through after a storm; it was that warmth on wet skin.
“Of course not. They moo so they can tell their friends where they are.” Anglise babbled, musically.
Her eyes dropped to the book, before Eva seemed satisfied, and content with the answer. She lifted her knees, so the book was closer to her body. Eva hugged her knees tightly.
Anglise took a chunk of her friend’s silky hair, gently, as if stroking it. She saw Eva hug the old book, so Anglise laughed out of joy, glade to see her cousin’s pale smile. Time ticked away in the background, one second at a time. It counted every inch of their lives, and was always there as they spoke. Anglise pulled at that chunk, and wove it together with another.
She only stopped twisting the hair together when Eva’s words cut through the ticking. “How long will they be friends? The cows? How long Pop, how long?”
The other thought about it for a moment. The preschooler’s mind worked wonders, all the gears in the universe filled up in her blonde head. “Well, as long as they can be. Maybe even forever and every if they can.” She answered, her confident little voice a wave in the room. With the last strand twirled, the “braid” was completed.
“Forever and ever.” she repeated silently, reaching back to feel at her friend’s handiwork. Eva blushed slightly, imaging how wonderful it must have looked.
The door knob clicked. She turned it, and the wood creaked open. The floor below, and above her creaked nosily. Forever and ever? She walked out the door, not turning back, not even closing it.
So much had changed since then.
Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:39 pm
