When we awoke to the summer-afternoon streams of yellow sunlight, tinged with a leafy green from passing through the trees, Tatiana and I rested in the white sheets until they became extensions of our nude bodies: they became Tatiana’s wings and her bonnet and her dress; they became my cape and my hood and my jacket. Together, we went on white-sheet expeditions to the far corners of the bed, leaving imprints of our bodies along the way, and explored each new spot with the wide-eyed bewilderment of young travelers discovering beauty off the beaten path.
Sometimes we talked as I lay on my back and tossed a pillow into the air while she lay on her stomach and swung her foot down on the bed and raised it back up again. Sometimes, we rolled over to our own corners of the bed, curious about the experience of a solo journey, but soon, starting with the outstretched tips of our touching fingers, followed the path back toward each other until we were intertwined and as close as any young lovers in the world had ever been.
The distant, muffled sound of people lunching in the hotel restaurant—forks against plates, glasses clinking, people chatting—was soothing background music mostly because it reminded us that whatever was happening in our world was far more intimate, as if we had discovered something everyone else sought but had not yet found; they were close, near to our paradise, but we would surely have more time to revel in our togetherness before they uncovered our secret.
It was an afternoon free of doubt and meaninglessness and screams and tears, measured not in the minutes and hours of the human clock but by the slow-swaying, unremitting rhythm of the branches outside our window, their only mission to lull us toward tranquility. Sometimes they succeeded too well and we took naps. Only in the evening, when the thought of a meal began to rouse us, did we remove ourselves from the bed and reacquaint ourselves with our feet.
—An excerpt from my forthcoming novel Isn’t It Pretty To Think So? You can start reading the novel from the beginning here. Every Monday and Thursday I’ll add more sections of the book at that link until it’s officially released in the spring.
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