Rose & Thorn Journal - Fall 2011
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N.T. Arevalo is a fiction and travel writer in the thick of first novel revision. Her work has appeared in the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News. Arevalo lives in San Francisco and is the founder and editor of This Generation.
N.T. Arevalo
You arrive with your body practically offended by the palm trees. Their easy glide in the wind, their tall proud stance and closed eyes offend your sense of hard work that in the end broke your back and brought you here.
It is an island with whispers hidden under rocks and up hills. You didn’t bring your boots.
You drag your bag from east to west, just as the plane shot your body, and you sit upon it as you wait for your ride.
“I’ve been driving around for an hour,” she says. You shrug. It was her idea, after all.
She drives you to the first stretch of white sand she can find and demands you remove your clothes. Your shorts and bra will have to do, and she leads you into the ocean. It is warm and wet with anticipation. It is sending back the sun’s light but allows you to stay. You bob until the light outside the water turns from yellow to orange to purple to gray.
At Shangri-la, an unexpected Indian eatery that creates a window just to capture the sunset and tips, you drink too much. You drink too much of yours to start, and when you are done with that, you then drink too much of hers.
The wine is good and goes down thick, adding layers to your bloodstream, your meat, your bones. You feel thicker and stronger now, adding to the weight that your mind already wades in. She doesn’t miss her drink much but orders more to befriend the empty glasses piling on your end of the table.
You’re taken back to a small room with a tin-shaped bed, and your head disappears into the pillows. Your feet take themselves off for the night.
“Let’s head to Hana,” she says, waking you while pulling aside the sheets to the rhythm of the rooster in your ears. It tap, tap, taps to a cadence only he knows.
She’s taken you on an alternative road devoid of photo takers. In their absence, you stop each quarter mile to film the same coast. Or is it really a coast if you are the droplet? As you see that you are surrounded, you spin to catch one full glimpse of your captor. It is blue with green highlights. Your shoulders finally release, and you decide maybe it can have its way with you.
Maybe. Before.
Your city shoes are no match for the bamboo forest trail, and you can hear each stalk laughing at you. The waterfalls dance toward your feet to offer their sprinkled hello. It is poetry incarnate, you say, not knowing what that means but appreciating the feel of it on your tongue and how it catches on your breath. You sit cross-legged in the dark corners of the forest for twenty minutes just to strike panic in your friend and gain a cruel laugh today. You are sick of the joke being on you.
You return to a Makawao dance club—a hut with a dusty tile floor and a bar within easy reach. You buy the wet friends tonight—bourbon, vodka, and some chai—and watch as she dances from her primal instincts. You laugh with your new friends as they shake in their glass. You laugh with the bartender. The bartender watches you closely and waits for her tips.
As morning twists from pink to blue, you take the cold urn out of the backpack you carried. You hadn’t wanted it to sprinkle on your clothes. Far better that it spiced your books to add more character and life, or stowed away in the hems of the bag to join on the journeys of years to come. As you lift it into the light, it swishes to a beat only he knows.
Today your friend sleeps late. You take the chance to do this one thing on your own. You are sick of audiences. You drive for miles and miles until you’ve hit what must be the end of the island, maybe the end of the earth’s axis at that moment. You try to hold him steady as you shake over that cliff, but already the top is swept out of place. Your hair is trying to run away from you, and shaking seems all you are meant to do.
You try to remember what people say at times like these. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if I walk in the valley of the shadow . . . But there is no shadow, and he is not dust. He is a fine grain like the sand, something that will surprise the beach goers today. This makes you laugh. You think of something to say.
“Rest you easy, my love,” you whisper to the urn. You kiss it and then, without expecting to, you find yourself tossing it whole—down, down, down. It hinges wide toward the whales in the waters, swings itself back in with the next crescent of waves. The song in your head from that morning stops spinning. It’s the Stones, and they were never right for these moments, despite that movie’s claim. No one is right for these moments. You let it be silent. You cannot move.
A jeep with the top down makes a swift entry beside you. They are loud and alive. You are quiet and seeing them as body bags one day. We are all body bags one day or shells in the ocean, you say to yourself. Your shoulders shudder at the thought, and your knees want to go.
You wonder about your friend back with the rooster, having missed the moment. The guilt finds your keys. You don’t know the way back, but the anxiety is given much to look at off its path. The day starts spinning into high noon, into a late day’s haze, until its blue starts to glow before it dims. You stumble upon Shangri-la. They remember you well and bring you a friend. Only you aren’t thirsty for this friend. They try the naan. You merely feed it to your wine. Your eyes want only to take in the world at their window—dry, with nothing more and nothing less.
You find yourself standing, taller than before, your back free of the ache. Your arms and hips find their sway in time to the sun’s methodical drop, tipping the scales for the rise of the night.
The palm trees wink twice.
Shangri-la
You arrive with your body practically offended by the palm trees. Their easy glide in the wind, their tall proud stance and closed eyes offend your sense of hard work that in the end broke your back and brought you here.
It is an island with whispers hidden under rocks and up hills. You didn’t bring your boots.
You drag your bag from east to west, just as the plane shot your body, and you sit upon it as you wait for your ride.
“I’ve been driving around for an hour,” she says. You shrug. It was her idea, after all.
She drives you to the first stretch of white sand she can find and demands you remove your clothes. Your shorts and bra will have to do, and she leads you into the ocean. It is warm and wet with anticipation. It is sending back the sun’s light but allows you to stay. You bob until the light outside the water turns from yellow to orange to purple to gray.
At Shangri-la, an unexpected Indian eatery that creates a window just to capture the sunset and tips, you drink too much. You drink too much of yours to start, and when you are done with that, you then drink too much of hers.
The wine is good and goes down thick, adding layers to your bloodstream, your meat, your bones. You feel thicker and stronger now, adding to the weight that your mind already wades in. She doesn’t miss her drink much but orders more to befriend the empty glasses piling on your end of the table.
You’re taken back to a small room with a tin-shaped bed, and your head disappears into the pillows. Your feet take themselves off for the night.
“Let’s head to Hana,” she says, waking you while pulling aside the sheets to the rhythm of the rooster in your ears. It tap, tap, taps to a cadence only he knows.
She’s taken you on an alternative road devoid of photo takers. In their absence, you stop each quarter mile to film the same coast. Or is it really a coast if you are the droplet? As you see that you are surrounded, you spin to catch one full glimpse of your captor. It is blue with green highlights. Your shoulders finally release, and you decide maybe it can have its way with you.
Maybe. Before.
Your city shoes are no match for the bamboo forest trail, and you can hear each stalk laughing at you. The waterfalls dance toward your feet to offer their sprinkled hello. It is poetry incarnate, you say, not knowing what that means but appreciating the feel of it on your tongue and how it catches on your breath. You sit cross-legged in the dark corners of the forest for twenty minutes just to strike panic in your friend and gain a cruel laugh today. You are sick of the joke being on you.
You return to a Makawao dance club—a hut with a dusty tile floor and a bar within easy reach. You buy the wet friends tonight—bourbon, vodka, and some chai—and watch as she dances from her primal instincts. You laugh with your new friends as they shake in their glass. You laugh with the bartender. The bartender watches you closely and waits for her tips.
As morning twists from pink to blue, you take the cold urn out of the backpack you carried. You hadn’t wanted it to sprinkle on your clothes. Far better that it spiced your books to add more character and life, or stowed away in the hems of the bag to join on the journeys of years to come. As you lift it into the light, it swishes to a beat only he knows.
Today your friend sleeps late. You take the chance to do this one thing on your own. You are sick of audiences. You drive for miles and miles until you’ve hit what must be the end of the island, maybe the end of the earth’s axis at that moment. You try to hold him steady as you shake over that cliff, but already the top is swept out of place. Your hair is trying to run away from you, and shaking seems all you are meant to do.
You try to remember what people say at times like these. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if I walk in the valley of the shadow . . . But there is no shadow, and he is not dust. He is a fine grain like the sand, something that will surprise the beach goers today. This makes you laugh. You think of something to say.
“Rest you easy, my love,” you whisper to the urn. You kiss it and then, without expecting to, you find yourself tossing it whole—down, down, down. It hinges wide toward the whales in the waters, swings itself back in with the next crescent of waves. The song in your head from that morning stops spinning. It’s the Stones, and they were never right for these moments, despite that movie’s claim. No one is right for these moments. You let it be silent. You cannot move.
A jeep with the top down makes a swift entry beside you. They are loud and alive. You are quiet and seeing them as body bags one day. We are all body bags one day or shells in the ocean, you say to yourself. Your shoulders shudder at the thought, and your knees want to go.
You wonder about your friend back with the rooster, having missed the moment. The guilt finds your keys. You don’t know the way back, but the anxiety is given much to look at off its path. The day starts spinning into high noon, into a late day’s haze, until its blue starts to glow before it dims. You stumble upon Shangri-la. They remember you well and bring you a friend. Only you aren’t thirsty for this friend. They try the naan. You merely feed it to your wine. Your eyes want only to take in the world at their window—dry, with nothing more and nothing less.
You find yourself standing, taller than before, your back free of the ache. Your arms and hips find their sway in time to the sun’s methodical drop, tipping the scales for the rise of the night.
The palm trees wink twice.
