Write a Novel in November, Post #4

But it's Saturday she said, looking downward into the spirals of creeping bentgrass. She picked blades with her thumb and forefinger as though it were an obsession, all this uprooting. She noticed the man who never seemed to notice her. His eyelids were metal; he wore shovels on his face. He would grunt, wipe the sweat off his face, then look at the sun, as though it would tell him it's enough already. She used to walk down to the field to hear his grunts, the sound of harlequin ducks swimming by the river.

One time she took off her yellow blouse because it was hot, hotter than the days before. Because the sun seemed to collapse into all of her joints, she undid each button like a bone. She sweat between her biceps and forearms, behind her knees, on the small of her back, and the back of her neck. She placed the blouse down on the bentgrass, and the blades were so sharp that a few poked her biceps and forearms, behind her knees, on the small of her back, and the back of her neck as she lay face up to the sky. With her arm blocking her eyes, she saw his shovel-eyes, his breath mixing with the wind, an ejaculating gust making a shadow, tall as the maples' shadows.

One might guess that the wind blew her blouse away, that it shriveled into a ball, getting lost in the spirals of leaves blown up by the ejaculating gust. One might guess her bare chest was covered with pollen, yellow as the cotton dyed in the Spring. One might imagine his grunts, when strung together, sounded like a song, a lullaby of tin and bone. One might imagine the taste of the sweat between her biceps and forearms, behind her knees, on the small of her back, and the back of her neck. One might say it's enough already as his shadow might press against the bentgrass, as the harlequin ducks stick their heads in the river and talk amongst themselves. One might imagine a river cold enough to freeze their heads into the water. One might say that their spines are strong as the maple, that they keep the blood warm for minutes. One might hear the language spoken under the water and report it in a letter. One might say that the ducks had grunts of their own, and that the winter came suddenly and turned everything superbly white.

She sang this and that, watched her yellow blouse turn green against the blueness of the sky. She felt the heat leave her skin sorrowful and afraid of whatever was to come.

She ran through the field singing But it's Saturday! But it's Saturday! And indeed, it was. It was the last Saturday left that year.