The
long straight (snaking) road becomes the long snaking (straight) road of life
and death. In God we trust emblazoned quietly across the windshield of the old
blue Ford without wheels. Judging by the length of the grass it may have been
saying that for quite a long time. Afterwards she says it’s like two
people fighting. Apparently it’s the first time in over 100 years that there has been
a lunar eclipse and a full moon on New Year’s Eve. Her whole body, below the neck, carries
the scars of a serious car-crash. It’s these scars that I watch and feel in the
darkness as we make love. The child-bearing belly is small but visible
none-the-less plus there’s a caesarian scar or is it evidence of an appendix
removal? Her breasts are small with long black nipples that have been sucked by
babies but they still retain some of their youthfulness. Her legs and back bear
scars like a child’s drawing of train tracks where pins have been inserted and
removed. She pulls me towards her with a longing that borders on the violent, a
long, sucking kiss like she is thirsty for water. She is so skinny that even
her panties are not figure hugging, but that’s partly from being washed too
many times by hand. It’s hot and we fuck each other like rabbits, banging hard
on the soft mattress and when it’s over she tells me in English that sex is
like two people fighting. She is right, I think. In the hot night, in the
poverty shack with no electric light or running water. With the moon. How in
hell have I ended up here? And what are we both fighting? I’ve just driven five
hundred miles and I haven’t even been home yet.
The long straight road of life, becomes the long straight road of life
and death. In a town that relies on the ebb and flow of its three rivers, where
women traditionally leave unwanted babies in the reed beds, it’s this long,
straight road which provides the incessant certainty of death. The river
meanders, it dries up, it floods, it deviates. Not the road. It flies fast and
straight.
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