I used to read nonfiction books exclusively with the belief that they could teach me about the real world and I completely dismissed the idea of fiction being a legit means of self education. While Pat was visiting me in Argentina, I was whining to him about this literary situation I had found myself in so he left a few books for me, one of which I enjoyed immensely. Titled “Nine Short Stories” by J.D. Salinger, the same guy who wrote Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory among other things. I read it all in a day as I was perched precariously on a rock ledge over-looking a serene lake in the Argentinian Andes. It gave me a new appreciation for story-telling and I decided to try a story of my own. Here goes… The Perfect Day.
I opened my eyes after a beam of light fought it’s way through the palm thatching and pried its way into my pupils. Lying still, I stared at a face of paramount beauty two inches from my face. We had fallen asleep staring at each other while trying to figure out what the other was thinking. She had a smirk on her face as if she was playing a trick on someone in her dreams. I slowly rolled out of the low-lying bed and walked to the edge of the room which was netted with a thin white mosquito net for the walls. I pulled it to the side and attached it to the starfish mounted on one of the four wooden corner posts. The cool breeze on my naked body only made the situation all that more exciting. The view was breathtaking. I stood there for quite some time watching the sun climb into the sky and slowly change the softly rippling water under it into a thousand different combinations of blues and greens and oranges.
I turned to share my excitement with my lover who was still sleeping gently as her unusually large, but not unattractive nostrils flared gently. She was now lying on her back with the half transparent sheet only covering her left leg. The sun shone over the floorboards that kept us above the water and over the bed which was made from 34 sheep pelts. The sun illuminated her sexy body ever socarefully and when it almost had come to her face, she reached over to where I had been laying and when I was not to be found she opened her eyes and again we were staring at each other with the same smirk on our faces. She jumped out of the bed and rushed towards me. I thought I was going to get a hug but instead she just grabbed me and kept on going until we plunged over the side of the platform and into the water. Swimming naked in warm water with a beautiful girl that is trying to climb all over you to plunk your head in the water or give you a play bite is an experience for all to have.
“Have any dreams last night?” I asked after we climbed back on the platform and toweled each other off.
“I dreamed that this platform was lifting into the air and only stopped when it appeared to be a star to the rest of the world.” she responded as she stared into the sky.
“Me too. Get out of my head. Let’s go climb some trees and get you that coconut.”
We put our bathing suits on and swam to shore racing the entire way. I destroyed her by five lengths. The shore was covered in a pristine white sand stretching for fifty yards before reaching the coconut trees. Again we raced, but this time it was much closer. I still won and made sure she knew it as she tried to splash sand on me. We both picked a tree and started to climb but this was harder than we had imagined the night before. Obviously we envisioned us scampering up a huge hundred-foot tree with our bare feet, getting to the top, tying a bundle of coconuts to our waists, and then sliding down the tree as if it was made of marshmellow. But this was not the case. After five minutes of strenuous effort, we looked at each other and laughed. I threw sand at her and ran down the beach knowing she would be in hot pursuit. We found some coconuts on the ground and started bashing them on rocks like the monkeys we were trying to be. She opened one and started drinking the bitter liquid only to quickly spit it all out, mostly on me. I loved it.
We wandered down the beach and found two horses calmly drinking from a small stream that ran into the ocean. As we approached, they looked at us, then to each other, and then started drinking the water again. They allowed us to approach them and feel their shiny fur. One was a freckled gray and the other was jet black with a mohawk. The horses finished drinking and then looked at us again as if to say, “Well?” With that we both swung ourselves onto the horses, and they carried us down the beach. The horses stayed very close to each other and walked with a heavy saunter which only encouraged our own horseplay between ourselves. They looked at each other and I am sure they were chuckling and loving the moment themselves in their own horsy way. We picked some fruit off the trees we were walking next to and shared them with our new companions in an attempt to share the love they were so willing to give. The horses led us up a rise on the beach and at the top they stopped next to our next destination in our day of serendipity. We dismounted and the horses waved good by without arms and went their own way.
The sun was high in the sky and from our new vantage point we could see clear across the bay to our bedroom from the night before. Behind us between two palm trees was a softly swinging hammock ideal for taking in the view we had found ourselves in front of. We raced once again but this time she won except when she got to the hammock she flipped right over the top of it in a failed effort to stop. As she lay in the sand, I slowly got into the hammock and claimed victory until she jumped on top of me covered in sand. We called it a tie.
We held each other and discussed the long term affects of sand in girls vaginas and made up new bad words to be used through out the day as the hammock slowly rocked us into a world of our own on this peaceful day. We kissed and planned future travels. We tickled and told stories of the past. We slobbered and told stories of the future. Somewhere in the distance music could be heard, a percussion of sorts that gave the moment a steady rhythm of tranquility.
Later, we walked towards the small town we had met each other in the night before. We went back to the small shed of a restaurant called ‘The Mouth’ where we had befriended Eman, the slightly eccentric owner who could make the best banana orange shake I have ever had.
“Hey! Qué pasa chicos?” He yells at us as we approach arm in arm and skipping. He starts to pull out a few bananas and oranges. Everyone gave each other high fives and even a few “special” high fives I had taught everyone the night before. “Will you be giving us another show tonight?” he asked us as we sat down on the beach chairs and he put huge frothy shakes in front of us.
“Eman, we don’t plan our moments to dance. If the situation calls for a performance such as last night, then it just might happen but unfortunately we can never dance the same way twice.” my delightfully gorgeous companion responded.
He pondered the response for a moment and eventually it looked as though he was satisfied. We stared out towards the ocean sipping our fruit drinks and didn’t say too much. A few times we would both laugh at the same time as if we were hearing the same joke in our heads. Another time we both got up at the same time running our foreheads into each other and spilling one of the smoothie drinks all over her legs. She requested that I lick it off.
A huge fire was being constructed on the beach and when it was finally lit and the magical sunset had left us to deal with the night, the flames lit the entire beach casting long dancing shadows over the beach back towards the trees. As we walked to the fire a band started to play in one of the restaurants. The fire starters had abandoned their work and we were the only ones by the fire which stood maybe 5 feet tall. The music was a subtle reggae beat with a hint of Spanish guitar dotted in it. We took each other closely and started to dance to the music without much form or rhythm, more of an excuse to be close to each other. The music started to transform into a faster genre and started including some mambo/salsa tones in it and with that, our movements became more accentuated. I would swing her to the side on each beat and her hips would reach out to all the eyes that were starting to collect on us. Izquierda, medio, derecha. Derecha, medio, izquierda. Then a heavy drum interlude would start and we both would lose our heads and go completely bonkers bouncing and jumping around swinging our hair around and the moment the drums stopped, we were back on top of each other inspecting each others bodies making sure that the other was hiding nothing. Our sweat, mostly mine, was splattering around and giving us a very efficient lubrication and sparkled in the air as the flames captured them. Towards the end, a group of children rushed out towards us and joined us in our erratic dance moves and as if they had been doing it their whole life, they fit right in. We danced and laughed hysterically and when the music stopped, we all raced into the water. The children won that race.
We bought a bottle of shiraz wine and brought it with us back to our water hovering bedroom. We tried to construct a raft from an old tree but this was a hysterical failure. We stripped naked and swam to our room. We climbed up the short ladder and then ripped off one of the sides to the palm thatched roof. We pushed the cork into the bottle since we had no bottle opener and stared into the sky conjuring up constellations and talking philosophy as we lay naked on a pile of sheep skins slowly caressing each others bodies. Oh what a perfect day.
Authors note: I feel character construction could be better but I suppose I focused on the relationship instead. at almost 2000 words it seems very short to describe the complexities of humans and relationships and all this. Inspired by the classic Lou Reed.