A Nap in France
13 August 2009 at 2:18 pm

The trees above me are gigantic and rectangular, as tall as a two story building, manicured and planted in lines as perfectly unnatural as possible. From a distance, they look like they belong in the land of Legos. The leaves are green like a Jolly Rancher is green: impossibly so.

Children scream and yell nonsense at each other, peals of laughter sweeter than any of the church bells we hear, their French a delicious white noise that coaxes me in and out of consciousness.

When we first set down our bags and collapse onto the perfectly manicured grass, several minutes before the rain interrupts our nap, several hours before we can check into our hotel, when I am too exhausted to do anything but roll underneath the trees with leaves thick enough to prevent me from getting completely soaked, there is one man doing a series of martial arts moves, something that looks like karate, but I wouldn't know the difference. By the time we leave, two rows of three are dancing the same series of choreographed discipline.

Girls sit surrounding one of their own dressed as Alice, from a different, fictional wonderland. She is blindfolded as she eats out of little tubs: maybe it's baby food; maybe it's a baby shower. At one point, I open my eyes and she is skipping towards the three of us, two of us asleep, and she points and says something, but I have no hope of ever understanding her, so she skips away, and I shut my eyes.

A light rain starts. It has been humid and warm, and now it is far more humid and chilly, but no one else seems to notice. The children scream and laugh in anticipation of growing older; the girls play silly games in anticipation of new life; the martial artists dance in anticipation of the dangers of life; everyone and everything chatters, and nothing makes sense.

I am sleeping, but this is not a dream.

0 comments

mod l post-mod

|

New
Old
Profile
Notes
Extras
Contact
Image
Host
Trackback

About me
Hi. Morgan, 27, of Santa Barbara, CA. I am a hypocritical admirer of rhetoric (when it is my own) and an observer of literary trends. A secret: I don't take anything very seriously, and that includes myself.