Thursday, April 7, 2011

Finish a project week

     Finish a project week was productive for me, but not interesting for you. I finished a lot of little stuff but nothing that makes for good reading. I finished making a fancy flower pot,Christmas ornaments (shut up, they are for this year now), mending my clothes, coloring a few leftover cartoons and hung paintings. I also finished making little one page books out of old calendars. They have orchids on the cover and contain a recipe. It is a cute, personalized gift.
    To keep you occupied I am adding a little more of my book for you to enjoy.

Chapter 2

“Manuel! Manuel!” I whispered, a little too loudly.


“Que?” He groaned, not wanting to wake up.

“There is someone moving through camp.”

“Angelita, it is probably just Guapo looking for a place to take a…”

“NO!” He did not understand, “The man was crouching. I think he is looking through our things. He is not one of us. He might be another villager trying to take our food and guns! ”

Manuel started to dismiss my anxieties by rolling back over to sleep but as he moved, he saw.

Not as I thought. Not a man. Men. There were at least a dozen combing the camp, looking over the sleeping soldiers, quietly going through bags and taking what they wanted. I grab my gun to fire a few shots in the air. Most of the time that is enough to scare away any thieving villagers, but Manuel had seen something I did not. He held me to the ground and then placed a shushing finger on my lips. His hand pressed into my back so hard that I know better than to fight back as I normally would have.

We lay as still as corpses. Even though we were not hiding in ambush or making an escape, we couldn’t help but hold our breath every time one of the men walked by. There were so many of them passing through that it felt we were hardly breathing. I can’t say exactly how long they lingered, but it felt like hours. They stayed so long that we began to relax into out our blankets. If they were here to kill us, they would do it quickly, not dawdle over each body.

Despite my remaining fear, Manuel’s heavy hand on my back began to feel less like a forceful weight and more like a lover’s embrace. The comfort of his touch and my own weariness overtook me. I fell back asleep. Morning would bring what it would bring. We were powerless to stop it.

1 comment:

treasureislandcrafts said...

Oh.....Mexico
I've never really been
but I'd sure like to go.
(James Taylor sings this best)