Far ment Ha Te WT Fiction We Were Just Kids Hailey McCarthy-Goode, OP Contributor We strolled quietly and coolly down the road. Short hairs of green grass spurted through the cracks, reaching and spreading out for new life. The summer had left a heaping scorch across the earth, we reveled in the humidity. A car swiftly drove by our sweating bodies. I hid. The sweat poured sweetly down my neck. I never thought that it could do such a thing. Sweat. It was like a living organism, spreading coarsely across our peeling skins. Sun scorch taking another as victim. We panted. The sun slowly snuck behind the hill shaped like a Mohawk. The radio tower glinted at the top. The light flashed frantically as if in Morse code, trying to speak. I should have seen it... We trudged further on. The sweltering heat now bothered, lake water now mixing with skinny sweaty beads. The sun still reached its warm whips to keep moonlight trepid. Sweat cascaded waterfalls into pools, which were strewn in a trail behind us. Moon kept a steady timid tail. Black dog snapped defensively as we trundled towatd our destined. The dog seemed lost and hazy in its erratic jumping and leaping against a metal fence. His snarls and whimpers smothered in the stringy slobber enveloping his ready to bite teeth. His black, beady eyes glared menacingly at me. I cowered away. I should have seen... I turned to gaze at my friends. Their shorts explained it all. Their lake-wet clothes clung to their bodies, as did mine, and they wrinkled as we walked, no less hiked, towards the house. The hard asphalt beneath our feet strengthened our growth. The squishy noises. from our bare feet in our sopping wet sneakers. Our hair was matted, by the lake water, to our boiling heads. It was really a sight to see. Almost sickening. The four of us girls journeyed, wet and trailing, down the long main drag. The day had been fun... Yet it always was in those days. Always. The smell of the dirty water hung in the air like trolls breath. The sun was now down. It’s last light still shone, not wanting to say good-bye... 1 should have... He drove fast. His'car, brightly red, refreshing, yet horrifying, came hurdling, making knifelike cuts through the humid air. We were only kids. Coming home froma day at the lake. We were but a long shot from the willow tree beside the driveway. The swing swung beckoningly in the light breeze that passed. The house, with the dazzling green ivy growing wildly across its face, not blemished but freckled. Beautiful. He swerved. The two and I jumped, the other... SMASH! Debris flew as disorientation and disbelief blanketed truth. The cat wedged her between a meridian and his fender bender. He got out sleepily, laughed, incoherently muttering, disregarding the obscene destruction and the deep pain to ensue. As he rounded his vehicle his face thickened as he realized what he had done. He collapsed to the glass-strewn pave. They ran out of their house. Tears ran down our dirty faces, prickling, making rows of clean, polished, sunburnt skin. They gasped. I should... The woman huddled into her husbands’ arms. We were only kids. Homebound kids, after hard days’ work building mud castles, with the thick, gooey sand. We had laughed gleefully at nosey dogs and boys playing Frisbee. I wheezed in intervals as they laughed even more and harder at that. Now my breath ceased. The blood streamed and pooled with the sweat, the oil, the destruction. The red gleamed in the last rays of the sun as it shut us into darkness. ES 1 & THE OTHER PRESS SEPTEMBER 14 2006 Photos by Hailey McCarthy-Goode