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Bamboo Shoots Submission for 100Words
Common Ground
When we meet, you wear the brown sandals I carried across 6,753 miles. Your pale feet, slipped delicately into the skin of my country, distract. Over coffee, we discuss my writing. Yours. My children. Yours. My wife. Unspoken things hide between the gestures our fingers make while raising and lowering cups. Restless, we walk the gardens, lush and blooming, behind the small café. Our time together seeps quickly into dark soil of blue flowers. Before parting, I long to press my lips to your eyelids – an intimate tradition of my people, but do not. Here, it would mean something different.
I find it interesting that this story has several references to the five senses. My favorite line is " Our time together seeps quickly into dark soil of blue flowers." I love the image of blue flowers. Great job.
I love how you say, "we discuss my writing. Yours. My children. Yours. My wife." And as readers, we’re looking for "Yours" and by withholding, you add another layer into the depth of this relationship. Love it, Marie!
-Megan
I think the line "your pale feet, slipped delicately into the skin of my country, distract" is fantastic! I think it’s interesting how you create this sense of travel and movement that carries throughout the story and yet, simultaneously, there is this suspension of that movement and time as the stories are discussed and they sit over coffee. Very nice!