Rough Draft: Fidelity

She looked cute in her hiking outfit. He called it an outfit—hadn’t heard anyone else say it—her latest outfit. This was a cute one; he liked it. Short pants tight around the hips, her starved midriff exposed—these outfits often sacrificed practicality for, well you can guess—and increasingly, with every passing year, and every passing costume, she managed to bring further attention to her growing femininity. These he watched with great interest as she in a panic ran toward the camp.

“There’s a face in the wall!” she shouted.

She continued talking, and he watched with riveted fascination. Though, to be honest, he’d be hard pressed to recite any of her words. Normally, his wandering eyes—which moved up and down her body in the same way a tomcat would roam about his neighborhood—she’d have giggled over, and to continue in perfect honesty, often her conversations were only ploys for her to fiddle with long strands of hair, lean forward a bit, and stick her hips out to the side. But this time a real touch of fright had pushed the thought of boys out of her head.

“Look at me for once,” she screamed.

Taking his eyes from their natural course he met hers for the first time that day. They were wide and brown, like those of a doe staring at an oncoming car. She met his green, lusty spheres and felt her breath leave her. They were eyes like that, eyes that filled her bowls with butterflies, and she loved that they looked at her, were never bored with her.

The shout alerted her sister, her older sister who had not changed her outfit in several years. Even in this midsummer heat, in the sun’s high noon, in this record hot day, she dutifully wore the costume she’d chosen. Black. She didn’t go for the Goth look per se. Never one for much makeup, and she was rather lukewarm on Hot Topic—a subtle Goth, if she was one.

Both wore their costumes, and though like the moon the younger’s dress grew and shrank, the sisters’ clothes consistently delivered their messages. She, the older sister, came toward the two, and frowned at the boyfriend. If asked, she’d have said he was no good. This, strictly, was untrue on two counts: He had qualities, and though his motives were, let us say shallow—and to be fair, how is one to go into the deep without first wading the shallows?—he had so far been faithful; And if asked why she frowned, it could not be held, truthfully, that she thought little of his virtues.

She thought much of them, in fact, and such thoughts naturally led to thoughts of her own virtues. These, compared to her kid sister, were of a mean quality, and of little note compared to anyone else of her sex. Plain, even when she’d tried. In for a sheep as a lamb, she had long ago embraced her look.

And glaring at the boyfriend, she asked her sister, “What’s up?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking at the kid sister, his eyes, momentarily, flitting toward more practical pursuits before reconnecting with hers.

The older sisters rolled her eyes, and asked again, “What’s the matter?”

“I saw a face in the wall.”

Now, the older sister was the only one of these three with the requisite free time to pay attention to an historical plaque, of the kind set up along these tourist destinations, which related the cheap fiction of some native myth surrounding the area. Something about this mountain being, in reality, a sleeping giant, the snoring an explanation of the area’s somewhat frequent earthquakes. There was a bit she rolled her eyes at, a part where this giant would swallow foolish virgins. According to the myth, there was one particularly beautiful virgin swallowed, and her young suitors—nearly a whole generation of braves—perished trying to save her.

She rolled her eyes because she was in college; she knew the myth was but an explanation, a primitive grasp of reality, trying to understand the world. All superseded by science, of course.

It was not long before the three returned to where the girl had seen the face. No doubt, there was a face in the rock, if one were to turn their head and squint. More evidence, thought the older sister, of the influence the natives took. They’d seen this mountain, felt it shake, and then someone found this “face,” and they all believed they were standing upon a sleeping giant.

“You see it?” cried the younger sister. “There,” she pointed, “the two eyes, and there, the nose. You must see it. That cave, look at that mouth.”

“Careful,” said the older sister, “giants eat pretty little girls like you.”

This had an effect on the younger sister, and having once fled this place, suddenly seeing that face staring out at her, she now strode forward in a huff, her well-practiced, less-than-subtle walk serving her little. And just to prove her sister wrong, she walked right into the giant’s mouth. The earth shook, and the mouth closed around the virgin.

To be continued.