The Final Intercourse

He was delirious with exhaustion. His heart was beating wildly as he lay with his back kissing the dry grass, his hands outstretched beside his head and his legs held together as though in a vice. Despite the heat and noise, his mind was comfortably numb and was moving incoherently through absurd lanes of his mind. The sun was streaming mirages into his head - a bed cozily tucked below a dark, damp staircase, a garden surrounded by snow clad mountains, previous moments of intimacy that he had never found in his conscious memory…

She was lying atop and had the serene look of conquest in her eyes. She was panting and her nails were quietly caressing his bare chest drenched in sweat. Her legs were on his legs - perfectly superimposed – twitching now and then, seductively, through the shreds of his trousers. Her naked skin displayed the resplendent vigor of youth.

Their breath coincided in a swift, tired rhythm. His eyes were closed and hers were intensely awake. In the midst of the blistering sunlight and arid land, the two of them made a perfect picture of raving wildness and intolerable hunger.

At a hazy distance in the plains, she saw hyenas approaching. Without further delay, she dug her razor sharp incisors into his stomach and devoured his entrails. A strident wail melted in the vastness of the plains as her tail fondly stroked the spattered blood on his legs. Other lionesses and cubs had joined her and were nibbling at his toes and outstretched hands.

Sojourn

[ This is an exercise in imagination and writing. I took a picture and then, along with its description, have penned the thoughts that ran in my mind when I was seeing it. ]

I stopped my bike on the way to take a break and breathe in the intoxicating beauty of the landscape around me. After two hours of non-stop riding, it took time and effort for my feet to balance my weight while standing. I had started ascending the mountain about ten minutes back and already I could savor the giddy height on seeing the ground a few hundred feet below. I tucked my bike away from the highway, sat on a rock that looked like a colony of algae feeding on a giant almond, lit a cigarette and listened to the silence taking shape around me.

My worn out shoes sniffed the edge of the desolate road that curved out from behind the mountain on the right and sank into the trees on my left. The dazzling sunlight streaked through the grass and trees creating new rainbows with every tilt of my head. My green sweater stretched from my back to clothe the cliff behind me. The vegetation was thick and ominous. In contrast, a small patch of the ground on the opposite side of the road had been cleared and looked barren and forlorn. The farther edge of the patch slowly rose from tiny shrubs to a dense forest, walking its way to drink the river flowing below. The loneliness was augmented by a single naked tree, bereft of leaves, guarding the patch.

The tree was standing tall and proud amidst the surrounding lowly shrubs. Its nakedness was a stark attempt to soar above the mundane. Its pencil-tipped branches were trying to hold and etch its existence into the fleeting bolts of clouds, in vain. Clouds there were many, like an army moving forward to besiege the sun. But every soldier, however valiant, was impaled mercilessly by the furious, golden monarch of the sky. In a monstrous, collusive alliance, the sun crushed the invasive forces and fed them to life beneath.

The cigarette amalgamated into the sunlight. I broke myself out of my reverie, started my bike and resumed my journey.