Blood Rose

scorpio setting…

Oscar.

You hear it, your name formed as a series of soft clicks in the back of a throat. A drop, then two, of water on your lips, your eyelids. You open your eyes. The familiar weathered face: Spyt.

You try to say his name. Nothing comes but a croak. The man sweeps the flies sipping from your forehead, split by a rock. He disentangles you from the dead woman, Mara, lifting you into his arms, cradling you against his chest. He carries you to the cool shelter of his cave, out of the wind. The silence in the wake of the storm is overwhelming. Spyt lays you down, gentling his donkeys, restless at the intrusion, before he sets to work on you…

Three days later, the moon is full, obliterating all but the brightest stars. Spyt puts out a hand for you. Together you listen, ears catching the distant purr of an engine, which is nothing but a texture in the silence. You retreat deeper into the shadows when the lights break over the dune, sweeping across the moonlit sand. When the engine cuts, the restored silence is deafening.

Their voices are low murmurs as the couple unpacks, lights a fire. The pungent smoke purls into the sky. It is getting colder. The man twists the long rope of the woman’s hair in his hands. She sinks into him. The soft undulation of their bodies mimics the desert, radiating away from them. When they subside into sleep, the old man walks with you down to the dying fire. In sleep, the woman has turned her back on the man, but his hand rests on her hip. She is familiar, this woman, the woman who reads your mind. It is Clare. You have watched her sleep before, standing by her window, tracing a heart in the mist your breath made.

Spyt crouches, holding your hand close to her mouth. Her breath is warm on your palm.

When the moon arcs up and over, sinking into the ocean to the west, the cold desert wind knifes down the gully, rattling dry grasses. She turns towards the sleeping man; you imagine her breasts soft on his chest. Spyt takes your hand, and the two of you leave. The man and woman will head south to Cape Town, and you, here, will melt into the sheltering desert.

A jackal cries, unfurling the rosy dawn. Scorpio defers to the new light and sinks below the horizon.