Sunday Writing Challenge 3/4/12

I did my writing everyday, but. . . I didn’t get through my whole story for the picture challenge. just vague draftiness. Behold:

There once was a little girl named Maria. She lived in a place with cacti and plateaus, sand and scrub brush under a great, bleaching sun. The days were hot and the nights were cool, leaving her shivering under her abuela’s blanket.

She loved her Abuela, very much, but life was not easy for them. It was hard work to live there. Some days, she would run her tongue over her teeth after eating, and there would be grit from the sand. When she bathed, the dust in the air would stick to her wet skin, leaving her golden skin dull and dusky. The farm withered when the rains were away too long, the dust making mud of the water trenches.

At night, Abuela would tell her stories and songs from her childhood. She sang of rain, and of trees and great animals that lived in them. She told stories of Large cats and kind birds who fought or gifted people.

Once, she talked of a great village of kindly creatures who talked and walked like people. When they left their skins behind, they would go into the villages and trade as people, hurrying back to their skins by nightfall. She cried that day, but wouldn’t say why. She never told that story again.

When Maria was 7, her favorite horse had a lovely brown colt. He trotted like the wind as he grew, and she named him Paul. She played with him and watched him grow. But one summer, the rains were late in coming, and Paul’s mother couldn’t find enough food. Maria found her laying in the pasture, flies above her as Paul nudged her form.

Maria cried, and took Paul to the house hitch. Abuela just shook her head and went out to the pasture with a shovel. When she came back that night, there was more dust than usual caked in the wrinkles of her hands, and her hair was damp with sweat. Over her shoulder was a sack slowly turning red from the meat within. She went to the smoke house before coming inside.

Maria didn’t look her in the eyes, but instead went to the hammock on the porch with a blanket.

Some day, she thought, I shall go to the distant forests where abuela is from. There I will not have to dig sand from my teeth, and there will be plenty of food for the horses. I will see the animals, and I will climb trees. I will drink all the water I want, and I will never have to eat the meat from my horse again.

In the morning, she grabbed Paul’s saddle and left for the south.

She passed mountains and dried up rivers, pastures and distant homes with lights that twinkled as the sun went down.

On the third day, she met the rabbit. Or rather, the rabbit captured her.

______

And, uh. . . yeah. . . So, I changed the little girl from angloest anglo to latina. I like thinking about or writing about Latinas and Hispanic women who have been distanced from a part of their culture. My grandfather is half Hispanic, but he looks super anglo and there was a lot of benefit when he was a kid being raised by his brit mum to not following that ID. Interestingly, he’s now with my abuela Sandy, who is peutro rican. :)