Vignette #3: "Ellie's Yard"

It was an afternoon calm and bright. The cicadas had yet to start their relentless mating calls, the weather not yet so hot as to make one languid. An azure sky was dotted sparsely with cumulus clouds, which almost shone as if woven of the sun's rays. Ellie and Maria lay breathless on a trampoline. Supine, they spied shapes in those pearly clouds. Dreamily, they whispered the sky’s allegories. Sparrows trilled and frolicked, wanton as the morning’s play. Maria turned to Ellie; Ellie to Maria. Ellie’s hair was gold, and when she smiled, her teeth were as luminous as the clouds. Maria giggled but hid her teeth behind glossed lips and dimpled cheeks. Ellie poked her nose and broke the seal, Maria’s copper hair falling over her face. Fluttering as a heartbeat, a monarch flew above; bearing sacred pollen upon six gentle legs.