Hemi-veritable History (Futurisms' Look Back)

It was a look you’d expect on the face of a mischievous child, really. Her chin held squarely and evenly straight ahead, with a waxing smile to its north and arching eyebrows more northerly still. It was the eyes most of all, somehow looking at me, though they were directed up and away. It was a face that said “Water balloons? What water balloons?”

But it resided on a face I’d never seen before and it traveled with a person passing me in a public place. I fear I may have gawked openly at first, only to drop my head shyly at the last moment, and catching that troublesome look only sidelong. Her hair was a weightless but satisfying whirl about her head in the springtime wind and her white, unbuttoned and knee-length coat whipped with a contrasting sharpness. The rest, including sharp dark jeans, rolled to the peak of the ankle and some stiff, elegant but simple collar of her shirt showed without imposition. The only item without tact and impressive consideration was the plastic handled, retractable dog leash, which conjured images of velour be-track-suited housewives on mid mornings walks much more than this urbane cloud of lavender scent.

At the end of this retractable, awful leash was a gleefully spirited terrier, like a pit-bull, but smaller and with none of the menace. Only Romanesque musculature in miniature. Its broad head swung, smiling mouth grinning to the world, from side to side, weaving erratically across the paved path between swaths of inviting lawn. Uninterested in me, the terrier dashed across my path from behind, and then returned behind me again, following the trajectory of a Frisbee or the like. Responding to its mildly annoyed owners calls, it dashed before me again, and I realized I was going to be wrapped in its tether. I attempted to step to my right, onto the lawn and out of its spiraling path. The leash joined me in the traverse.

Some other distraction found the canine attention and my ankles’ noose was suddenly synched. Laughing embarrassedly, the girl who’d moments earlier looked away, stepped towards me, stooped and trying to free me.

“Oh my god, I’m SO sorry!” She chirped, between titters of laughter and stammering steps towards my predicament.

And we pitched together on the lawn in a silent moment, my eyes filled with springtime sun and my ears with springtime wind. We just lay, for a moment, laughing with mutual shame and good-nature. A rough, warm tongue came to my cheek and streaked across my forehead in the greeting of four-legged friends. I gripped the pooch about the ribs and lifted it into the air.

“I think this is yours,” I said, staring into friendly eyes.

“Haven’t you ever read this before?” she replied, holding up my copy of Gatsby that tumbled from my bag in our mutual felling. Propped up on her elbow, she flipped through the pages casually. I put the terrier down between us, immediately regretting the barrier.

Starting to stand, she clutched the dog under her arm, pressed a free hand against my chest and said, “Besides, you should make notes in pencil. Second readings rarely yield identical notes.”

I nodded, without looking her in the eyes I would have bet were green, and untangled myself to leave.

She was already laying out her blanket beside me.