Writing Exercise 7--Kate (this is so not finished)

Nora Pritchett looked confused. Like a woman who just walked into a mosque with her bathrobe on. The last people from the plane were filing down the stairs, the electric stairs. The light on the baggage claim flashed red and bags began to come around. Army duffels—olive green and made of canvas. Children’s backpacks, in primary colors. Sophisticated styles with the wheels that offered expedience. Her husband’s bags would not be among them. She fondled the ring on her finger and felt even more confused. * * * Walking out of the city his pace slowed and he felt a large sense of relief— the kind you feel in your chest and your forearms as they loosen, as the betrayal and the malevolency you’ve perpetrated disappears. Or dissipates, at least. It was the fresh air, and it was seeping into the cavities of his lungs. He needed a smoke. A chew. Something. A flaxen-colored beer. He’d been walking for forever. His body odor was seeping through his clothes. The sun shone in a clear cornflower blue and the river wound through the landscape in several turns, its banks forested with evergreens that began where the red clay ran dry. Harley couldn’t believe it at first—the women were naked, at least from the waist up, and were singing lullabies or hymns or gospel. He wasn’t sure which. And he wasn’t sure, entirely, if the songs actually came from them. They were treading toward the shore without inhibition—their hair loose on their backs, their skin exposed. He wasn’t schooled in Greek and couldn’t read the sign, canvas and colored like a morel. It was nailed to two trees that had dogwood blooms and read the words delphikon gramma in cursive letters, black. The origin of the singing, after a while, became more difficult to determine. Was it the women or the cicada? He knew the large winged insects made sharp, shrill sounds. But was it them? A wind blew from the north and lifted the women’s hair from their damp backs, blew it and tousled it in the breeze. In the distance where the river seemed to meet the open sea Harley saw a steam ship sail by. It blew on its horn. * * *