The Orange Orchard

   Any moment, I will fall asleep.
   The ground intrudes onward with parched grasses and muggy soil.  Bits of it bleed into my ankles as I limp slowly, tediously, downhill in the tropical arboretum.  It is actually a forest.  There is no one in earshot, and the sky, a little hazy, cannot white-out the reach of the trees.  It is a new sight for old eyes; it tires these conveyors of mountain vision.  Green, green—and the color of rejection.  Light smudges the outer edges of everything.
   If I sat down under that reddish trunk, I could lose myself in a long, guiltless nap.  Wrapped up in grass stains and a little dirt, no one would miss me, and it would make no difference to me.  The thought of throwing myself down where I stand and shutting my eyelids hard is also irresistible, almost.  'Almost' changes the world.  I dream without 'almost.'  Oh, a nap would be gorgeous.


   The forest pathway drops downward for the next hundred feet.  I am wide awake now.  Down below is the orange orchard; I see it clearly, even without my glasses.  Traces of orange in masses of green, a small white house, an old Volkswagen.  You only have to make it down the hillside, and you are practically there.  My aunt lived there once; she left it to us.  I know every foothold and false step by heart.
   Eyes closed again.  As I return to the orange orchard, even the grass feels familiar through my shoe soles.  The scent used to disarm me with thoughts of all things sweet and self-assured.  I run through the orchard now, towards the little white house, and the sight of oranges dabbed here and there in the leaves is still thrilling.  It is about 3:00 in the afternoon.
   You don't need to explain, his eyes said.
   "I had to get away," I said anyway.  Inwardly.
   He and his parents were our company.  They were indoors.  It was 90-degree weather, and they couldn't be used to it yet.
   "I wondered when you'd come back," he said.
   I sat down on the ancient swing-set, and was up again in an instant. "Can I get you some ice water?"
   "No, thanks."
   It was hard not to look at him too hard, and I was miserably muggy.
   "You're used to all of—this.  Aren't you?" he began.
   I shrugged.
   "It's a beautiful place..."
   I nodded.
   He didn't see it, so he turned round, a little slowly, as if expecting a response.  He knew me too well, though, and gave me a somber expression instead.  The topic was changed.
   "I'll never be completely used to it," I looked down.
   We began to move away from the porch.  He walked like a silhouette, his black-brown hair juxtaposed upon the blaze of light in the orange trees, and at our footsteps.  His smile was wry and reluctant.
   "I can't help it—" was his reply.
   Nobody could help it.  The humidity of the weather was making it difficult to see clearly.  My hair was flat and growing wet; far off, there was a neighbor's lawnmower.
   "It's not as bad as you think," he assented, finally.
   Our faces met a second, and, for once, a look left his eyes that was more than sympathy.  A look, and he did not hide it.  It went straight to the back of my mind, to stay.
   The orange orchard overpowered him; he could give me nothing else.  Turning again, he led me on, at an unreachable meter's length away.  The smell of the oranges came back to replace the blink of feeling left and gone.