Romeo and Juliet
by Melissa McGinnis
I sat on the floor, legs crooked beneath me, my hand draped negligently across my knee. My attention was focused on the makeshift movie screen before me. My eyes traced the imperfect outline of the bed sheet where it had been tacked to the wall. A picture appeared and the music began. I watched as the scene was set. I panned across foggy ocean waves. A young girl’s haunting sing-song voice drifted forward from the speakers positioned somewhere on the wall behind me. “Life for me …” was the last line of the movie that I heard.
Something brushed against my dangling fingers, and I looked down to see what it was. A man’s hand was stretched across the carpet. It reached out to mine with two long, shy fingers. My eyes, now adjusted to the semi-darkness of the room, followed the trail of skin up his arm to where the rest of him lay. (continued) |