DanCaetta
October 29th, 2014, 01:59 AM
la Curandera (500 word writing exercise)
I traveled 2000 miles south for this? The bartender handed me a watered down tequila drink. There was a naked woman tattooed on his brown forearm with massive breasts that in no way aroused me. His finger nails were broken and almost as dirty as the glass. I slipped my feet out of my sandals and felt the dirt floor mingle in between my toes, trying to take my mind off of things, stirring the drink with the colorful, bent umbrella it came with. After one drink, I dumped it out and ordered bourbon on the rocks.
I heard a scratch and rough static come through the ancient speakers hung up with coat hangers on the wall. It sounded like a seaside bonfire. I jerked in my seat, then settled in as I took a drink. Mellow jazz and Sarah Vaughan’s low sexy voice creeped across the room.
The shadow of your smile when you are gone
Will color all my dreams and light the dawn
As I put an unfiltered cigarette up to my lips I glanced at the corner of the room that contained the record player. A tall Mexican woman wearing a short cantina dress and a Pereskia rose in her hair studied the back of the vinyl sleeve. Her brown hair spilled out over her shoulders like honey whiskey over ice. I took another drink. She put the sleeve down and turned around, scanning the room the same way she studied the facts of Sarah Vaughan. There was a floral pattern on her dress that started over her upper thigh, moved over her belly and ended at her breast; the design led me to her long cinnamon neck and red lips the hue of fresh blood. Her eyes were like deep silhouettes. They met mine, and she started walking towards me.
Look into my eyes my love and see
All the lovely things you are to me
Her stride went in line with the music, and her torso swung so faintly with the melody. She was as cool and hard as the ice in my dirty glass, and her stare was twice as intoxicating. My cigarette was still unlit and it hung from my mouth ready to make a tumble towards the broken umbrella. As she came upon the table I could smell a mixture of alcohol and grapefruit with the natural sweaty musk emanating from the bar. She stood there for a second, and I stared at her like I was a foreigner lost in a world I did not belong in.
Our wistful little star was far too high
A tear drop kissed your lips and so did I
She put her hand inside the breast of her dress and withdrew a match. She struck it on the table and held it in front of my face. It blazed bright and I could feel an intense heat in a room that was already scorching. I puffed on my smoke and she blew it out, tossing the used match on the floor next to the umbrella. “Is that your poor drink umbrella?” she slithered out with a thick accent. I nodded. The unnamed woman then bent over to pick it up. When she stood back up she put it in her dress in place of the match. “A souvenir from my American friend,” she said.
My vacation is just beginning.
The Shadow of Your Smile, written by Paul Francis Webster]
I traveled 2000 miles south for this? The bartender handed me a watered down tequila drink. There was a naked woman tattooed on his brown forearm with massive breasts that in no way aroused me. His finger nails were broken and almost as dirty as the glass. I slipped my feet out of my sandals and felt the dirt floor mingle in between my toes, trying to take my mind off of things, stirring the drink with the colorful, bent umbrella it came with. After one drink, I dumped it out and ordered bourbon on the rocks.
I heard a scratch and rough static come through the ancient speakers hung up with coat hangers on the wall. It sounded like a seaside bonfire. I jerked in my seat, then settled in as I took a drink. Mellow jazz and Sarah Vaughan’s low sexy voice creeped across the room.
The shadow of your smile when you are gone
Will color all my dreams and light the dawn
As I put an unfiltered cigarette up to my lips I glanced at the corner of the room that contained the record player. A tall Mexican woman wearing a short cantina dress and a Pereskia rose in her hair studied the back of the vinyl sleeve. Her brown hair spilled out over her shoulders like honey whiskey over ice. I took another drink. She put the sleeve down and turned around, scanning the room the same way she studied the facts of Sarah Vaughan. There was a floral pattern on her dress that started over her upper thigh, moved over her belly and ended at her breast; the design led me to her long cinnamon neck and red lips the hue of fresh blood. Her eyes were like deep silhouettes. They met mine, and she started walking towards me.
Look into my eyes my love and see
All the lovely things you are to me
Her stride went in line with the music, and her torso swung so faintly with the melody. She was as cool and hard as the ice in my dirty glass, and her stare was twice as intoxicating. My cigarette was still unlit and it hung from my mouth ready to make a tumble towards the broken umbrella. As she came upon the table I could smell a mixture of alcohol and grapefruit with the natural sweaty musk emanating from the bar. She stood there for a second, and I stared at her like I was a foreigner lost in a world I did not belong in.
Our wistful little star was far too high
A tear drop kissed your lips and so did I
She put her hand inside the breast of her dress and withdrew a match. She struck it on the table and held it in front of my face. It blazed bright and I could feel an intense heat in a room that was already scorching. I puffed on my smoke and she blew it out, tossing the used match on the floor next to the umbrella. “Is that your poor drink umbrella?” she slithered out with a thick accent. I nodded. The unnamed woman then bent over to pick it up. When she stood back up she put it in her dress in place of the match. “A souvenir from my American friend,” she said.
My vacation is just beginning.
The Shadow of Your Smile, written by Paul Francis Webster]