Memories of Monongahela Linnea Hurst
Sweaty limbs separate from leather as our Aunt pulls over the van—the door flies open to reveal West Virginia in all her glory. Our hair is frizzy from the humidity—the hills are ridges on a dragons back, a hot spine. We are drawn to the cool breeze radiating off the river, the soles of our feet fitting around stones. We forget ourselves, where our feet stop and stones begin, lose ourselves in the purple sky until our Aunt’s voice beckons and we bid our farewell to the river and rush inside, avoiding the buzzing halos above our heads, flies that hover and moths that dance around hot light—until it is turned off and frog’s voices fill the night air. The summer days evaporate into thin air, a puddle that boils slowly, stones seems to liquefy, melt into the earth. The hot ground and sky close in against our skin, even the ants don’t move—the sun revolves around us and we watch the days fly by swift as the twigs caught in the relentless current of the river.
16
Then flip flops, swimming suits and memories are packed, the river now a blue thread stitching hills together out the rear window. Our necks no longer hot with the breath of secrets late at night—the lullaby of flies and crickets fading into silence. Now snowflakes big as the stones under that cool river water litter the ground—I hear my Aunt has broken her hip slipping on ice, fallen into unwelcoming air. I miss the smell of the sky, the lightning bugs flashing yellow in midair— when I close my eyes the sound of the rain turns into the rush of the river. For just a moment. I hear my Uncle and my Aunt fighting over the inner tube without the hole and I try to remember the hot hot sun, but realize I have forgotten. Forgotten the feeling of stones on my feet, which have been softened by rain boots and carpets. I would fly there if I could, and I would watch the kids and flies dance around each other, caught up in the smell of the air, the children throwing clumps of dirt and stones until they were told to go clean off in the river— and they would, with grateful sighs as water washed away grime on their hot little hands until they were cold and clean as when they arrived with their Aunt —the air conditioning in the van chilling the outside world, the ants and the grass.When they came they pressed their fingers to the glass, thirsty for new air and when the van door slid open all they saw was the river.