Stained Shoelaces

By Rebecca Petner
Collegian Reporter
September 27, 2006

A mixture of gold and red blew in the wind as if leaves on a September day. It was her hair, soft and smelling of honeydew.  Rich, auburn, deep and thick, it flopped against her back as she ran down the pebbled road. Jamison lifted his head. He had heard the rhythmic pounding of her feet against the ground, and it had woken him. The blades of grass clung to his back, following him to a standing position. As she embraced him, the slender green pieces fell from his back, meeting the heels of their shoes.

Mud, from a day’s work in the field, caked his boots. Green stains spotted her white laces, remembering the hill she had rolled down that morning. Their fingers intertwined as they walked to the edge of the river. The piercing sun blanketed the water below with shimmering sparkles that reflected in the two lovers’ eyes.

“Look what I can do, Jenny!” His boots lay next to the tree, empty. His bony feet and toes suctioned to the tree stump, hovering over the fast-paced water.

“Don’t do that! You might get hurt!” She pleaded with him to return to her. Laughing and smiling, he jumped up and down, testing the strength of the old branch. The branch snapped, plummeting into the green water, on top of the boy’s body. The wood crashed down on his ribcage, puncturing his lung. Her white laces ran to find someone to help him. In a flood of salty tears and screaming shock, she returned to him. His lifeless body had been pushed to the large rocks in the river, and the current kept ramming his flesh into the solid gray wall.

petnerr1@lasalle.edu