The Speed of Light by Elizabeth Rosner

Author:Elizabeth Rosner [Rosner, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-41741-1
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

I WATCHED the path stretch away from us, turning into stripes of light and shadow and light. There were side paths that curved mysteriously into dead ends, tricky rises that were never the top. We didn’t talk at all. I watched my feet and Sola’s feet, matching the size of our steps, and a soft film of dust began to paint our shoes the color of the earth. I thought about the uniform surface of sidewalks and the tile floor of Frank’s Deli. There were no lines here to pay attention to, no blocks to count.

At the very peak of the climb, a scarred wooden picnic table stood in a circle of stones, and Sola sat down on the top of it, her feet on the bench. I sat that way too, and the astonishing world spread out all around us: water stretching to the horizon, green and golden hills squatting in the sun, the city in the hazy distance, the two bridges connecting everything.

The blue was so blue it seemed invented. I kept taking off my sunglasses and squinting to make sure the colors were real. All the live things were in motion, responding to the bursts of wind; even Sola’s hair shimmered like the leaves, sliding back and forth against her brown shoulders. She lifted up the mass of black with one hand, and then twisted it into a knot that nested at the back of her dark head.

I heard but couldn’t see an airplane overhead; two turkey vultures drew lazy circles in the sky. The breaths I took were deeper and deeper, filling my lungs with eucalyptus and pine. I kept imagining Paula’s amazement if she could have seen me up so high, surrounded by so much open space. I was amazed too, struck dumb at the way everything felt perfectly connected, even me, like I belonged here. And I thought, There are people who live like this every day, who know how to see and feel these colors every time they open their eyes.

Sola climbed onto the table and stood, doing a slow turn in the wind. I wished I could take hold of her, at least touch her hand, but all I managed was to stand next to her and turn the way she was turning.

“It is like this is the whole world, right here,” she said.

I closed my eyes and opened them, just to be surprised all over again. “I’m standing on a table in the middle of the world,” I said, and we both laughed into the wild blue.

On the way down, small rocks skidded and rolled away from us. Sola said, “This is the part where you have to trust yourself. Being afraid can make you fall.”

Leaning into the hill, our shadows bumped elbows; our edges blurred. The country between us kept getting smaller.

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