Exposed Sensuality

I am in a small square pool in an Arabian courtyard. The robe I have used so often to cover myself is all wet.
I notice an old man with a white beard look at me. He is in the pool, and he looks with both disapproval and lust when my robe accidentally drifts above my ankle.
The garden walls and grass around us have melted and only a blanket of water exists, I see dozens of women in the distance. They are all wet, bathing in their robes. Most of the women are sitting upon a large stone, close to the surface of the water, all of them have their robes pulled over their ankles, almost covering their toes.
But there is another woman, up to her knees in the water and surrounded by bright golden light. She is youthful and her blond hair has been tied in two braids. She is unconcerned with her veil, although two of her friends are trying to adjust her headscarf and cover her exposed arms and neck before she is punished for her sensuality and sexuality. She smiles slightly, loving the sensual pleasure of water and sun.

Predators

The houses are solemn, the street is empty and quiet. I strike out towards the beach, my feet thudding rhythmically upon the black asphalt of the avenue until I reach the sidewalk stretching along the camel colored sands. The sky is overcast and I am struck by so much gray, the hazy heavens above, the concrete below and a steely chain link fence bordering the walkway.

At the first post of the fence, where the street meets the sidewalk, I pass a woman with long dark hair and a similarly featured little girl. I look into the woman’s eyes as I pass.

There is a predatorial, reptilian quality to the way they size me up, dilated pupils and green irises fixed on my passage.

As I walk, I realize the little girl has stepped onto the sidewalk and is trailing behind me. She is just a little girl, I tell myself, but I feel fearful, I am being stalked. I walk faster and in return her pace is hastened. I break into a run, part from the walkway to plod through the sand. It slows me down, absorbs the shock of my footfall as the grain shift around my bare toes and heels. The girl pursues me, her mother lingering in the distance, keeping track of the hunt. The dark and white crested surf licks at the shore with a constant murmur, reaching out from a black horizon. I veer towards it, an escape plan working it’s way into muscular action.

Ancient Dance

Everything is black except the dancing bodies illuminated by firelight.

I sense that we are on the edge of a tall cliff with nothingness spilling into the distance. The women who were once covered in veils and cloth have shed their layers, given up their modesty and fear of earthly retribution by decency, laws and men.

There are female drummers along the edge of the cliff, the shadows of flames move across their amber skin.

One clearly visible drummer is wearing tattered clothes, sexy in their dirtiness and caveman aesthetic.

All of the women are barefoot, dancing on the floor of an ancient, sacred cliff. Long, wavy hair sways wildly in circles as they move. Their movements look like guttural, body responses to the calls and instructions of the rhythms. The movements are heavy and pound upon and into the earth with extreme intention.

Skeleton House

The frame of a house stands in front of other houses built on a charming residential street. It is a mere skeleton with flights of stairs reaching more than seven stories into the air. There are no walls and no floors, only the basic outline and those stairs.

My companion urges me to enter, and with another friend in front of him and myself taking up the rear we begin to ascend the flights of stairs. I can see the rectangles of green grass lined up beside the sidewalk below.

When I glance to my right I am looking at a complete house painted in a very regal eggplant hue. To my left is the street, more grass, sidewalk, and high end homes. Their front doors have brass knockers, their windows are arched rather than squared.

The structure we are in is out of place, practically in the front yard of the eggplant house. We are nearly to the third floor when it begins to sway unsteadily to and fro.

For a moment it leans on the house to the right. Then suddenly every beam gives way, the stairs fall into a line of planks, like toothpicks glued end to end set dangling in mid air.

I have managed to grip this. I am swinging on it, trying to reach my friends hanging from suspended beams before they fall.