meranda talks to mildew

A leg propels the hammock, swinging it from side to side lazily. Mildew wanders over, curious if there’s a body to accompany the leg. When you’re that age, everything seems to require some investigation, particularly when it comes to limbs or the lack thereof.

He rounds the corner of the hammock tentatively, preparing himself for some gruesome vision, like those movies he walks in on his older sister watching sometimes. He’s pleased to see that not only is the leg attached to a body, it also belongs to a young woman of about his sister's age.

“Oh, hello there,” she says sleepily, unalarmed by his sudden presence. “Nice day, isn’t it?” 

Mildew struggles with speaking, so he just nods. He maintains hard eye contact, because he hasn’t fully grasped that staring is impolite. She doesn’t mind, holds it just the same. 

“My name is Meranda, what’s yours?” 

“M-M…” He shakes his head like he tends to do when he starts stuttering. He likes to imagine there’s little creatures responsible for stunting his speech, and he likes to imagine them rattled loose and falling from his ears and plummeting to the earth. He’s embarrassed, but she’s got all the time in the world. 

“M-Mildew!” He ejects in one go, throwing the name out into the world before his throat can tax it any further. 

“Mildew, huh?” she chuckles. “I like that name. You grow on things.” 

She has a particular way of speaking, her words concise, understandable even in the wind. Mildew isn’t used to that. He’s used to words being dragged out and stories taking way too long. He figures she’s not from around here. He wants to ask, but when speaking is torture, you tend to economize your words.

“You from here, Mildew?” 

He nods and points to his family down the way, Mom and Pop under the umbrella, Mom asleep and Pop reading—he could just as easily be asleep too, knowing him. 

She maintains her slight sway, her right leg anchored to the sand as if she were afraid she’d up and float away on the breeze without it.

“This is a peaceful place. I wish I grew up here.” Her smile is slight. 

He wants to know the colour of her eyes, but they’re hidden behind the dark tint of her sunglasses. His Mom always says the eyes are the window to the soul, and he wants to know this girl’s soul. Is it dark like her lenses? Or light like the crest of a wave? His are a dark green and brown, like a swamp. He’s told it’s called “hazel”, but “hazel” seems like a brown word to him, with no room for green. 

“Y’know Mildew,” she interrupts his contemplation. “You can really feel like your life’s your own out here.” Her voice is all solemn, like his mother’s when she’s had some of her wine late at night and speaks to him like he’s not her child but some stranger.

He doesn’t really understand, but nods anyway. When you’re that age, you tend to let on like you understand things you don’t. You pretend to know things, and you concern yourself with limbs or the lack thereof. 

“Meranda, you’re needed on set. Shooting starts in ten.” 

The voice startles Mildew, a deep, authoritative tone produced by a man of even more oppressive stature. The boy cowers a little behind Meranda’s hammock. 

“It’s okay Mildew. He’s really not so scary.” She sits up, returning the other foot to the Earth. “I’ll be there in a moment,” she says to the tall man in the suit. He eyes the boy before setting off down the boardwalk. 

She swirls her feet in the sand, as if trying to capture an eternal impression of its feeling between her toes.  Rising with a stretch, she pulls off her sunglasses, crouching down to his level, her sun hat a canopy for both their heads.

“People want to know what you have to say, Mildew. Don’t deprive the world of your words just because they’re harder earned.” She returns the glasses to her face and grins in parting. He watches her saunter up the boardwalk until she’s gone. 

She had eyes like two little Earths, worlds within themselves bearing all the lives and deaths that entails—eyes older than they had any right being.