In the last issue, we asked alumni to submit entries of fiction or nonfiction for our second creative writing contest. Once again, our alumni delivered. We had several really strong contenders, and making the decision was especially tough this year. In the end, we enjoyed Elizabeth Hudson's story for its poetic prose and compelling structure.

Mosquitoes
by Elizabeth Hudson '95

Come in out from the field, and your ankles'll be covered in tiny red wheals, mosquito bites, and it don't matter if you wear thick pants or not. The mosquitoes dip down around your ankles and dart up your pants leg and bite. You can feel 'em stinging, but by the time you swat, it's already too late. They done got you.

Mama says put Calamine lotion on the bites, but she don't get bit that much so she don’t know what works best. Alcohol is what works the best. Rubbing alcohol, I mean. A little swab. For the other, a swig might help, too, I guess. Take the itch out of the mind, anyway.

 

 

Come in out from the field, and your forearms'll be sore from swinging the metal weeder, whacking at meadowsweet and brush that's done grown up all over everything, grown so tall it switches around your pants legs, brushes your knees. Weeds grow up over everything, and the field has to be cleared free — that's the job you’ve been hired for, and believe me, you're grateful for it. Clear away field debris, dead grasses, and dandelion weeds — “Fine and dandy, sugar candy,” like the old song goes — and you got to keep your head down and keep working.

Mama'll have supper set out on the table by the time you come back in, all covered in weed stalks and mosquito bites that'll keep on itching until you finish your meal and finally get out the alcohol.

The rubbing alcohol, I mean.

 

 

On the day you're out here working, the pretty girl stands outside in her back yard of the house down the hill. She's looking way up here at you while you work swinging that metal weeder. Or at least, it looks like she's looking up this way. Hard to tell from a distance. You imagine she's looking up this way, but that doesn't make it so. She stands out there across from your field putting up laundry on the line, and with each piece of clothing she puts up, you take one step over so you can keep her aligned directly in your sights. Pretty Face is, at least you imagine, clean as cotton, and she lifts her chin and looks up this way for just a second before stretching her pale arms wide to clothespin up the white sheet, and you'll swear, for just a minute, that you catch a whiff of fresh, cool-smelling soap wafting up.

By noon, when you can unwrap the sandwich Mama sent off with you, the sun'll be beating down hot. Sweat beads roll down the middle of your back and down the sides of your face, and you think how good it would feel to bury your face in that cool, clean sheet, pulling it over your head and finding relief from the blistering sun.

 

 

Come in out from the field, and your clothes'll be drenched; your shirt collar'll be sagging, damp and limp with the sweat that's rolled down your face and pooled at your neck, and your sleeves'll have deep wrinkles cut into them, especially where they crease at the base of your elbow. Your undershirt'll be sopping, too, sticking to your back like skin you can't shake loose.

When Pretty Face finishes putting up the laundry, she totes her empty basket back into the house, long dress swinging around her ankles, strands of loose hair that, weighted damp from sweat, escape their corral from an ivory hairclip and now hang down her back like heavy, braided rope. Like linen-colored cording that's so smooth you know it's got no history of ever having been knotted or pulleyed or bound so tight that the twisting of it frayed its fibers.

You'd best keep your head down, keep tending to the field, try not to think about the mosquitoes that swarm around your head, but then, she comes back outside, carrying a small cardboard box and looking up toward the hill. Looking up toward you. You are not just imagining it.

 

 

Come in out from the field, and you'll be so thirsty, you could drink the whole bottle of milk Mama done sat down on the table to go with supper without even pouring it into a glass. Pick up the glass bottle by its slender throat and turn it up, drinking greedily, gulping, throw your head back so that you take down the whole contents in a matter of seconds, swallowing so hard it feels like your throat might burst wide open.

Scratch that thirst itch.

Wipe off your mouth with the back of your hand and sit back, finally relief, until the back slats of the cane-bottom chair creak, weakened from age and weight and moisture, a reminder that you'd better hold yourself up, sit proper like Mama's tried telling you to do.

Pretty Face comes climbing up the hill, hugging that cardboard box, and you'd best keep weeding the field, keep your head down, — “fine and dandy, sugar candy” — even though you can see her getting closer, see the shape of her as she moves, trudging up the steep hill, keeping her elbows bent, carrying that big box in front of her so as not to jostle whatever is in it. Her face looks just like you imagined it would: unlined and creamy as buttermilk. She goes over to the boss man, who's sitting inside the truck with the door swung open, watching the men and smoking a cigarette and swabbing at his forehead with a stained handkerchief. She knows he's in charge. She talks to him, holding that box out so he can see what's in there, and then he shrugs one shoulder and nods his head once toward the field.