The Girl On The Boat

There was this girl today, or should I say woman? She sat at the very tip of the boat she was on, straddled it. One leg on each side. Her posture demanded attention: back upright, pelvis tipping forward slightly. Her head was cocked to one side, her ashblonde hair in a messy ponytail. Both defiant and pleading. With her left foot, she rhythmically kicked the passing water.

There were two boys, or should I say men? They were at the other end, separated from the girl by the full length of the boat. Yet locked in it together by the surrounding water. It was as if her foot kicked the water to say, “I am not stuck here, with them, not if I don’t want to be.” Was she intending to console herself? Or warn them? It wouldn’t have taken any effort for them to see her. All they needed to do was look where they were going. But they didn’t. They were listening to each other, had fixed their gazes on something irrelevant in the boat. If I were to have drawn a line from their eyes to what they were looking at, the lines would’ve crossed and stopped midway between them and her. I waved at her. Perhaps she’d swim to me. Instead she waved back, wildly and generously.