'Tim and Dorothy' excerpt

The best time with Tim was in the field of wild grass they had found on an abandoned farm near where Tim’s dad was painting the cottage. The first time they saw it they got off their bikes and began right away to walk sideways into the field sliding their feet together tight on the ground. This made a path through the centre of the field in the grass. Then they made a path just inside the edges. The next time they went they made a diagonal path and a winding circular one. As they slid along side by side they released clouds of tiny insects. Birds circled above them.

They made more and more paths as the summer went on. By the end of summer the grass had grown above their heads and the paths were waving tunnels. The floor of the paths shone wet in dark brown and smelt like molasses.

Their game was to chase each other. The idea was to calculate where the other would go and to catch them where the paths crossed. They would calculate whether the other would run in a ‘W’ or a ‘Pi’. When they met they would laugh and wrestle and then run off again. They did it all summer in that summer before kissing started.

Once Tim had wanted her to pretend she was the Grand Inca and he was Pissaro. That game didn’t last long, it just wasn’t right. She thought it was because Tim knew that the Incas were terrified of the Spaniards who negotiated the destinies of the dead with God in prayer instead of just leaving them. They also killed everything they saw for gold. The Incas could not get their minds to accept that; they thought war should be a beautiful dance of heroes watched by singing women. They loved the dead, especially the ones they ate the hearts of. When she saw Tim thinking that, she knew the game would stop. Another time Tim wanted them to be grasshoppers and ants but that was too difficult. The best was to run and catch, run and catch and run off again another way.

'Tim and Dorothy' is an upcoming novel from Blue Orange Publishing.