Time Ladies First

infatuated-with-language:

Act I, Scene I

The Orphans and the Orchard

    Mr. and Mrs. Anton became concerned about the girls’ psychological wellbeing on the twenty third of April, nineteen ninety nine.
    It was Easter Sunday, and the twins were dressed in yellow for church. Soon, Mrs. Anton would stop dressing her daughters identically. The realization had begun to dawn on her that it only served to further juxtapose their demeanors.
    The sisters sat in-between their parents in the pews, as the pastor droned on about things that neither of them could entirely understand. Laura, the older twin, sat up straight and strained to see the pastor over the back of the next seat, taking in the priest’s words with a level of concentration unnatural for a six year old to possess. The age difference between the girls was barely eight hours, just enough to give them separate birthdays and allow Laura the seniority and wisdom of having experienced one sunrise that her sister hadn’t. She had been born just minutes before midnight on Halloween, which Mrs. Anton tried not to hold responsible for her daughter’s dark hair and increasingly serious demeanor.
     Next to Laura sat Esther, a little girl who much more accurately fit the schema of how a little girl would look and behave. Her head was angled downward, her yellow puff of hair very much resembling a dandelion, and in her hands she held two small chocolate bunnies wrapped in tinfoil, which were having a very animated conversation in her head, visible only by their excited hopping up and down on her knees and her lips silently moving to articulate their dialog.
    As the sermon trailed on, Laura’s expression slowly transformed from entranced contemplation to frantic horror. She nudged Esther on the shoulder, and whispered “Listen.”
    When the priest gave the word, all of the adults stood, and Mrs. Anton explained to them that it was time for the sacrament and only grown ups received it.
    “What was I supposed to be listening to?” Esther whispered back to her sister once their parents had left the pews.
    “He said they’re eating Jesus.” Laura whispered back, her voice shaking in an effort not to burst into tears.
    “It looks like they’re just eating little pieces of paper.”
    “I think it’s his skin.”
    Esther cast her gaze to the priest, to her parents in line, and back to her sister’s frightened eyes.
    “We have to run,” the younger twin whispered.
    “We’re not supposed to leave.”
    “Laura, our mom and dad eat people. How do you know we‘re not next?”
    They acted natural until reaching the doors, and then darted like pet canaries out an open window.
    The world felt bigger without their parents holding their hands.  Esther ran ahead, her legs longer and her lungs stronger and her demeanor more confidant in general. Esther smiled. Laura didn’t.
    Across the street, the girls tucked themselves behind a giant oak tree. They’d passed by the tree thousands of times, out of car windows on the way to school and church and the grocery store, but neither twin had ever touched the tree or thought of the tree as anything but a part of the background. Suddenly, nothing was just part of the background. Esther peaked around to see if anyone was watching.
    “The coast is clear,” she whispered. “We’ll go through the trees. We’ll be able to get farther away faster.”
    Twigs and branches scraped their ankles as they darted through the forest, but these were different than the scratches and bumps they got on the playground. Runaways didn’t have time to care about scrapes and bruises.
    They didn’t slow down when the forest broke into the cemetery, when their little white shoes left footprints in the loose dirt of a fresh grave, when the stones went zooming past them like trees from a car window.
    “Where are we going?” Laura shouted to her sister.
    Esther kept running in a straight line, right into the trees on the other side. Laura’s chest was burning, but Esther didn’t slow down until they’d powered through another wave of scrapes and bruises, emerging into a sea of straight rows of apple trees.
    Laura sat down on the grass, struggling to catch her breath, and began to cry.
    “We’ll be okay.” Esther consoled her. “We’ll be adventurers.”
    “I thought they were good.” Laura whimpered. “Mom, and Dad, and Reverend Gibson. How can I trust anybody?”
    “All the superheros are orphans.” Ester noted. Laura’s only reaction was a loud sob.
    Esther looked out through the long rows of apple trees, each green and healthy with fruits as shiny as Christmas bulbs. The sun streamed over them like a spotlight. She picked two apples from a low branch.
    “Bite into it at the same time I do.” She told Laura, placing the smaller apple in her older sister’s hands.
    “Why?”
    “Because we’re in this together.”
    “Okay.”
    “On the count of three.”
    “One… Two… Three.”

this is very cute and i love your writing style!