Adelína

Adelína Moráles ruffled her fingers gently through her hair, and let out a sigh as she lay amid the wet soil of her family’s fields. The stalks of the maize plants that she had been tasked to harvest indefinitely shaded her body from the subordinating glare of the sun. The apertures up above in the leaves of the plants allowed for dapples of sifted light to perforate themselves onto her clothes. She glanced down toward her abdomen and noticed a Corn Flea Beetle resting upon her cattleya-tinged shirt. Gracefully, she hoisted the creature onto her fingers as she lifted her self to a seated position. She examined the gold surface of its shell as it aimlessly crawled along her palm and up her forearm. She was astonished at how such a vibrant insect could cause devastation. 

The fazed sound of her mother’s voice startled her. She abruptly stood, grabbed at her woven basket, and carried on her task of breaking and collecting the maize. She assumed a position of defiance and pretended as if she could not hear her, knowingly setting herself up for possible punishment shortly.

An hour had passed, and Adelína had hastily filled her basket at that time. She heaved her accomplishments back to the house, taking short breaks, for her body was ill-proportioned and unbefitting to the task that had been assigned to her.

“Madre! yo terminé mi trabajo,” she said and placed the basket down in the middle of the kitchen. 

Her mother, along with her eldest brother Féo, sat at the table preparing dinner. He fixedly smirked down at Adelina’s soiled semblance, let out a hiss of a sigh, and then shot his mother a furtive glance.

“Adelína, how many more times do I have to tell you? No more sleeping in the maize field, mi Cielo. Your father will need to be told of such matters if you continue to pursue this route of mutiny,” she said, without glancing up from her cutting board.

She glared at her brother and made her way out of the kitchen in a hurl. Adelína slammed shut the door of the house behind her, allowing her fingers to slide gently along the auburn colored railing as she descended the front steps. 

The Moráles family had invested most of their earnings in the construction of their house, a small two-story mud-brick home lay on the west end of the farm, while the maize fields extended northeast peering up towards the Andes mountains.  The house was unremarkably perched upon a small hill that defined its existence as her home in the region of Atacama Chile.

The emergence of that evening’s zephyr tingled its way up her shirt causing Adelína’s nipples and pores to harden upon her body. Adélina cursed at the fact that she had forgotten her parka in her bedroom, however, she brushed away the irritation that the wind caused her and continued her way south into the forest surrounding the farm.

The loud crunch of soil and twigs beneath her feet, made her feel as if she was barren, empty, one with the forest into which she immersed herself. A few minutes of treading had passed and she could finally hear the supple sound of the creek in the distance. Once at the foot of the (creek) bed, she stripped down naked, hanging her clothes neatly along a sturdy branch. Adélina breathed in deeply, ran a few steps forward, and took a faithful leap, spiritually allowing the rest of her body to mystically synchronize with the feverish waters.