Carcinogenic Cukes and the Wonderings of Women

We found ourselves in a place so isolated and other-worldly that I forgot in that moment about my every other concern that my life could possibly offer up. As we began our Sabbath adventure, all our belongings were thrown into a waterproof bag, including a multitude of cucumbers. 

The land ahead was glistening with promise more than the clear blue water that lay before it. We yelled "ahoy!" and jumped in - the water perfectly cool and the breeze warm on our faces. Fifty metres across and our feet once again touched land. We celebrated with salty cucumbers and marched single file like ants or Wes Anderson characters from Moonlight Kingdom up the headland, past forgotten seaside cabins and down to a stretching pebbled cove. With excitement brimming and bare feet burning we raced across the stones and down to the water: talking of being buried in stones and barrels of lentils, and how different a sensation the two might be (dry lentils, not soaked).

Arriving at our chill out spot, Sam dragged belongings of travellers out of his bag, discovering a sun lotion container had leaked and dispersed its contents through the bag, contaminating the cucumbers that were hereby known as "carcinogenic cukes." At the foot of a rock pool we laboured to clean the cucumbers and salvage their wondrous nutritional offerings - but to no avail. We said goodbye with a cucumber-man effigy and buried them.

Moments earlier I had been myself buried in the very same hole with pebbles. Thinking I could relax safe in my pebble cocoon, I was very wrong. Sam thought it was absolutely necessary to hurl carcinogenic dukes at my defenceless face. His thirty-something year old face lit up with a concoction of child-like glee and menace.

It was following my escape from the firing line of dukes that I discovered remnants of my real-world thoughts as I walked and talked with Z. We were like two little children balancing across the hull of an old tree trunk, a little window for viewing through as you lay in its hollow, dreaming of setting sale together, just Z and I, but anchored by our knowledge that a couple hundred kilometres north and south from there, we had our worlds to return to. 

"What makes a woman?" was the question we pondered. I could only respond with "God does" - and I continue to know no other answer that satisfies the soul.