Tuesday Tales: Touch

My first Tuesday Tale, and probably one of the stranger things I’ve written lately.  We’re going to call this Speculative Romance, because I have no idea what else to call it.

To read more, CHECK OUT THE TUESDAY TALES BLOG.

 

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Touch

Pocahontas had always been jealous of Sacagawea.  From the day they were placed, the positioning of the other woman had served as nothing but a reminder of all the things she did not have.  Jealousy had never been in her nature… yet she supposed that having been crafted at the hands of white men predisposed her to it.  Artists often put pieces of themselves into their work, or so she had heard.

The Native American History wing of the museum was one of the least-visited spots in the building, and for the most part, she liked it that way.  It gave her time to think.  Of course, being a wax sculpture meant that she could do little more than think.  And watch… she loved to watch.

Unfortunately, being mounted in one position – sitting on the ground with her arms crossed on a tree-stump, facing a discouragingly empty hallway with only the contents of her peripheral vision for entertainment – meant that she got to watch very little aside from the static romance across the room.

Pocahontas knew the man that would eventually become her husband stood just behind her, but she could not see him.  At one time, she had been turned so that she could see him, but no more.  The curator seemed to think that her back turned to him painted a much more dramatic picture.

Across the room, Sacagawea, Pocahontas thought, was in a much better position.  She stood amid the men in her life – her husband, and the two white men that gave her the notoriety she enjoyed.  Her child lay against her shoulder, strapped to her back by a strip of cloth.  Her head was held high, and a smile adorned her face.

It wasn’t the position in which she stood so much as it was the attention she received. Those three men looked at her with such love Had she owned a heart, it would have broken long ago, being faced with such ignored adoration for so long.

Charbonneau – her husband – held her hand.  It was another thing Pocahontas craved – the ability to touch.  That connection, no matter how small and insignificant to the other sculptures and humans around her, mattered in her mind.  The last time she had been touched, it was by the hands that had so lovingly crafted her.

And the child, strapped to Sacagawea’s back…its tiny cheek lay against her shoulder and a contented smile played upon its lips.  The Shoshone woman had everything, and yet the persecuted look on her face told Pocahontas, even from across the room, that she did not appreciate her situation.

Pocahontas wanted to sigh, but without lungs she could not expel air.  She stretched backwards as best she could, not moving very much if at all, toward her husband-to-be.  The love she felt for him she could not express.  Oh, to be real.  To have the ability to move and breathe, to feel her heart beating… to reach her hand out and touch John… it would make her whole existence worthwhile.