Ripples

My sister Emily and I dance down the jungle path to the beach. It rained this morning, and the mud makes our steps ginger and calculated.  We leap between rocks to avoid the water, laughing at how unsteady we are on our feet these days.  The sounds of the forest surround us.

Two small girls appear, walking the other way. They hop from stone to stone, squealing.  As they pass one of them shouts back, "We're sisters, you know!"

Emily calls back to them; "So are we!"  They stop, dead, and look at us. 

Most people when they are told this refuse to believe it, incredulous that two different hair colours could belong to the same family. Instead, these sisters nod, knowingly.  "You're just like us!  Blonde and brown."

They leap away on some pressing mission, hair dancing as they run.

Just like that, they are gone.  Like an apparition, a memory of two other sisters, long ago, they dance across my path for a brief moment.  A simple interaction, reflected; a ripple through decades. Two pairs of girls, pulled in together, bounced back from this point as if it were a mirror in time.

Emily and I hop from stone to stone, our step imperceptibly lighter.  We head towards the sea.