Girls in Black Dresses - #fridayflash

“Look,” says the holidaying salesman to his fat wife.

Her sunburnt nose is buried in a paperback.

“Connie,” he hisses, “look behind me.”

Pissed off for being interrupted, Connie turns her book upside down on her knee, sighs pointedly, and looks.

In the simmering mirage of midday sun the Mennonite women are bobbing in the crashing waves of Lake Huron. They look like black crows, floating in the aquamarine surf, a gaggle of crows, or black swans, she thinks.

Connie forgets about her book. She is drawn into their mystic.

The women in the black dresses are giggling. Their silvery voices play out on the wind. They have walked into the waves fully dressed. Long black dresses, white aprons, white caps covering hair tied in harsh chignons. There are maybe a dozen women, all of them grown, some older, some not, all slender with a lifetime of hard work. Their long arms, anointed in black sleeves, reach into the sea-green water to splash. They float, trailing yards of dark, sensible cotton, black trains down a frothy aisle of wake.

Connie stares at the women. Feels naked and awkward in her tropical flowered bathing suit. Covers herself with a towel.

Black dresses float in the waves.

Laughter floats on the wind.

Connie shivers.