FREE ESSAY ON AENID

AENID

The street was filled with people going about their business. The dampened, cool breeze
carried a strong odor of a detergent and everywhere one could look, clothe-lines sagged
from heavy loads of slowly drying garments. The kids in patched up, yet bright outfits
roamed through the street, yelling at one another and playing games of various kind.
Their mothers occupied themselves by washing windows, sweeping their porches or making
stacks of dried up clothe inside heavily woven straw baskets. Few men were seen reading a
newspaper or playing checkers on a fairly large decrepit wooden table, encircled by a
mass of enthusiasts. For Richard it was just another day.
It has not been more then a two months since Richard's parents brought him to this,
rather boring town of Nituno, located about a hundred and twenty kilometers away from
Rome. They have embarked on a long and strenuous journey from Azerbajan, a southern
republic of Soviet Union, to United States and had to make an indefinite stop in Italy in
order to be interviewed by American ambassadors, in order to gain refuge asylum to
America. Having seventeen years of experience behind him, Richard was completely aware of
all of the procedures and was overly anxious of leaving this plain little city for the
land of opportunity across the ocean. For two years now he has been looking forward to
having a new home where freedom is granted to all, indiscriminately. And so he waited
patiently, praying to God that his family could be interviewed soon. 
Richard's parents were hard workers, both engineers by profession, here reduced to being
clerks at a local grocery store. Richard occupied himself primarily by reading and
occasionally performing odd jobs to earn some extra money. With an exception of a few
acquaintances, neither Richard nor his parents had any real friends to spend their
leisure time with. Since birth Richard was blessed with an ability to learn quickly.
Unlike his parents he was almost fluent in Italian and if it was not for his accent, no
native could have ever guessed that he was not Italian. 
That day Richard was sitting on the grass reading Anton Checkhov, when he noticed someone
never before seen in this particular neighborhood. A girl was putting up sheets to dry
onto a long nylon line connected to her side of the house and a large oak tree, some
twenty or thirty feet away. She had a slim though well-developed body; her hair, her
mouth, and smooth white skin, all combined to give an impression of beauty just as color
and light and shadow and texture combine to make a picture beautiful long before the
details are apparent. Her eyes were sparkling green like two bright stars shining down on
us at night. Her loveliness astonished Richard as he quickly folded a page and put the
book aside. She moved around on these long white prima-donna legs. The girl wore a sexy
neon bathing suit with a mesh skirt around her waist, but what got Richard, the straps
were down. They were off, loosely looped around the tops of her white gorgeous arms. She
must have felt in the corner of her eye, Richard who was devouring her essence with each
look, but didn't even tip. He didn't know who she was since she never appeared here
before. Meanwhile the girl continued her chore, moving her precious emerald eyes across
the sheets, when all of the sudden she just stopped turned slowly toward Richard with a
kind smile on her face. This made Richard's stomach turn inside out underneath a plain
white t-shirt. She continued to glance over onto Richard periodically, smiling like a
mother does onto her newborn baby. Each time one of them glanced at the other, the other
quickly turned away, and in this manner both pretended not to notice each other. They
played this game for some long time when they glanced straight into each other's eyes.
The girl smiled softly but before Richard could think, she was graciously on her way
inside. Richard frowned and picked up his book opening it to the folded page. He read a
paragraph but felt like he had to reread it for the whole time his mind was occupied by
the gorgeous goddess visitor in the adjacent house. As Richard quickly realized reading
was useless at the particular moment. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate and get
back into Chekhov's "The Bet", he just could not get his mind off of her. He put the book
down again and just closed his eyes resting his head against the thick old tree.