• That warm summer evening would have been near to perfection if it were not for the stumbling silhouettes down the road. The dark indigo sky twinkled with the earliest rising stars, and wisps of clouds were scattered here and there. In a few days there would be a new moon so only a sliver of the whole could be seen. Inside the homes along the dusty road families were beginning to settle in for the night, but none of that mattered to the two parading figures down the road.
    One of them was a tall man of about twenty-five years, and the other was a girl who looked to be as young as seventeen. He was not a particularly strong looking man, but he appeared to have done his fair share of hard work judging by the roughness of his hands. She was clothed in a knee length cotton dress in a pale lavender color, and her hair fell down about her shoulders in copper waves. They walked unsteadily down the street, arm-in-arm. He was carrying a brown glass bottle, about half-full with liquid from which he offered her a drink. She smiled sheepishly and took a large drink from the bottle. She handed the bottle back to him and he drank to her.
    Little did they know, an elderly man sat watching them from his porch, not fifteen feet away. He observed them with a knowing smile and silently relived the days of his youth. Both happiness and sadness came over him as he remembered her, his love, and how he had lost her to a man such as this. His memories were soon interrupted by laughter from the young girl. She threw her head back, her face to the heavens, and laughed at a nonsense joke made half-heartedly by her counterpart. He joined her shortly after and they laughed loudly and fully although she did not know why. It was the laugh of freedom and not knowing or giving care to the events of tomorrow.