Highland Games

She stood waiting in the center of the arena. In the clutching humidity. While the congregated revelers turned slowly around her. When he emerged from a small group of differing tartans. Each tartan sett identifying a separate Scottish clan. He advanced carefully, arms stiffly extended. His freckled hands cradling the wet plastic glasses. She turned her head quickly. To hide a mischievous smile breaking out of control. 1

The hems of her cut off jean shorts were rolled up tight. With a light sleeveless shirt in a blue flannel pattern and white pointed sneakers. The quick turn of her head made her bobbed black hair swing up to one side and stop. Held for a second in its own dark shine. Her dark eyes and hair contrasting sharply with her skin. A milk white in early August.2

“Well, I made it,“ Tim announced. More to reassure himself than to inform the girl. Glancing side to side now out of habit. Trusting no one near his fortunate purchase. Trying to suppress the spreading grin, the girl began to laugh. 3

“The way you suddenly appeared. It was like you were transporting a giant chalice, raised heavenward,” she admitted and laughed again.4

Tim handed her two of the large cold glasses. “For this, kind sir, you will be later rewarded,” whispered the girl. Her dark eyes growing larger. Tim’s tanned face turned a light pink and then a kind of off purple. His strong pull on the draft coursing down his esophagus. Doubling over in a racking cough and then grasping for air. Managing most of the remainder of the glass onto the cement floor.5

The girl patted his bent over back with somewhat hard enthusiasm. Sighing softly, “There, there, my champion.”6

Tim, recovering, cautiously sipped his second glass. The girl’s dark eyes filled with a watery sheen. Finishing her two cold glasses with ease. The congregated mass had begun to disband. Filing out in a stream that opened then closed behind them. They turned with the quiet exodus. Carried in the slow current.7

Placing her arm through Tim’s, the girl pointed with her free hand. Up to the high ceiling, in shadow. Beyond the bright hanging lights. “It’s like a temple cave,” she said. Tim glanced at her quickly and returned, “I know it’s only open rough timbers, but – “8

“No, no. The whole notion of it,” interrupted the girl. “The primary womb of one’s spiritual life,“ she added. Tim glanced at her again, more closely. The disappointment in his draft glasses turning to envy. As the girl tried to clarify her curious statements.9

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“Like a rite of passage. A ritual. That’s maintained. Performed at a scheduled, returning period of time. For the cult and cultivation of a set of beliefs,” she tried to explain. The stream of highlanders carrying them along. If not the point of her argument. 11

“Like the Lascaux cave in southwest France. Where boys were made to crawl a hundred yards through a dark narrow tunnel. To be released into an enormous chamber. An interior high vault. Where giant animal paintings came alive in torchlight. Where each boy learned the integrity of the hunter. Through a reverence for the animal providing his tribe’s survival.”12

“Through the enactment of a return to the womb. To be reborn. Re-formed for the spiritual phase of life’s journey. The spiritual signs secretly hidden within. Like the raised stained glass in a church. Suspended mystical figures illuminating universal and personal truths," she concluded.13

Tim's eyebrows raised as he politely nodded. Open patches of cement floor began to surface before them. In a sea of plastic glasses. Exiting the arena, a cool breeze ran across the grounds. To a field of tents and trailers. Small orange flames flickering among them. Like a bivouac encampment, out in the distant dark.14

Tim was still nodding his head. It was clear the girl had experienced an awakening of the spirits. Flaunting it, was another matter. 15