Characters

South Africa, that gem of my memory, paces me, taunts me, calls. The place-names swirl: Kruger, Bloemfontein, Hoedspruit, Cape Town. Characters that live there whisper to me: come. Little white school girls dressed as angels fly before my eyes. I think, why are they dressed that way midsummer? I forget too easily--it's December--and for a brief moment I miss the snow that blankets my home.

But now, another December, I'm homesick for the veldt, the sweet air, the feel of the golden light as the sun sets, quickly as it does there, its rays bouncing off a lion's mane. He, the one we call Big Black, is so far in the distance he seems like a mirage. 

He's no mirage--I saw him mating. 

As it goes, it lasted three or four days, with him eying her every 15 minutes, lightly kissing her behind the ear, growling, biting, mounting. She rolls into him, vocalizing sweetly. Almost before it begins, it's over. She throws him off, swats him, lies back to snooze. Maybe she dreams of delicious little white angels.