Elli Salah  

In the foothills below the Alps, north of Rome on the cobblestone road, two fierce warriors guard the approaches to the city with their immortal souls. These gods take the shapes of two snarling bare-fanged wolves and in Rome, their chiseled marble images are revered and prayed to in the many small temples placed at strategic points throughout the city.  Places that had the most foot traffic, and where people could sit on a bench facing the life-size statue and meditate, or not, so long as they threw a few coins into the small fountain, and didn’t stay too long.  If they did, they were quickly and unceremoniously booted out of the temple and thrown roughly down three brick steps into the gutter.  A very smelly affair, that gutter. 

My trip by foot on the army road from Livorno to the center of Rome took the better part of five days. My horse had given up almost immediately and I was forced to walk him, holding on to his leather bridle as he limped bravely on.   We were both exhausted and hot and I couldn’t help but stop at the fountain to water Splendor, and to greedily dip my cup into the water and gulp it down followed by a quick refreshing splash of ice-cold mountain water on my face.  I then relaxed and sat on a small two-person carved marble bench and contemplated the two inanimate snarling marble wolves while I reached down to slowly and methodically knead my spent lower leg muscles.

There are no accidents.  Life has a form and a shape that constantly evolves so when I lifted my head and saw her standing at the door, I thought, ‘There are no accidents, and I have to have that woman.’    Her beauty took my breath away.  She was slightly younger than me, maybe nineteen or twenty, and had an olive tan complexion,  Her long shiny black hair flowed fluidly around her beautifully proportioned face and down over her bare shoulders framing the face of an angel with sharp green penetrating eyes of a devil and I looked down, flushed.

I glanced up and saw a smile beginning to form.  She caught me and I quickly looked down again, then slowly up and now a gigantic smile filled her face and as I looked at her, mesmerized, she laughed joyously and I was smitten and in love, instantly.