Stumbling Blocks on the Mission Center’s Basketball Court

Softened by August heat, the blacktop tar took imprints of our spines. We swallowed our giggles, forced our lungs to release breath in tiny spurts of air. Shadows of circling vultures drew closer, closer to my best friend and me—so near we could see their pleated, leathery heads. Like mini girl-Lazarus’s, we rose, leaping and laughing, shrieking, flapping our arms as vultures flapped their wings and fled. We were still free in our bodies, our chests nearly flat, though with tingling bulbs just sprouting beneath our skin. We didn’t know our missionary mothers watched us play, ticking off days until we’d need to be covered in tops too baggy for our frames, or that they’d say we couldn’t lie on the blacktop anymore with our arms outspread. Our shirts might rise above belly buttons, those chalices of temptation, or might tightly caress our breasts—and we, God’s tiny witnesses, could make men’s minds stumble over our bodies toward Hell.