Ruth: Reimagined

Boaz

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Boaz
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Darkness. Like a sound fading in, Ruth heard a heartbeat. Strong, steady— different, even melodious to an extent. It's like she was everywhere and nowhere at once. Then, it stopped. In the silence, she felt the deepest longing. Although, it was not hers. Like staring from above, she saw a  man's eyes shoot open in the dark, a vivid, earthy green.

Ruth awoke in the middle of the night, the image she'd seen still piercing the back of her mind. She rubbed her eyes as she sat up. Staring at the unfamiliar room that used to be Mahlon's, her heart ached. Instead of feeling closer to him, it felt like the distance had grown. Then her stomach growled, and she went back to sleep— even though it was hard to sleep through the hunger, it was better than living through it.

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Your memories will kill you, Boaz, Abel, a close friend of his, had once told him, concern etched in their eyes.

Let me die, then.

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“You are the most beautiful woman in the world–”

“What?” Her green eyes met his, with surprise, and a special tenderness. They stopped walking midway, and she bent down, to be level with him, cradling her son's cheeks.

“What did you just say, Boaz?” Rahab whispered, staring intently at her eight year old son.

As the sun settled on the horizon, a cute, missing tooth grin split across his face.  “I said mommy, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Rahab's eyes glittered with tears, the smile on her face softer. She held her son in an embrace. Around this time every year, Boaz found that his mother was more emotional.

She was the happiest woman he'd know, the people around her claimed many times that her joy was contagious but it was around theses times, where she'd stay home more, keep to herself, and mourn.

When he asked his father, Salmon, about it, he told him that when he was older, he would understand.

“Why are you crying, mommy?” Boaz pulled away, watching his mother hastily wipe the tears from her cheeks.

“Thank you, my dear boy.” And she kissed him, laughing her emotions off like it was nothing.

Boaz had always been aware that his mother looked different, compared to the other Israelites and his father. With her long black hair, that had a different texture than the other woman, and her green eyes, that highlighted her dark olive complexion.

He had always been aware that he looked different. He looked like his father, Salmon, in some ways, a fine Israeli nose and everything, but his mother was deeply a part of him as well with his olive skin that was a  lighter shade and his green eyes.

Boaz became aware of something else.

He became aware of how people were greatly aware of the differences he and his mother carried. The heavy stares they would get, and the glances. At certain places, Rahab wouldn't speak at all, only nodding and shaking her head. Her voice, her accent, the way in which the Hebrew language twirled around her lips, was different.