Obelisk

Writer's was great last night. Bob, I hope you got at least a few usable suggestions from our critiques. I was dragging when I got home but managed to scribble a few words before zonking off.

Driving on the narrow road that traces the southern end of the island, there isn't much to see. The Solar Salt works is just about the biggest thing on the horizon with its long conveyor to load the white salt into cargo ships. Beyond the salt mountains there are no more houses, only what look like fisherman's shacks made of old boat planks and billboard parts, and the slave huts. At each cluster of huts, red and white, is also an obelisk. The red and white obelisks aren't the only ones on the island, there are half a dozen of them ranged on the extreme southern shore. Mariners used to use them, line them up in certain order to sail into the correct patch of shoreline to pick up or drop cargo. Manning sat in the arrow of shade cast by the obelisk at Red Slave, a small pile of cigarette butts at his side. His eyes were slits as he squinted offshore straining to get a glimpse of the Santa Marta, one of the boats that came over every week from South America laden with fruits and vegetables for the island's tables. He had met Santiago at what some called the Venezuelan Fruit Temple, a twenty by thirty foot area with a peaked cement roof supported by Doric columns at the pier in the center of town.

That's it. Don't know why Manning's waiting for Santiago, don't know what mischief they're up to. Stay tuned!
--Barbara